Chapter Text
The sound of the old, broken clock on the wall ticked by ever-so-loudly throughout the empty office; the only person occupying the space was Reigen. Every loud tic! that passed by was another reminder that Ekubo was late by another second.
Grumbling to himself, he kicked his feet up on his desk, fiddling with the pen in his hand as he stared at the clock.
“I should probably fix that…” He muttered- knowing damn well that he was going to forget and say the same thing again tomorrow. It did make him chuckle a bit to himself to think about Tome’s loud groan and Ekubo’s scoff that they’d do every time they heard him mention wanting to fix it. He’s only done it, what? Only a hundred times?
“Reigen-san? I’m sorry that I’m late-” Reigen fumbled, flailing around and quickly standing up to look presentable for the unrecognizable voice. He definitely failed at trying to seem casual after the sudden intrusion- his rigid, flamboyant pose outing him.
“Yes-Yes! It’s no problem, please come in-!” Upon seeing the familiar figure of the tall, lean man, Reigen visibly relaxed. “Oh, it’s just you.” He let out a loud sigh, before plopping back down on his old, cheap chair.
“Geez, Ekubo- give a guy a warning will ya’? You nearly gave me a heart attack! And why are you so late? We should’ve been at the client’s house ten minutes ago!” Reigen glanced over the client’s folder again, double checking the address before standing up and walking right past Ekubo, placing a chastising hand on his shoulder. “I know you’re late at times, but this is a whole new record-” He continued rambling, the back of his mind beginning to itch with inquisitiveness.
Huh… usually Ekubo would’ve given a snarky reply by now. What’s up with him today?
“-Are you gonna say anything, or…?” After grabbing his jacket and throwing it on, he turned on his heel to give the spirit a perturbed look. He nearly choked on his spit when he realized that the man he’d been scolding lacked the usual red circles on his face.
“I, uh, sorry… I’m not Ekubo.” Yoshioka scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. “I was going to say something earlier, but I didn’t want to interrupt you.”
All color drained from Reigen’s face at the comment- completely mortified that he’d been scrutinizing the wrong guy the entire time he was running his mouth.
“Hahaha! W-well, this is certaining embarrassing on my part!” He began flailing his hands, nervously laughing and speaking a hundred miles per hour- making the man in front of him look even more awkward the longer Reigen rambled. “Ignore everything I just said, Yoshioka-san! You see, Ekubo can be late a lot of the times and-”
“It’s alright.” The man cut in, holding up his hands. “I’m sorry I was late. Ekubo mentioned that something came up- so I was trying to figure out what to bring for the job today.”
Something came up? Well, he supposed that Ekubo had his reasons… plus, he still had Yoshioka come and help him for the job. ‘Well, I can’t be that mad about it…’ He hummed to himself.
“Well, welcome aboard Yoshioka-san! Glad to have you join us!” There was, quite literally, no one else in the room except for himself and the other man, but the message still stood.
Yoshioka gave a small smile in return while trying to indiscreetly rub his sweaty palms against his brown suit jacket. This didn’t escape from Reigen’s perceptive eyes- clapping a hand on the man’s shoulder.
“You don’t need to be nervous for today. The client we’re going to seemed pretty laid-back when I talked to them; they won’t mind us being a little behind schedule.”
The two of them exited the office while Reigen spoke, waving off Yoshioka’s anxiety and locking the door behind them before making their way down the stairs.
“As for the job- they mentioned that they’d been hearing sounds at night for a few days and usually wake up finding trash dragged around the lawn.” Yoshioka hummed while Reigen spoke, taking in every word to make sure that he’d know what to expect.
“Sounds like a kind of vermin. I heard that raccoons and possums have become a bigger problem since they’re an invasive species here.” Reigen agreed with him before getting sidetracked- rambling on about always wanting to see one in person. All the while, Yoshioka couldn’t help but notice that it was only the two of them going on the job.
“Isn’t that other man, Serizawa-san, coming with us? If it turns out that it is an evil-spirit, we can’t exactly do anything.” Yoshioka’s concern did bring up a good point, but Reigen already told the other that he could stay home to study for his up-coming exams.
Guess he really was used to having Ekubo around…
“Naaah- Serizawa’s too busy with school to come with us. Besides, it’s definitely just an animal getting into the garbage. There’s nothing to worry about!”
Something about the client’s place put a pit in Mamoru’s stomach. Not even a, ‘this house might actually be haunted’ but rather a, ‘this client might just be a psychopath’.
He’s not sure if his boss is able to pick up on the subtle qualities of the client, but everything about the situation was a blindingly-red flag.
