Archive of Our Own ^beta

Night had fallen some hours ago, and Reigen Arataka had only streetlights and stars for company. He exhaled slowly into the humid air and breathed out a cloud of cigarette smoke that drifted up into the sky and dissipated slugglishly, as if it, too, were unhappy to be present in such wretched weather.

The door to his side swung open and a man from his department gave him a curt nod before starting down the sidewalk on the way to the station a few blocks to the west. Reigen had no idea what his name was, and he was certain the man didn’t know his, either. The thought might have bothered him once upon a time, but today he had more pressing matters to attend to.

Kombini, or ramen? Sake, or beer?

To his side, more A&G Water Supply employees trickled out of the building like a leaky faucet. They oozed onto the pavement, burdened by the liters of sweat soaked into their shirts. Each of them murmured their goodbyes and parted in a million directions for home. The night sky in Seasoning City glowered at them, promising rain, and Reigen had forgotten to bring his umbrella.

His cigarette had burned down to the filter by the time the first fat drops had darkened the sidewalk under the yellow street light. He tossed it in the disposal bin with a sigh, pushed himself off the wall, and slung his jacket over his head to avoid the worst of it as he set off for the subway as well.

Reigen’s feet knew the way to the station, and he let his eyes wander around the familiar and unchanging storefronts and apartment buildings and business offices that paved the way. He nodded at the old lady who ran the fruit stand on the corner and eyed her nasty cat. The rain was starting to darken the awnings and whatever laundry had been forgotten outside, and he cursed under his breath when he remembered he had left some of his own shirts out as well. A few cars, a number of scooters, and an endless parade of bikes passed in every direction as everyone raced home to outrun the worst of it.

In the train station Reigen stood with his dripping jacket under one arm in a pool of pale yellow light on his platform, and stared at the vending machine that charged a hundred-twenty yen for a bottle of water. The selection had been the same in all the years he had worked in this neighborhood, and his eyes flicked habitually to one specific product.

The strawberry milk was tucked neatly in the upper left side, nestled like a fine little jewel between the black coffee and redbull. Sugary and innocent. Reigen wondered, not for the first time, if it she might still be as sweet tasting as he remembered.

Best to not dwell on such things.

The train pulled up to the platform and Reigen’s queue began to file inside the car. He took his accustomed position in the center, standing in the aisle, and sighed as he closed his eyes into the feeling of the train shuddering into motion. Today, the forty-minute commute that stretched ahead of him seemed like a mountain to overcome, but that, too, he put out of his mind.

Reigen Arataka, for the last ten or so years, had been making an effort to do as little dwelling as possible. He fucked up on occasion, but thankfully those instances had been confined to the cold cover of night with only his house plant to witness his moments of weakness. Breaking down in public certainly would not do, even if it seemed almost impossible to resist.

These days it seemed like every time he closed his eyes he could feel her sitting in front of him. He had ten years to think about it, so the picture was stunning, perfectly clear, absolutely agonizing and entirely too much. He’d go back and do it all differently, if only he could. Maybe even entirely differently. Or maybe just make one little change.

He could have laughed it off and taken her out for dinner.

He could have kissed her longer, until they forgot about it and parted that night with their hearts still whole.

The slow procession of stations echoed in the back of his mind. He had the order of the jingles memorized, knew where he was without needing to open his eyes.

He could have brought her to his house and swallowed his fears. Surely anything that might have happened wrapped up in sheets and starlight couldn’t hurt nearly as much as what he felt now.

Like an alarm reaching through his dreams, the specific jingle for his station pulled Reigen up from the fog that blanketed his mind. He moved with a jerk, and the wet fabric on his back stuck to his spine in the most unpleasant manner as he stutter-stepped off the train. The platform emptied as he stood there dazed, swallowing the ash off his tongue and quelling the sour feeling in his stomach.

It had been a long time since he’d caught himself thinking about that.

It could be the change in seasons, Reigen mused to himself as he paced out of the station and started on the short walk to his apartment complex. He could be getting sick. The rain water mingled with his sweat and his clothes nearly felt heavier than his eyelids.

He passed by his habitual ramen shop without a second glance, and the kombini on his corner likewise. Not hungry, but gaining weight. Not overworked, but losing his hair. He ate more ramen than vegetables. Drank more sake than water. Didn’t sleep much, or well, and when he did he was plagued by beautiful dreams that only left him empty when he woke up in the morning alone.

