Chapter Text
Saturday, November 28, 2015 — 20:42 | Warehouse 4 (Main) | Latest poll: 50%
Reigen’s seen some crazy shit in his life.
When he was a kid, he watched a lightning strike hit a tree in his backyard, saw a shooting star cross the sky, gawked at the biggest kabocha ever grown at an autumn festival, and once picked a perfect four-leaf clover. He tried to show the latter to his sister before the neighborhood dog gobbled it out of his hand. She didn’t believe him.
The psychic business broadened his horizons. With Shigeo in his life, the weird gradually became the mundane. Shigeo was used to crossing paths with spirits and bending all his soup spoons. Once Reigen became accustomed to seeing the world through the spirit goggles Shigeo gifted him, Reigen became more difficult to surprise.
He’s seen espers across talents, concentrations, and levels of adjustment to reality. He’s seen ghosts and yokai and cults and aliens and terrorists and kaiju and a giant downtown broccoli. He’s been yanked by a possessed middle schooler into a concrete wall, devoured by the vicious paparazzi, pelted with fried food, bogged down with swamp monster mud, blasted off a skyscraper, and dumped over the side of a crumbling lighthouse into the unforgiving ocean.
He’s even seen the other side of a wedding ceremony, despite everything.
When the lightning struck that maple tree, it hadn’t even rained. Down came the lightning anyway. Because of the heat, his father said. Something about electrons, and how electrons don’t give a damn if you’re peacefully sleeping, reading, or slurping up noodles while browsing the family computer. Electrons are happy to ruin both the peace and the keyboard.
That lightning strike coursed violently through the end of an unsuspecting branch. It rampaged through the bark until it met the junction of the roots in the earth, leaving a twisted Lichtenberg scar in its wake.
It happened in a moment, over as soon as it began — and yet that tree was thoroughly and irrevocably burned. Leaves didn’t grow on that branch after that. And his mother didn’t trust the rope holding up the homemade swing either. Reigen attended the playground down the street for all his airborne needs instead.
The tree remained in that charred state through Reigen’s adolescence until it rotted from the inside out. One day, they felled and carried it away — scar, tire, swing, and the rest. It was strange to see something he’d regarded as an immovable fixture shredded so easily through a woodchipper. So it goes.
All of this to say, the craziest shit only happened when Reigen least expected it.
Perhaps this should be obvious.
But Reigen expected nothing good from this debate. His conference with Mitsuura ensured that. He’d been ready to fling his usual bullshit. He would dodge and weave through whatever accusations of fraud Roshuuto could lob at him in return. He planned to overwhelm any competition with a righteous wave of word count when the going got tough. It’s how he’d always lived his life.
While the letter from his mother had stung — the idea of letting the audience gawk at him hurt worse. So he soldiered on. There wasn’t any other way.
More importantly, he knew he had to keep his head on straight for when things went south. He anticipated plenty of tomatoes. Roshuuto was the type of sleaze who feigned high only to swipe at a kneecap. Reigen had to be ready when the conversation inevitably turned to Shigeo. He didn’t want that outcome — but it’s what he came ready to fight.
The craziest thing Reigen’s ever seen was a downtown tornado with his bleeding student in the center.
The picture and the caption on the projector screen right now?
Dangerous, it reads.
What the hell.
Reigen’s white-tipped fingers slide clumsily over the wood surface of the podium. They’re cold and stiff even under the heat of the stage lighting. He’s sweating. The audience’s expectant attention is a sunburn on his forehead. They're surely waiting for a rebuttal. But his skull’s heavy over his shoulders and his arms feel like lead, and that’s hardly the right condition to serve back some pithy quip. The air around him is too thick a soup to breathe, much less to wade through.
Roshuuto’s blathering through some commentary, pairing misdeeds together in perfect complement, wine for the meaty entree, the cross punch that follows the first jab to Reigen’s unguarded teeth. Mercifully, Reigen can’t hear a word of the undoubtedly insufferable bloviation over the roar of blood pumping in his ears.
It’s all too goddamn loud.
His eyes dart around the cavern of the event space, past the half-moon of mismatched furniture, through the metal frames of industrial shelves, looking for something, anything, the smallest patch of steady ground. A brief respite. That alone would be enough to weather the shock. Enough to buy the time to will his brain back to full capacity. The stage lighting is bright and blinding. He squints through the cracks, enduring the spiky neon after-images that the spotlights burn into his retinas.