Number one; the house was out in the middle of nowhere and looked rundown. Number two; the client’s mannerisms are far too rigid. He’s obviously nervous, or hiding something and hoping that they wouldn’t notice. And, lastly- number three; the man seems a little too familiar with Reigen Arataka as a person. Either, he’s been doing his research because he was genuinely looking for a good exorcist, or he has other motives.
Perhaps it’s just his intuition working overtime, but he’s more than familiar with these types of people. Afterall, you tend to know your own crowd.
He glanced towards Reigen as they walked next to each other, recognizing the slight tension in the man’s jaw and shoulders that gave away that he was also on edge by the client while they babbled on about some story that wasn’t making all too much sense.
Mamoru took an inward sigh, moving closer as they walked to discreetly nudge Reigen- accidentally spooking the man a little before he relaxed at realizing that it was just him. He darted his eyes a few times towards the side of the house, having Reigen silently catch on before clearing his throat into his fist.
“Ahem, excuse me for interrupting, but you mentioned that you thought that the spirit lives in your cellar?” He gave that sickly-sweet customer service facade, making Mamoru internally groan. The guy was good at his job, but he’s not sure if anyone would catch him being able to put up a show like Reigen can.
“Oh, yes! I swear I’ve been hearing sounds coming from down there after I moved here a few weeks ago, like I said-!” The client had this pitiful, innocent look of ‘woe is me’ as he retold the story, but the information of when he moved into the house made Mamoru’s ears burn.
Few weeks? But didn’t his case-file say that these things started to happen only a few days ago?
He gave Reigen a side-glance to see if he also picked up on this- satisfied to see that his boss had already beaten him to it when they immediately shared side-eyed looks.
“Well then!” Reign clapped a hand on Mamoru’s shoulder, smiling and gesturing around to the client like they were old friends. “My coworker and I are going to just check it out, and then take a look around the property to see if we find anything!”
Mamoru watched as Reigen basically shooed the man off- talking about how it might be too dangerous for him to follow them while they work or whatever. It took a few tries, considering that the man was fighting tooth and nail to find a way to stay with them while they searched the area, but the owner of Spirits and Such had certainly been around the blocks a few times because he was, somehow, able to convince the little weirdo to go and stay inside his, supposed, house.
The two of them stayed quiet as they walked over to the cellar; Mamoru breaking the silence when he knew that the client wouldn’t be eavesdropping on them.
“This guy gives me the creeps. We should leave.” He stated. Reigen’s eyes widened a bit at the sudden bluntness of the sentence. He figured that Mamoru would probably mention something about the house owner’s odd behavior, but he didn’t expect to go straight to leaving the place.
“Well, now, hold on, Yoshioka-san; we might just be reading the situation wrong-“ Mamoru raised an eyebrow and looked around the empty property that didn’t exactly fit the description of someone living here for as long as they said that they did.
They were in the middle of nowhere; the grass was almost two feet tall; the house, itself, had boarded up windows (the man made some excuse that a storm had recently blew by and broke the windows) and chipped paint that needed to be redone over ten years ago- and don’t even get him started on how weird it was for a house in rural Japan to have a cellar .
“No offense, Reigen-san, but this is the last place for us to be playing chicken with someone who has nothing but bad vibes.” He gestured around vaguely to everything that had caught his eye earlier. “The guy’s story doesn’t add up, either. He keeps changing dates and messing up small details. We should just say that we need different tools for this case and come back later when there’s more than just us two.”
Reigen hummed as he held his chin in thought at Mamoru’s comment.
“You make a good point, but we already traveled over an hour to get here. I would hate to have to make this trip again…“ He had already decided, and Mamoru was not going to win. With an exasperated sigh, he ran a hand through his hair.
“... Alright. I’ll just keep an eye out on him in the meantime.” Reigen gave him a happy smile, straightening himself up before cocking a hip as he examined the locked cellar doors.
‘This is going to be messy…’ Mamoru grimaced, readjusting his things before following Reigen’s pursuit in looking around the property- keeping an extra sharp eye towards the boarded windows in case a peeping eye just happened to be poking through.
“I like the suit, by the way.” Mamoru’s thoughts snap back towards Reigen, startled by the sudden compliment during a job that’s more dangerous than the other man must realize. “Brown tweed! It’s kind of old-timey, but in a stylish way that you pull off really well. The vest is a nice touch to it for sure!”
While his current boss seemed to have no problem with the timing when it came to complimenting his new suit- Mamoru had a little harder time trying to understand if this was an appropriate conversation to be having at their local 1428 Elm St.
“I-uh- thanks... ‘Kubo helped me pick it out.” Reigen’s face scrunched up in confusion for a second before a wide smirk broke out, realization dawning on him as he almost giggled to himself.