Reigen Arataka was a ghost of his former self in every way that mattered.

The stairs leading up to his apartment were dotted with puddles which he stepped in indiscriminately in his detached state, and then, suddenly, there was something different about the air.

When he reached his landing and turned to look towards his door Reigen stopped in his tracks, unable to take a single step forward. Runoff was spitting from the gutter on the overhang above his head and wetting his shoulder. His fucking landlord wouldn’t fix the damn laundry facilities, much less replace some PVC, but everything in his body was frozen as he met her eyes.

Mob was standing outside his door, her fist raised to knock and frozen two inches from the wood. The moment passed between them in slow motion, and it took her a second to lower her hand back by her side before she turned to him fully.

Reigen opened his mouth to speak when she cut him off and took a step closer, because this was a dream, or some fever-induced hallucination. Maybe he had been possessed.

“I’m in town for the week, visiting Ritsu. I thought we could get dinner together.”

Reigen closed his mouth. And opened it. And closed it and nodded. What the hell was going on?

Mob nodded and walked over to his side at the landing. She looked down at his bag in his hand, over at the water spitting onto his shoulder, and turned her eyes up to his face and Reigen thought he was maybe going to die.

When was the last time he’d seen her in person? Years ago, to be sure. He had her graduation photo, of course, but he could hardly bear to look at that. He had never seen her in a kimono before.

“Do you want to carry that with you? I can wait here if you’d like to drop it off.”

Reigen stumbled over his tongue answering, and he was completely incapable of tearing his eyes off her face.

“No, no I can hold it. I don’t mind.”

“Okay,” Mob said before breezing past him and descending gracefully down the stairs.

She’s cut her hair… Reigen marveled as he stuttered his feet to follow her, feeling some lump in his throat stiffen as he put his hand on the rail a scant few inches behind her own, fancying he could feel her body heat blistering through the cold iron because what else was there to do when in her presence other than burn?

She was still so small; the top of her head barely reached his shoulders, just as it had when they were younger. How old was she now? Twenty-three? No, it was July, her birthday would have passed already. Twenty-four then. The yawning maw of time – how dare she remain so young?

“How have you been?” Mob asked when they reached the bottom of the staircase. Reigen lifted his eyes from her waist wretchedly, feeling every inch the damaged and broken man she had rightfully left behind.  

“Fine, fine,” he said, waving a hand. Mob looked for all the world like she had ten years ago. Her eyes were dark and wide, her mouth small and pink. Her stature, still thin, still slight. Was she still doing workout clubs? Did she have muscle under her sweater, on her sweet stomach and smooth sides? “How have you been?”

“I’ve been well,” she said, and Reigen felt her eyes on his own body and he was certain she could see the rot consuming him from the inside out. She could be perceptive in her own strange way, but decay and derangement were always something she had been especially attune to, at least when she was young.

The thought of their time together in the Sprits and Such office was like a knife to the gut, and Reigen cleared his throat and jerked his head to the corner and mumbled something about ramen before leading the way.

Together they floated across the sidewalk. Reigen especially was having trouble as he struggled with the distinct feeling of forcibly re-possessing a body he had not paid much attention to for the past handful of years. His jaw was itchy with stubble he was only just now noticing. His skin was slick with sweat and he wished for the life of him that he had made it home sooner to shower first. His tongue tasted like cigarettes, and how many had he had in the past week, let alone decade, he could not even begin to fathom.

They sat at the counter together, and Reigen felt like he had stepped back in time. He could feel Mob’s heat to his side; the bar stools were close together, and every time she ducked forward to slurp up at her broth she bumped into his arm with her own.

How long had it been since he had touched her? Felt her hand in his own, or her shoulder under his palm. He remembered the feeling of her skin under his fingertips, her soft thighs, the taste of her sweat.

“What have you been doing?” Mob asked to his side. Reigen looked up from his food, grateful to be yanked from his thoughts, and found himself smiling ruefully at her through the pain in his chest.

“After Serizawa and I decided to close, I went back to work at the office I was employed at before,” he said, watching her dainty and practiced fingers work as she continued to eat. She nodded, looked up at him while slurping her noodles, and Reigen swallowed.

“I do supervisory work. They’re going to promote me at the end of the year, and I’ll be a manager.”

She was wearing perfume, he only just realized. It was subtle, delicate, and hard to describe, but when she reached up to tuck her hair back behind her ear he caught it a little better. It was citrusy, and it surprised him a little.