Initially, he finds nothing beyond a sea of strangers ogling ruthlessly at a projector screen. Voyeurs, he thinks. Or better yet — vultures.
And, as he continues his search, he finds something even worse.
Reigen’s seen some crazy shit in his life.
He’s never seen a guy as big as Serizawa look so small.
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the parachute candidate
chapter nine: fight or flight reflex ~how green was my rally~
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Saturday, November 28, 2015 — 20:44 | Warehouse 4 (Main) | Latest poll: 50%
From up high, from behind the shield of a wooden podium, Reigen locks eyes with Serizawa across the warehouse aisle. Serizawa’s back is to the wall. His hair is wild, mouth open, body stuck in place, a tent stake planted in rapid-acting quicksand. There’s a cut on his cheek dripping blood over his collar and a rip in the arm of his suit that Reigen can’t even begin to process.
Katsuya…
No, no it’s not that bad. No. It’s recoverable! It’s not that bad. Reigen, Serizawa, they both can move past this. Reigen can fix this. He can open his mouth and pave it all with a fresh coat of paint. It’s not that bad. He can turn it all around like it never happened at all. Serizawa doesn’t have to wear an expression like that. Not if he can just—
No, it’s bad. Fine. If he can’t wave it away, then—
He could tear it all down. His hands clench over the edges of the tabletop, acid rising in his throat. His molars grind enamel into dust. He could march over, tear apart the projector screen. Tear away that stupid smirk he knows Roshuuto’s wearing as he continues to blather on. Tear it down, the union, the election, all of it, everything, every last trace that any of this ever existed until he strikes bedrock, and there’s nothing left behind.
The idea of Roshuuto, Jodo, and the rest of the union chaff enjoying the satisfaction of an unreturned ace here makes Reigen’s skin crawl. And he’s incensed over this transgression among many, still so furious at this precipitous threat against everything he holds dear, that it’s burning in him bright and blue and icy.
No. Dangerous. Serizawa’s still staring across the way. No. He can’t get this riled up. He sucks in a breath against the stony-enclosure of his diaphragm, tries to downgrade his fury from a boil to a simmer.
He has to find a way out. And if it’s not with bare hands, he’ll have to be more creative. He needs to think. He needs to settle down before he blurts out all the acerbities on his tongue and gets himself fined for besmirching the sanctity of public television with excessive vulgarity. He’ll be damned if they make a Mobtube remix of this, because Reigen couldn’t control himself.
Reigen let this happen — no, he agreed to it. He could have skipped the debate. He could have skipped out on Mitsuura. He could have skipped out of everything entirely. He’d set out to keep things off Serizawa’s plate, ignorant and unburdened. How’d that go?
It’d be one thing if it were Reigen alone. The ill-fated TV spot, the press conference, the traumatizing one-two punch of the Mimic and Rusty, and the catastrophic parfait-eating contest that will remain obdurately undescribed — all of it he’d endure again alone if it meant he could go back and fix all of his mistakes. But he involved Serizawa.
Even if Reigen picks things up and ekes out a win, he loses. How could he tally a win? There’s a blown-up photograph of Serizawa on one side of Reigen, a roughed-up real-life Serizawa on the other — and the whole thing, every bit of it, down to the last demeaning drop —
It’s his fault.
He wants to run. That’s always his instinct at first sniff of danger. He’d like to dash out to the door or feel around for some ejector button and rocket through the ceiling — anything to erase away the shock etched over Serizawa’s face.
No. Wait —
Reigen miscalculated. But the watch on his wrist is still ticking, and it won’t stop ticking until the whole thing ends. Whether or not it ends with any of Serizawa’s remaining dignity or marital faith remains in question. If Reigen panics at this crucial moment, Roshuuto assuredly wins, and Serizawa loses. He can’t live with that.
The gravity of it all smacks Reigen back down to Earth with all the tender gentleness of a fully-torqued counterweight trebuchet. He gazes up from the ensuing Reigen-shaped crater with a stunning sense of clarity. Fight. Defense is offense. Screw campaigning or debating or any other flimsy nominal pretense for wielding a mic and casting stones. It’s personal now.
First things first — he needs to stem the bleeding. In this case, a psychic spouse across the warehouse who is literally and inexplicably bleeding.
