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Reigen couldn’t sleep, but at least his brain was beginning to pare down all that time spent on the train to something a little more realistic, manageable. Weeks of neurotic suffering became a mere ten hours or so--not ideal, certainly, but nothing worth writing a suicide note over.
The room was comfortably noisy, all things considered. A radiator rumbling out heat beneath the far window; beside him, Serizawa’s soft snoring, and the boys’ breaths in syncopation just opposite. Buzzkills. Reigen had made such a fool of himself with that pillow fight talk earlier.
He sat up just a bit, gently enough as not to disturb any of his roommates. Over on the window sill (sapping all their heat, the bastard) sat Dimple’s faint green glow. Reigen had never caught him dozing in any pose but one with skewed arms and legs stretched haphazardly about him--the spirit must’ve been awake, watching something beyond their powder-dusted balcony.
Reigen climbed carefully from his futon, pulled the bundle of coat and scarf over from behind his pillow. He dressed and stood, slipped on his shoes by the balcony door, and quietly pulled the sliding cedar open to let in a whisper of cold as he stole out into the moonlight.
Dimple followed him; Reigen could tell that much without turning from the prickling hairs on the back of his neck. Neither of them spoke until they met at the rail--Reigen fisted his coat sleeves before resting them on the snowy wood.
“Wired after your little adventure today?” Dimple asked, snide tone half-hearted. He seemed tired.
“As if. I spent all day conked out. Last goddamn thing my sleep schedule needed.”
The spirit snorted.
“What’d you get up to?”
“The usual. Following Shigeo around like a goldfish,” Dimple replied, sneaking Reigen a sharp glance. “Took a bath with the brats, watched your charges stuff themselves with the wartiest food I’ve ever seen--these people really know how to stay on brand; I’ll give ‘em that. Serizawa and I were trying to watch this report on Seasoning City Zoo’s newborn giant-rat-thing--”
“I missed the fucking capybara being born while I was on that godforsaken train?” Reigen spat over Dimple’s near-immediate laughter. “Fuck! I voted on that stupid thing’s name and everything!”
“What’d you wanna name it?”
“Oh, I couldn’t tell you. Definitely the dumbest option on the roster, no doubt. What’d they end up going with?”
“As much as I’d love to tell you, I couldn’t really hear above Hanazawa trying to wheedle your disciple into admitting he likes dudes.”
“Wait, wait, what?” Reigen sputtered. “Is he?”
“As if Bottle Blonde could ever get that out of our favorite human safe deposit box. We’ve all had our suspicions, but Shigeo’s still not budging.”
Reigen sighed, put his fingers to his forehead. “That poor, poor boy.”
“Shigeo?”
“Hanazawa. His pining couldn’t be more transparent--you manage to clock the most deeply closeted kid in the grade, and then bam, you’re obsessed.”
Dimple gave a good-natured grunt of agreement.
For a moment, they shared an awkward pause between them. After a moment, Reigen spoke up again. “Speaking of which…”
Dimple let out a long, laborious sigh. “If you’re about to bring up what I think you’re about to bring up, can we just… not bring it up?”
“So you were flirting with me,” Reigen laughed.
“And doing a poor enough job of it to make you second guess, evidently.”
“Don’t be like that. Your tone could use a little work, that’s all.”
“How so?” Dimple pouted, crossing his arms.
“Well, it took me two hours to realize you weren’t threatening to hire a hitman to hunt me down, so…” Reigen cast the spirit a smirk. “What exactly did you have in mind for this little ‘test of courage,’ anyway? I’m assuming we weren’t just gonna play a round of the Penis Game and call it a night.”
Dimple allowed himself a petulant smile. “I suppose my idea could be classified as such. Pretty odd term for it, though.”
Reigen couldn’t stifle his shocked laugh. “I was referring to the game where you and a buddy take turns saying the word ‘penis’ at increasing volumes. First one to chicken out loses.”
“Sounds like a publicly indecent blast,” Dimple replied, rolling his eyes.
“Oh, it is. If we weren’t in the presence of sleeping children, I’d wipe the floor with you.” Reigen paused a moment. “Either way, I’m kind of astounded by your nerve, Dimple. Not even a single invitation to dinner before you ask me to--what, let you go down on me?”
“Or play me in a round of strip poker with an imbalanced deck. Or possess you and let me get you off. Or find some way to convince Serizawa can join in on the fun so I can fuck you for real--or let you fuck me; I’m not picky. Might even have the strength to change into my true form and make somethin’ of that. Or--well, I could go on.” The spirit had regained some confidence, it seemed; he fluttered in an intent ring around Reigen’s head, hands outstretched appeasingly. “I’m a barrel of fun ideas, baby, not to mention desperate as shit.”