“What have you been doing?”

Mob glanced at him, and back at her bowl.

“Hanazawa Teruki and I have a business together,” she said, stirring her noodles and going after the egg. “We sell exercise equipment. Well, he does. I mostly run demonstrative classes.”

Reigen found it hard not to gape. Mob, so shy and demure, at the head of a class demonstrating fitness routines. Was he certain he heard that right?

“That’s right. You studied exercise science,” he murmured, very certain then that he would find muscle under the thick material of her sweater. God, could she feel his eyes on her?

Mob nodded at his side. She was down to the last bit of broth in her bowl, and Reigen looked at his own and forced himself to take another bite. He was not doing himself any favors getting sidetracked like he was, thinking about stupid things that didn’t matter and hadn’t mattered for a long, long time.

“And you’re in town for – for?”

“Hanazawa and I are looking to expand the business and Ritsu mentioned some prospective properties in the area. He lives here, so I have been staying with him for the past week.”

Reigen was nearly swaying in his seat. This was so thoroughly unanticipated, entirely unlike anything he’d believed would become of Mob when he regarded her all those years ago. But there she was, calmly discussing property and business moves and partnerships.

“Are you finished?” she asked, pushing her empty bowl aside and gesturing for his. Reigen nodded weakly, and pushed it in her direction with numb fingers.

Mob took a few more bites before her phone vibrated in her purse. She took it out and Reigen looked at his hands on the countertop a thousand miles away as she sighed and tapped out a response.

He should have expected a visit. He should have known she would come back.

“Ritsu is having his boyfriend over,” she said, tucking her phone back into her purse and turning her gaze out the door with a frown, worrying her fingers together in her lap. “He said he would pay me back if I stayed at a hotel tonight.”

“A hotel?” Reigen echoed, watching as she turned her eyes to his own. He caught the spark buried in the middle of them, and swallowed dryly. So, she played games, now. Reigen hadn’t been on the winning side in ages, and could hardly put up a fight. “Do you have… the money for that up front?”

“No. I only brought cash, enough for dinner.”

Reigen gave an empty nod. Her gaze burned into his cheeks, and the heat spread all the way down to his fingertips.

“Do you think you could help me?”

Mob pinned him with her gaze like he was a butterfly in her specimen collection and Reigen was too greedy to deny her. What a crafty, clever girl, spinning her words, catching him with her eyes. Of course she would turn out like him in some way.

Reigen Arataka was worn out and exhausted. He knew what Mob wanted – had known, for the better part of ten years, maybe even eleven if they were honest with each other – and he had spent the last decade wondering when she would be back to collect her dues.

He was willing to pay. Christ. He was going to turn out his pockets for her and he had known it the moment they first kissed.

He had been dumb as hell and she was nothing if not young and stupid, and they had been overjoyed to make it out of a bad scrape alive and she was still brimming with emotion and had just kissed him and suddenly it wasn’t that funny at all that they both nearly died because Mob was the first person on Earth that had looked at him like that in all his life.

Of course she would like how he looked at her, too.

He knew the right answer. He knew the correct one, and the right one. The proper one, and the only one she would accept. He had enough money to spot her. Hotels in the area were cheap, and thanks to his soul-crushing job his bank account was no longer regularly overdrawn. And if they were all being honest, they both knew she was lying; you can’t snow the snowman. But such things apparently weren’t out of the realm of possibility any longer, it seemed, and Reigen decided he shouldn’t be so surprised. He had a hand in raising her, after all.

It felt like there were a million people in the ramen shop, and as if they were the only people on Earth. Millions of eyes and just hers.

A thousand more nights to regret something or one chance to get it right. Of course he would give in.

“You can stay with me,” he said, watching her soft and pink lips curl into a smile, feeling the weight of his words spill from his mouth like heavy honey.

Mob stood from her seat, brushed her bangs out of her eyes, and kept her smile on him as Reigen rose unsteadily by her side. He was half-certain she would wrap her arm around his and parade him out of the place like a particularly meaningful trophy kill, but he was gratified to see her stand a short distance away and keep to his side as they stepped out of the restaurant and back to his apartment. He felt that he might shake apart at any moment. One touch and his head would rocket off his shoulders and explode in the sky.

They walked in silence, and Reigen counted the steps to his front door with determination to avoid thinking about anything else. His key turned smoothly in the lock, and he stepped back and smelled her perfume again as Mob brushed past him into his place with a murmured thanks.