For years, Reigen has watched Serizawa banish curses, slay yokai, and shepard wayward ghosts to the afterlife with ease. Bashful at first, Serizawa grew from stammering out warnings to stepping in front of Reigen with a shield to full-on manhandling Reigen out of harm’s way. He’s a force for good, studious as hell, and considerate to a fault. He’s rigid. He likes rules and guidelines and structure and finding some semblance of order within chaos. Despite all of that, he’s still a man. Even someone as talented as Serizawa has limits.
When things go wrong, it’s okay to run away.
He’d told Shigeo that a long time ago. He’d tried to tell Serizawa the day of the kaiju attack. He wishes he’d told Serizawa that the night after the campaign event when Serizawa had been so upset.
This time around, Reigen will be clear, and Serizawa will listen, and Reigen will be alone. But it’ll be okay.
“Katsuya,” Reigen mouths with a hand over the eavesdropping podium mic. “Go.”
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Saturday, November 28, 2015 — 20:49 | Warehouse 4 (Main) | Latest poll: 50%
Reigen watches through the brilliant faults as Dimple phases back out of the room. A streak of red, Sho dashes along the wall and grabs Serizawa's wrist. Serizawa hesitates at first, but they distort and vanish into the concrete. Teru and Ritsu scurry after them. The side door swings open and shut, waving until it comes to a rest. It’s as if they were never there at all.
Good. No one in the audience noticed Serizawa’s brief cameo from what Reigen can tell. Not Roshuuto either, still busy flapping his gums. One less distraction.
Next order of business — to focus and find his bearings. That starts with determining how deep Roshuuto’s claws go and recalibrating his strategy to salvage everything he can.
What did Roshuuto know?
The beach tornado, the kaiju attack, the press conference, his relationship status — all of those are public knowledge. Anyone with a newspaper subscription, a library card, or worse, an active Mobtter account might know about them. The knowledge only confirms Roshuuto knows his way around a search engine — a natural talent for any practiced fraud. Next.
The letter to the editor? That’s more of a mystery.
When he read it, Reigen could practically hear the words in his mother’s voice and cadence. There’s no question that she wrote it. Somehow, Roshuuto knew about it too. Mezato could have leaked it to Roshuuto’s campaign, maybe. He figures it’s unlikely that Yuzu Pepper’s intrepid reporter would compromise her sources so readily during an election season.
Instead, Roshuuto could have contacted Reigen’s mother himself. The thought is revolting, but his image-conscious mother would never have contacted a psychic of her own volition. So if Roshuuto did… Why? A gamble? A projection? A shot in the dark? Something more targeted? Reigen tucks that thread away for later — if only because the idea of Roshuuto meeting his parents makes his stomach turn. Poor Mitsuura. Next.
Roshuuto’s knowledge about Serizawa — how deep did it run?
Reigen has been careful to obscure the details of his colleague-turned-spouse’s troubled past. Serizawa isn’t at risk of criminal charges per the mysterious government agent handling the Claw case. That aside, staying quiet wards off any unwanted journalistic scrutiny, legal embroilment, or subpar online review.
Bits and pieces of the past lurk in the wild. That can’t be helped. Social media postings during the takeover. Government records. CCTV footage from downtown Seasoning City. The leftover fragments of civic memory. Still, it’d be hard for someone to piece together the full picture without insider knowledge. Roshuuto doesn’t know about Serizawa and Claw.
Not unless someone fed it to him.
“Unless there is a gun or an oath involved, you shouldn’t say things to official-looking people you don’t know,” Reigen had informed the office one day, apropos of two weeks spent sleepless after what Reigen now referred to as “The Lawyer Incident.” Then he’d looked over his near-bulletproof colleague and sheepishly revised the statement to oath only.
That was three years ago. Serizawa wouldn’t have spilled anything. Not on purpose. It could come from a former Claw lackey. After Rusty, it’s not hard to imagine Roshuuto sticking his head into a lion’s den of former terrorists, utterly ignorant to the inherent danger.
It could have been a friend.
Paranoid or not, he has to consider it. Someone close to the campaign with ties to Roshuuto. Reigen chews the inside of his cheek, flipping through the rolodex of contacts made throughout the campaign.