“It would certainly seem so,” Reigen agreed, laughing, “and I can’t say I’m not with you in that regard. Maybe we oughta delay our test of courage ‘till we get back to the city, where I don’t, you know, share living quarters with four other people.”
Dimple blinked, earnest smile shaped like a little V .
“Really?” he asked.
“Hell yeah. I mean, I’d probably have been a little more enthusiastic from the get-go if you’d asked me like a normal person, but yeah, I’m down. It’s not like I haven’t been trying to make nice with you since the literal moment we met.”
“With the incentive to bone?” Dimple raised a skeptical brow.
“Not until a day or so after the Mogami case.”
“That early?”
“When did the inspiration strike you?”
Dimple paused. He looked shy, if that was even possible.
“I, uh… after the press conference,” the spirit coughed. “Kinda changed the picture seeing you stick your neck out for someone who wasn’t yourself.”
“Aw, you cheeseball,” Reigen cooed.
Evidently cheered, Dimple went back to circling around Reigen’s head. “Oh, that reminds me. For as little as this may mean to you, considering your position at the time--Shigeo seemed really happy today. Like, normal person happy. Emotive happy. It was jarring.”
“Really?” Reigen had to crane his head and spin about to keep his eyes on Dimple; when their gazes managed to meet, they may as well have mirrored one another perfectly: rare, shared expressions of jubilance. “I guess he did seem pretty perky on the train.”
“Yeah. He’s been in higher and higher spirits ever since all that Claw stuff got wrapped up,” Dimple agreed, slowing the pace of his circles.
“That’s so good to hear, I--wow. Shit. I didn’t think I’d be so excited about this.”
“You’re tellin’ me!”
Eventually the ghost came to a stop, joyous glow falling on Reigen’s face--ruddy with cold, eyelashes and bangs sparkling with snowflakes. Reigen closely observed his companion just the same: being in a particularly corporeal state, snowflakes landed on Dimple’s shape and stayed perfectly solid, untouched by the warmth they might have found on a living body.
Reigen pulled one hand from the rail and rested it on the spirit’s cheek. Dimple stayed stock still, but his expression, wavering smile, betrayed pleased surprise.
“Shut your eyes,” Reigen murmured, and Dimple did.
The spirit’s awkwardly quirked lips were instantly met, then, with a fistful of snow.
“ Blklblbblbhththh!” Dimple protested, scandalized and furiously waving his tiny arms and legs about in protest.
“I’m sorry,” Reigen very nearly wept, already doubled over with laughter as his ghostly companion shook snow from his form. “I’m so sorry; I had t-”
Dimple wasted no time snatching up as big a handful of snow as he could muster from the rail and wheeling it against the side of Reigen’s head. “ Tease, ” the spirit scolded.
“I had to,” Reigen continued, wiping tears from his cheeks and snow from his hair. “You all deprived me of my pillow fight, so I’m settling for snowballs. I--”
Another tightly packed ball of powder burst against his chest. “I thought you were gonna kiss me, you shitsucker!”
With that, Reigen was laughing again, and already terribly behind on the offensive. He could barely make a single snowball to match Dimple’s apparent dozens without laughing himself into a cramped stomach again. Still, all those years of salt-splashing hadn’t been for nothing--when Reigen actually managed to gather himself, he didn’t miss a single shot at his tiny, moving target. Eventually they had to move their match down the balcony stairs and onto the inn’s snowy back lawn; Reigen’s dress shoes and socks were soaked, and he spent more time slipping and laughing than he did responding to Dimple’s triumphant hits. It took another moment before the spirit slowed, as caught up in fits of giggles as the other.
They fell down into the snow, side by side. Reigen’s clothes were soaked, but he hardly felt the cold.
“How’d we end up like this?”
Reigen half-turned to eye the spirit. “I shoved snow in your face, you threw some back, we came down here to cover more ground…”
“You know what I mean.”
Reigen hesitated.
“Same way we ended up nearly kissing just a second ago,” he supposed. “Common interest.”
“In a stupid kid,” Dimple prompted him, tone disbelieving.
“Look, I’d make better sense of it if I could. But… yeah. A stupid kid.” Reigen turned his head fully now to meet the ghost’s temperate gaze. One ear grew numb with wet and cold. “Powerful little fucker, isn’t he?”
“The understatement of the century,” Dimple sighed.
Reigen shifted his shoulder, pulled one hand from its place on its stomach to lay in the powder beside his head. Slowly, Dimple let one of his own fall inside it--icy cold, like a snowflake in the center of Reigen’s palm.