The door shut behind them with a kind of firm finality, and Reigen shivered before toeing off his shoes. He almost said something about wishing he had cleaned, but the words died on his tongue because Mob was reaching up for him like she had done a million times before and suddenly it seemed as though Reigen would die if he didn’t kiss her again.

His hands found her hips naturally, and it was like traveling back in time. She fit against his body exactly as she had all those years ago. His head felt lighter, his lungs less constricted. The weight in his shoulders was gone and he leaned into her hungrily, seeking her tongue, and swallowing her whimper when he got his first taste of her spit.

Mob was on the very tips of her toes trying to reach her way around his neck and Reigen lifted her up with his hands on the back of her thighs. She locked her ankles around his waist and it was like he was breathing fresh air for the first time in years even though he left his windows open most days.

God, she was still soft. Reigen had her ass in his hands and he squeezed appreciatively, still licking into her mouth. Her skirt was pooling around her hips and he could feel the heat of her against his lower stomach and god, really, was he getting hard already?

Thirty-eight and change, and a girl who was once exactly half his age. He walked them both into the apartment in the dark, and knelt on the floor as he set her down on the bed.

Mob disengaged her arms from around his neck with a sigh, licking her lips and rolling her head to the side. Reigen sat kneeling with his forearms on either side of her legs and she leaned back on her arms to look at him. Her thighs were still spread, her feet on either side of his own legs, and her long skirt was dipping between her knees to hide her from his sight.

“I think about you a lot,” she said, picking at the fabric by her wrists and casting her gaze away.

“I think about you, too,” Reigen breathed, wondering at the flush that graced her cheeks, like his words had any power at all, like his attention meant something. She wiggled her hips, obviously overcome with emotion, and something occurred to him.

“Your powers – what’s happened?”

“Hmm – oh. Just better at that now, I suppose,” she said airily, dancing her fingers on the top of his sheets. The air in the room rippled around them, warmed, blew across their cheeks. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Oh,” Reigen said, watching her hair settle. A second thing occurred to him. “So. So you’ve, ah…”

Mob’s gaze was level, calm. She pushed herself up so she was seated properly and passed her gaze down to the tie still tight against the base of his neck.

“No, actually,” she said, reaching out to take the knot and pull, brushing her knuckles against his Adam’s apple. The drag of fabric was smooth, measured. She cast his tie aside, and fit her delicate fingers on the first of his buttons. And then, softly, she spoke again, and Reigen felt his heart stand still.

“I’ve been saving myself for you, shishou.”

Oh…

Oh, god.

--

He could feel Mob’s eyes on his face. Her skirt was hanging off one foot, down his back, and his fingers were sinking into the flesh and skin on her hips, tucked under the plain white cotton of her panties. She had soaked herself through them and the thrill of that knowledge burned Reigen deep in his stomach. He breathed her in, the sweat and sweet of her, and huffed out a wet and heavy sigh against the cotton and started to guide her panties down her thighs.

Mob moved under him with something he could almost call a practiced grace. He could count the number of times they’d done this on just one hand with room to spare. It didn’t surprise him that she still shook when he looked at her fully, but the heat of the moment coated his mind in a haze he could hardly think through. When he had her bare, Mob’s thighs closed reflexively around his shoulders and saliva spurted into Reigen’s mouth as he slid his hands back up her smooth skin. He lowered his head to lay his dripping tongue into the gentle curve of her cunt.

Ten minutes later Reigen stood over her and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The taste of her lingered sweet and heady on his tongue.

Mob was laid out on his desk, gasping for air and still twitching with pleasure. He could see tear tracks on the sides of her face, and her mouth was wet and open.

It was so easy to kiss her, and he had yet to appreciate the gift of that. He set his forearm down by her head and bent low to reach her, rolled his tongue into her mouth, tasted her spit and swallowed her whimpers.

Reigen pulled himself out with his free hand and sighed into her lips when he gave himself a squeeze. Her tiny hands pulled at his shirt and he let go of his cock to pull his tie off his neck and pop his buttons. She pulled his shirttails out and fluttered her fingers against his hips, and Reigen smiled into her mouth.

“Looking for something?” he asked her, nosing into the space by the corner of her jaw so he could bite at her earlobe. Mob shivered, lolled her head to the side, and made a tight noise in the back of her throat. He took one of her hands in his own and led her dainty fingers to the tip of his cock, and when he huffed out a hot and wet breath into her ear, Mob let out a whine and arched fully off the desk.