He stops abruptly on a page at the sneeze of an audience member. The more he thinks about the past month, the more it all clicks together. Maybe if he wasn’t so occupied and concussed and occupied again, he would have realized sooner. No casual supporter bothers with the trouble of visiting someone in a hospital room.
If Reigen’s hunch is right, then Roshuuto could have wrung out any information Hoshida consciously or unconsciously sponged from the office. Fighting the worst case scenario means defending against every outcome. Reigen has to assume Roshuuto knows everything about them. And if it’s not Shigeo, but Serizawa in Roshuuto’s scope, Reigen must adapt.
“Whatever you decide,” Serizawa told him from the start, “no matter what, you know you have my support.”
Trust like that didn’t come for free. Reigen had taken advantage of it far too much for a single political whim, far too much to put Serizawa through whatever inconvenience — or worse came of this. Whatever Roshuuto threw, Reigen could take it all — and not a single speck of mud would land on Serizawa.
As the shock melts away, Reigen reassumes acute awareness of his surroundings. He’d only been numbly entrenched in his internal monologue a minute or two per his wristwatch. With his return comes another nearly unbearable indignity — the grating monologue.
“—so how about it, Reigen? I don’t know about the gentlemen in the audience—”
There’s an unhappy muttering in the audience that sounds distinctly Mezato.
“—but personally, I wouldn’t want this on my front porch,” Roshuuto says with a dramatic gesture to the screen. “Care to explain how you could possibly approve of someone as destructive as your spouse with your rigorous set of principles?”
“Are you still talking? About the weather?” Reigen says with a forced snort of a laugh. It feels less jovial and more like he’s sucked chlorinated pool water through his sinuses — but it’s all about toppling Roshuuto off his high horse.
And Roshuuto would know if he’d ever been on the other side of an episode of public humiliation — a photo didn’t prove a damn thing. If it did, Reigen wouldn’t have a job.
“This is a joke, right? Waterspouts happen all the time. Anyone with a power level high enough would know that.”
Roshuuto skids mid-monologue, looking less self-aggrandizing and more than a little self-conscious. “...Huh?”
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Saturday, November 28, 2015 — 20:46 | Warehouse 4 (Parking Lot) | Latest poll: ???
Dimple led the group to the underground parking lot. He was a fairly effective navigator despite the warehouse’s labyrinthine layout. Only once did he forget that his corporeal companions couldn’t phase through the concrete at the edge of the section that formerly hawked bird feeders and wind chimes.
“You have to teach me that invisibility trick,” Teru bubbles to Sho. “That’d come in handy for all my undercov—understudy work. Uh, at the thespian club. Get up close to the performances, you know? Really learn all the blocking.”
“Sounds like you need to spend more time there,” Dimple mutters under his breath.
“I dunno,” Sho says. “It’s pretty advanced. Not everyone’s up to it.”
“Seriously?” Teru says.
“Yup,” Sho deadpans. “And if you mess up, you could totally die.”
“Please. I’m sure an incredibly average guy like me can—”
“I don’t think Ritsu’s brother can do it.”
“Kageyama-kun can’t…? No way!”
Sho suppresses an impish grin at how the comment riles Teru up.
Ritsu bristles at the offhanded mention of his brother, but after a brief ponderance, elects to allow it. “Maybe. I’ve never seen him try.”
Dimple says, “If Shigeo knew how to disappear at will, he’d never do a reading in literature class again.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Ritsu says — equal parts reflexive and unconvincing.
Teru slumps. “I suppose if I sprint so fast no one can see me, it’s basically the same thing.”
Serizawa sits on a curb stop, staring at the faded oil stain in the center of an empty compact-only parking space with his head in his hands. At the moment, there’s a lot to consider. The debate. The campaign. His marriage. His ability to leave the parking lot without ogling stares. But mostly, he’s occupied with smothering his volatile powers before he accidentally rips out any loose catalytic converters.
Sho offers him a half-crushed box of cookies-and-cream Pocky sticks from his track jacket pocket. Ritsu offers him temporary ownership of an 18/0 stainless steel spoon. Teru offers to help him return that floating 2006 Honda Civic back to the safety of the parking lot. Dimple offers to defenestrate Roshuuto out the fourth floor Vinegar Avenue overlook.
“It’s not like I’d get caught,” Dimple says, wiggling his ghostly hands. “No fingerprints.”