“‘Kubo? Heh, it almost makes Ekubo sound cute when you call him that.” Mamoru’s face heated up a little, but he nervously chuckled anyway.
“He hates it when I call him that, but I’ve just got a bad habit of shortening names, even if they’re not even long. Probably something I picked up from my little sister.” This made Reigen look over to him in curiosity.
“I didn’t know you had a sister!” He began wagging his finger, recalling the woman to mind. “I have one, too. She works at the bank downtown in Seasoning City. She’s the ‘responsible, older one’, as people say.”
Mamoru chuckled, sighing to himself as he reminisced.
“Unfortunately, my little sister had to be the responsible one, even though she used to get in trouble for not adding honorifics for a long time there-” The conversation began to flow from there, the two of them actually finding it easier to talk once they found a common ground.
Mamoru knew that Reigen was charismatic towards clients from, both, his experience today, and from past stories that Ekubo had told him; but he didn’t think it’d actually be so easy to talk to the guy. Maybe it was only because when the conversation would begin to dwindle, he would talk about so many subjects all at once that it was easy for Mamoru to pick another thing to choose to talk about.
Talking to Reigen was kind of like putting a buzzword in Mobgle and pressing ‘I’m feeling lucky’. He wouldn’t give you any good facts or information, but he definitely had a story that involved that word somewhere. But, either way, talking to him was easy because he did it all himself and you would only need to put in a word or two of your input. It was also amusing in a weird kind of way.
“-And that, Yoshioka-san, is why you should never try to dress as a teenage girl to get into an all-girl’s school for a job-” A sudden hand shot out in front of Mamoru, making him stop in his tracks, making him look over to see what Reigen needed them to stop so suddenly for.
“Did you hear that?” Mamoru just stared at the man in question. Unfortunately, he probably didn’t because Reigen was looking over to his left, where his hearing is almost completely shot.
He shook his head, having the shorter man hum to himself before walking back over to the cellar from earlier.
“Well, let’s see if our little garbage-grabber is trapped in the cellar. Yoshioka-san, I’m going to get the owner to give us the keys to it and you stay here in case the thing ends up finding a way out, somehow.” Before he could even protest, Reigen sped off to the front of the house, making him sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose.
Now he understands what Ekubo meant when he said that Reigen is constantly dancing on the wobbly fence of life and death. Be it work, hobbies, or just merely caring for someone; Reigen was always throwing himself in the way of danger in an ‘annoyingly selfless and suicidal amount’- as quoted by the spirit.
“Ekubo, you picked one hell of a day to have a mid-afterlife crisis…”
Glancing down at the watch on his wrist, Mamoru took a deep breath- straightening his shoulders and jacket before taking long strides to the front of the house.
If he’s lucky, Reigen only got caught up in chatting with the client, and that’s why he was taking a while to get the keys for the cellar- but, even then, it’s not such a bad thing to check in when you’re at a horror house- especially at a horror house.
He raised his hand to the door, ready to knock when the muffled sounds of Reigen speaking caught his attention.
“L-Listen, I think you’ve got it all wrong! You see, you might be looking for my brother, Ronald-Reigen Arataka-” God damn it. That’s one of the stupidest fucking things he’s ever heard. He doesn’t regret being late this morning, now.
He pressed his right ear against the door, listening closely to try and get an image of the scene inside. There was the low mumbling from the client- and the responses that Reigen were giving were becoming a little jumbled, but he did catch a little bit.
“...-ing finger? Wouldn’t a thumb be better, though? It would be way more debilitating than a finger that doesn’t even do much-”
God damn it , Reigen…
He swiftly straightened up and began to knock on the door, trying to muster up a suave look of feigned ignorance.
“...mouth shut. ” Was all he caught before the door slightly opened, the client smiling brightly as he met with Mamoru.
“Ah~ You’re that nice fellow who’s working with Reigen-san, correct? Did you two find something?” The man’s face was sickening to look at, knowing he was just previously threatening to take his boss’s finger from behind closed doors.
Mamoru gave a passive aggressive smile, chuckling to himself while reaching behind his coat jacket.
“Yes, actually-” The client’s eyebrows quirked a little, giving a surprised, ‘oh?’ at his comment. “-a rat.” A harsh kick to the door, it violently swung open and sent the mentally deranged man flying to the floor.
“Make a single move, and I will blow your fucking brains out- got it?” The pistol he had kept concealed all day had finally made its appearance, a glare from a beam of sunlight that streamed through the boarded windows shined off of the short barrel.
“Where-where the hell did you get a gun?!” The man had begun to scooch backwards, nervous sweat rolling down his forehead while he looked to Mamoru’s dark eyes for mercy. “You w-wouldn’t hurt an innocent person, would you?”