“That’s it, Mob,” Reigen murmured, closing his eyes and feeling her stretch her arm to take him more fully into her grip. God, she was so small. With nothing but her scent and sighs in his head, he picked himself up off the desk and slid his middle finger into his own mouth for a beat and took his spit-soaked digit to her entrance.

Reigen watched with his bottom lip between his teeth as his finger disappeared into her inch by inch.

Distantly, he recalled that this was a first for them, but she only let her thighs fall further apart. The sigh she let out muffled the discontent that bubbled up in the back of his mind.

Her hair was long. It fanned out behind her on top of the desk like the inky black sky barred from sight by the blinds he had closed earlier, and parts of it twinkled in the pallid light remaining like her head was full of stars.

It was kind of greasy under his fingers, but she was only fourteen, so Reigen considered that a given.

The training bra, too, was only to be expected, but here, finally, his hands faltered, and something clicked.

The condom wrapper was on the floor, and his cock was resting in the curve of her hip, and suddenly his head was clear. And his stomach dropped.

She really was just fourteen.

--

“You’ve… you’ve been…” Reigen tightened his fingers in the sheets on either side of her legs. Every second of that night was etched in perfect clarity in his head, along with every tense moment that followed. Weeks of avoidance. Months of swallowed apologies. Years of aching, of regret, of torment and pain. She hadn’t moved on any more than he had, and who was at fault for that?

Reigen felt Mob’s fingers working on the line of buttons down his front in some distant part of his mind. She sat unperturbed in front of his reeling frame, and she spoke up again without meeting his eyes.

“I figured it would be best to wait, after that. For when we could do it properly.”

Reigen cast his eyes down towards her waist. Her knees pressed gently into his ribs on either side. Had she ever come close, aside from that one time? He never would have guessed so back during their time together, but anything was possible for the woman in front of him. She had grown so much, far past what he could provide for her then or now. She was out of his league by all rights and in no uncertain terms. Reigen hadn’t had a date in ages. Hadn’t been interested in anybody.

Mob leaned back, abandoning her work. Reigen’s shirt hung open three quarters of the way, and he felt his heart squeeze in his chest feeling like an ancient thing in front of her. How could something so lovely hold him in such high regard? How could she know him, see him, and still want to give him something he had no right to have?

“You shouldn’t… have done that,” he said, working through the lump in his throat and feeling like his stomach was bubbling up to wash his mouth in acid. “I… I don’t…”

“Deserve it?” Mob offered, holding his gaze when he snapped his eyes up to hers. “It’s what I want, though, so I hardly think that matters.”

The fight left Reigen on the back of a gentle breeze. He swallowed, nodded, and shifted forward to press his lips against hers as she tugged him backwards onto the bed. He settled between her open legs as easily as anything he’d ever done before, and propped his weight over her with one arm so he could slide his free hand up her thigh. Her skirt moved up her skin with a hushed whisper, and his fingers fit under the elastic hem of her panties with practiced ease.

Christ, the smell of her. Reigen pressed his fingertips into her skin with a groan.

Mob sighed into his mouth, and pulled his shirttails out from his pants and undid his remaining buttons. She guided it off his shoulders and Reigen was loathe to pull back from her to throw it aside. While he did, Mob pushed her shoulders into the bed and wrapped her delicate fingers in the hem of her own sweater, and lifted it up off her chest with such grace, Reigen’s breath caged in his throat. Until he noticed her bra.

Suddenly, Mob was fourteen again. The shadows under her shoulders was the ink spill of her long hair. The lingering rain on her skin the sweat from her hesitation. The training bra. It bit into her skin where it sat too tight around her chest. Her nipples were hard through the fabric. The swell of her breasts was still small.

Saliva flooded his mouth. Reigen swallowed, once, twice, tore his gaze up from her chest to meet her eyes, and couldn’t find anything to say for himself as her mouth merely curved into a secret smile.

“I thought you should have the chance to take this off me,” Mob said, pushing him back from between her legs for the moment so she could push her skirt over her hips. It spilled onto the floor, and the white cotton of her panties matched the fabric of her training bra brilliantly in the moonlight, the perfect juxtaposition to her gaze as she reached forward, took a fistful of Reigen’s undershirt, and pulled him up onto the bed on top of her.

He couldn’t refuse her.