Serizawa graciously accepts the first three favors.
He’s too anxious to spare any remaining energy on self-consciousness over it. Help is help, even if it’s from a handful of teenagers and a morally-ambiguous spirit. If anything, the mechanical act of holding open a foil bag and shimmying biscuit dust into his open mouth is a nice break from the incessant jaw clenching. And he’s too keyed up to properly drive the floating car without risk of incident. The worst thing Serizawa can do after, well, all of this, is add an insurance premium hike to the mix.
There’s an echo across the lot as the vehicle’s tires return to rest, cushioned in the psychic whips conjured from Teru’s golden aura. There’s a dent in the car’s side, but Serizawa is 90% sure it was not Serizawa-induced.
Teru fiddles telekinetically with the locking mechanism before the alarm can sound. If Serizawa wasn’t busy playing overwhelmed traffic cop to his highway lane of speeding thoughts, he’d pepper Teru with a gentle but insistent inquiry about that particular set of skills.
But it’s one less weight off of him. Literally and figuratively, and every bit helps.
While Dimple dramatically recounts the tumultuous haunting of the defunct kids entertainment area for the rest of the group, Serizawa presses his bloodied shirt cuff to his dribbling cheek wound. He focuses on bending the borrowed spoon in a ring around his free thumb and continues sorting out his own internals.
When his powers slip out of control, they knot over his hands like the twisted ribbon strings of a thousand wayward balloons. He can’t tell which end connects to which head. Cutting it all away is simpler than sorting through the impossible tangle. But letting go causes its own set of problems, namely with gravity. Years ago, he used to tie all those strings to the frame of a plastic umbrella and pretend he never felt anything at all. It’s a reflex — to want to stuff all the worst feelings away where he doesn’t have to process them.
He’s overstimulated — simultaneously too hot, too cold, too twitchy, too fatigued, too everything. His cheek hurts, something’s burning against his thigh, and all the gymnastics in his dress shoes gave him blisters. It’s hard to tell, but he thinks he’s holding strings right now. He’s pretty sure. While he has no clue where they lead, he’s confident that his aura-aware comrades would warn him of any impending bodily harm or property damage.
Serizawa should be better at managing his powers.
During his first few exorcisms at the office, he got carried away. He calibrated over time. Having Shigeo there had been like learning to ride a bike with the sturdiest set of training wheels money could buy. A month with this mentorship, he learned to live in symbiotic harmony with the aura he’d spent nearly two decades suppressing.
Since leaving Claw, he’s regarded his powers as neither a blessing or a curse but another neutral option he’d never previously considered — a feature. Another demographic facet of his person. Here is Serizawa Katsuya: thirty-three years old, married, curly hair, above-average height, double-jointed in one thumb, predisposed to hypercholesterolemia — and yes, in possession of psychic powers. It’s a paint stroke among many, a piece in his puzzle, nothing remarkable compared with the whole.
“Characteristics alone don’t make you a good or bad,” Reigen told him once, red-faced over a watered-down lemon sour. “It’s about the things you do with them.”
At the time, Reigen was complaining about a one-star Yelp review from some no-show massage client. But sometimes, a good mantra strikes hard even without proper context.
Psychic powers don’t make anyone special. Some people are good at sudoku. Some people read quickly. Some people can whistle through their teeth. And some people can explode the overhead mercury vapor fluorescent tube lighting with an errant thought.
Still, they’re people all the same. Serizawa’s one of them. Just another guy.
It’s a great life philosophy except for one part —
Reigen isn’t another guy.
It’s Reigen, Serizawa thinks. It’s always about Reigen, isn’t it?
In the past month, hardly a day’s gone by without a floating pencil or two in the apartment, inadvertently rearranging the office furniture, jostling the fire extinguisher, shuffling through the backstage storage of an improv theater, or deflating a hefty chunk of the dilapidated ball pit.
And then, a beach tornado.
“Dangerous.”
That was about Reigen too.
When Serizawa was in his room, he’d accepted that breaking things was an inevitability. It’s less acceptable in a concrete expanse full of mid-tier automobiles. He can only imagine the look of abject terror Reigen might throw at him if Serizawa came back to explain that he’d inadvertently crushed six cars into a neat cube like a human trash compactor.