When Mamoru began to walk closer to their supposed ‘client’ with the pistol’s sights trained between the man’s eyes; he whimpered and wailed while pushing himself back against the wall, pleading for forgiveness.
“I’m sorry! Please, I didn’t mean it! It won’t happen again- I swear-!”
“Shut up.” Immediately, the man’s blubbering ceased, leaving only his pathetic mewling as Mamuro kept pace with slowly approaching the man. “What’s your business with my employer? Resentful business partner? Loan shark?” He crouched and held deadly eye contact while leaning closer to the man’s rounded face. “Hit man?”
“No! No to all of those!” The client sobbed. Now, he was really interested.
“So, what is it then? You’re just going around, collecting information on him, and leading him to this abandoned house for tea, huh?” The man tore his eyes away from Mamoru’s face. Either it was guilt, or just fear for his life that he couldn’t find it to look at Mamoru’s sharp features anymore as he began wailing.
“…He’s s-scum of the earth, ya’ know that?!” Mamoru’s jaw tensed at the man’s sniffled words. “All he does is trick people into believing that he’s going to solve all their problems by making them think that it’s just some supernatural reason behind their suffering. And then what does he do? Pretends he got rid of it and scam the good people out of their hard-earned m-money.”
Christ, does he really have to hear all this bullshit right now?
“The people don’t even know how ghost and curses work- so, of course, they’re going to believe this- this fucking phony when he tells them that they’re free from their curse, or whatever! If you had half a brain- you’d-you’d be on my side and shoot that guy, instead!” Mamoru just deadpanned and stood up, sighing when his knees cracked from crouching down earlier.
Before turning away to help Riegen out, he made a pointed glare at the man.
“If you try even thinking about doing something stupid- don’t. I’ll kill you. Got it?” The man turned away from Mamoru, nodding and whimpering to himself. “Oh, and another thing- if my boss doesn't have all ten fingers when I turn around, that’s two bullets for each finger, and three for each thumb.” The man just continued quietly crying, making him doubt that he even heard what he just told him. That, or he was painfully aware of what Mamoru had told him.
He turned around to see Reigen shittily tied to a wooden chair in rope from your local home-improvement store, a disgusting, dirty rag stuffed in his mouth.
Damn, Ekubo is going to kill him for letting Reigen get kidnapped, of all things.
“I’m sorry, Reigen-san. I should’ve come earlier.” The rag was the first thing removed, grimacing to himself when his temporary employer coughed and gagged.
“I-I think that had rat feces on it at some point-“ Reigen took in a wheezy breath, making Mamoru nervous for the man while he helped him to his feet after untying the rope that was hardly even tight.
Before Mamoru could inquire about the shorter man’s current status, Reigen kind of pushed him away, clearing his throat.
“Let’s go.” Mamoru just stared in slight disbelief.
“What do we do about this guy?” He gestured to the client who was tucking himself away in the corner, having Reigen almost pity the man for having to go through a fear-factor session with Mamoru.
“Leave him. Let’s just go back to the office.” He pushed right past Mamoru, not sparing him a glance while he walked to the door. “You’ve scared him enough, already.”
A cold, sinking feeling landed itself in his chest, watching as Reigen walked out of the house. The presence of the gun tucked away behind his back had never felt more noticeable in those moments while he stood in the empty, rotten house with a man who was scared shitless across the room from him, still sobbing.
What the fuck? Is… is he in the wrong? Even though this guy was just threatening to take Reigen’s fingers? Even though he was the one who made them come out to the middle of nowhere and kidnap Reigen?
There’s no way that Yoshioka Mamoru scared Reigen more than the guy who was probably going to kill him… right?
When he noticed that that man in thought was almost halfway across the open clearing, Mamoru had to speed walk to try and catch up.
Normally, Mamoru wouldn’t really care if someone was afraid of him- after all, it came with the job description for almost everything he’s done before in the past. But, now, the idea of the other man being spooked by him gnawed at him.
God, how stupid and selfish of him. Reigen was in a near death experience and he’s too busy worrying about what the other thinks of him, instead of seeing if the man needed any help.
“Riegen-san-“ Reigen halted, holding up his hand for Mamoru to stop talking.
“Let’s just go home. You can go back to your place once we get to the station. I’ll make sure Ekubo gives you your pay for today.” He didn’t even spare Mamoru a glance as he kept walking, only keeping his eyes trained in front of him while they walked back to the main road for a bus.
Mamoru didn’t really know what to say, only silently agreeing and walking behind Reigen while getting lost in his own thoughts, replaying the events that just happened while he let his hand gently brush against the miscanthus grass.
‘I fucked up again, haven’t I?’