It’s one thing to cause problems for himself. It’s another to drag down another person. Hurt another person. There’s a word for that, according to Serizawa’s election booklet — wherever he left it. He has the damned thing memorized, so he hardly needs it anymore.
Though Dr. Sasaki’s words have tumbled through Serizawa’s brain ever since the last session, neither ‘partner’ nor ‘protector’ is the word on the tip of his tongue.
The word is Dijon Kori’s:
In financial accounting, he wrote, any cost to the campaign is called a liability.
Liability. That’s the one.
Is that why Reigen had kept secrets from him? Did Reigen know what was coming? Was Reigen keenly aware himself? Is that why Reigen hadn’t wanted him to manage in the first place? He was aware from the start that Serizawa was nothing more than a lia—
He’s wrenched off the derailed train of his thoughts when Teru pokes his shoulder. Serizawa’s aura snaps back to him with the exaggerated force of a retracting tape measure. It almost stings.
Without a hint of jest, Teru says, “Hey, uh, Serizawa-san — do you want us to kill that Hoshida guy for you?”
Serizawa jolts. “I—what?”
“He’s not gonna go for it, Teruki,” Dimple says. “I already asked.”
Teru taps a temple. “Great minds, Dimple-san.”
Serizawa still can’t tell if he’s joking.
“Anyway,” Teru says, “there are other ways to make people repent for their actions. For example, if we can find a bucket somewhere, I can—”
“Actually,” Serizawa says, cutting away any of Teru’s potential exploration into that realm of possibility, “I think I was too hard on that kid.”
Dimple stills. “What.”
Teru stands tall with his hands clasped behind his head. Dimple floats above him, precisely out of manual exorcism range as if the exact distance is etched into his spectral muscle memory. Sho’s next to them, hanging his weight on one hip with his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. He’s searching around the parking structure, probably in search of moths. Checked out of the immediate circle, Ritsu leans against the wall near the parking pay machine with his arms folded over his chest, meditative expression plastered over his face.
Serizawa honestly expected more distress. Maybe they don’t understand the direness of the situation.
“He didn’t say anything that wasn’t true,” Serizawa explains glumly. “Maybe he wouldn’t have known if I didn’t tell him things — but they’re facts. I’ve done some bad things in my life.”
“It’s not like you’re doing bad things now,” Teru says. “People can change, y’know? That’s something I wholeheartedly believe. I’m not the person I used to be, and I don’t think you are either. You stopped wearing the tan suit. You’re much cooler now.”
“It’s a political campaign,” Serizawa replies. “People deserve to know what they’re voting for.”
“They’re voting for Reigen though,” Sho says, waving a half-eaten Pocky stick, notably intact. “Why does what you do matter?”
“I think…the choices people make reveal a lot about their character. I know Roshuuto-san said that, but… He’s not wrong. Reigen-san’s a part of me. And if I had to make important decisions, I don’t think they’d be free of his influence. It goes both ways.”
Serizawa stares back down at the oil spill, noticing how it looks a bit uncannily like a mallard perched in an armchair.
“If that’s the case, I might have ruined his campaign completely. If he can’t win the election, it’ll be completely my fault for dragging him down.”
Ritsu exhales a throaty sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose like he’s blasted through some ceiling for tolerance. He kicks away from his lean against the wall, rejoining the circle.
“I think you’re all missing the point,” he says bluntly.
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Official Height Estimate????
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Saturday, November 28, 2015 — 20:55 | Warehouse 4 (Main) | Latest poll: 50%
Meanwhile, back at the circus, Reigen attempts a careful balancing act without any semblance of a safety net — offering a convincing debate performance, while carefully diverting the conversation from the elephant in the room.
It began with knocking Roshuuto off rhythm —
“...Huh?” Roshuuto says.
— which seems to work.
“This is a joke, right?” Reigen continues, straining for lightweight joviality. “You’re not serious.”
“I— Ah. …Did I touch a nerve, Reigen?”
Reigen’s not about to let this guy piss him off again on live TV. In his best attempt at continued nonchalance, he waves a dismissive hand.
“Nah. But per federal communications law, you’re obligated to tell the truth on air,” Reigen says. Is it true? He doesn’t know. But it sounds true, and that’s gotten him through every seance he’s ever attempted. “Thought I should tell you. It seems like you didn’t know. Waterspouts are a common meteorological phenomenon.”
“It’s low to call someone a liar so flippantly,” Roshuuto huffs overdramatically. “Serizawa Katsuya was in the middle of it, so it must have been his powers. For the record, I took that photo myself from my beachside property. I used the same expensive camera I use for my self-portraits. It’s completely authentic!”
That’s exactly what Reigen tells his photo exorcism clients too.
“Is that proof? Ha! Anyone can PhotoShop—”
“Immediately suggesting that I would PhotoShop it?” Roshuuto says, like he was waiting for the pitch with an open catcher’s mitt. “Isn’t it incriminating how quickly you think like a fraud?”
“I’m offering a healthy dose of skepticism. They say people should only believe half of what they see. Even if it’s real, anyone can misrepresent a photo. Even witnesses to crimes misreport the truth.”
“Context is important, isn’t it?” Roshuuto oozes, thicker than grease. “Then yes — this is a picture from November seventh, the day the lighthouse was destroyed. All that needless damage to a property of historical record! These things are irreplaceable.”
“And why’s it so historical?”
“Because historical things happened there. Presumably.”
“What you’re giving isn’t context at all,” Reigen says with gestures more wild. He’s burning through his unbothered disposition quicker than he’d like. “If you’re gonna keep bringing this up, then I’ll set the record straight.” He stabs a finger into the surface of the podium. “Were Serizawa and I there that day? Yes. Did the lighthouse fall down? Yes. Does that mean it’s our fault?” Reigen grabs his bag of salt from his pocket and drops it on the ground with a thump. A few grains spill out. “Oh no!” he says in mock concern. “My salt fell. Must have been Roshuuto! He’s standing right there!”
He pulls a groan from the audience. Roshuuto’s lip curls derisively.
“That’s what you sound like,” Reigen says. “You’re telling me an old lighthouse doesn’t have structural issues already? The audience wasn’t born yesterday. I see why you didn’t bother to bring in a fact checker for this, or his hands would be too full every time you spoke.”
Roshuuto sputters, “I— You—”
“And here’s another thing! A pretty important big detail if you ask me — or did you miss the fact that we exorcized an attacking kaiju first?”
Reigen hesitates for a split second and amends the statement — a lie, but not one that anyone could prove on film. The more he keeps the conversation away from Serizawa, the better. “I exorcized a kaiju. That should have been within the vantage of your ‘beachside property.’ I guess your view isn’t as good as you claim if you missed it.”
A few members of the audience laugh, Shinra and Jodo among them. As uncomfortable as he is being on the same side as the latter, Reigen seizes the confidence boost.
“The lighthouse fell because of the kaiju attack, not because of the tornado. Check the tapes yourself. Maybe I shouldn’t have been in the lighthouse, but either way — isn’t it better to destroy some empty old property than allow any harm to come to innocent lives?”
The comment receives a murmur of approval from the crowd. Reigen nods along in encouragement, glancing over, hoping to find defeat or embarrassment on Roshuuto’s side of the stage after such a thorough haranguing. Outside, there’s a clattering noise, as if someone knocked on the warehouse door. It seems to jolt Roshuuto back into action — and sensing a lost cause with the projector image, he seizes a new thread of argument. With a snap of his fingers, the attendant ceases the projection, and Reigen breathes a sigh of relief as the danger of “Dangerous” fades away.
“The lizard,” Roshuuto says slowly. “You’re the one who killed it, yes?”
“I said I took care of it, didn’t I? You must not have been listening,” Reigen says arrogantly. He seizes the opportunity to take it a step further, spend more of Roshuuto’s precious airtime on a subject that only helps Reigen’s campaign and keeps Roshuuto’s claws out of Serizawa. “You’ll see it on our campaign website and our social media. Go ahead and search for it. I neutralized the kaiju threat before it reached the shore.”
“That poor animal,” Roshuuto bemoans. “Gone too soon from this world. Dead at your hands.”
Reigen gapes at the rhetorical whiplash of the moment. What was Roshuuto playing at, garnering sympathy for a —
“—giant lizard? That ‘poor animal’?” Reigen repeats incredulously. “It was an evil spirit. That kaiju attacked us. It almost killed Ka—Serizawa! And I nearly busted my head open! What the hell are you—?”
“Kaiju is a derogatory term,” Roshuuto says disdainfully, as if Reigen committed some cardinal sin — strode into his home in muddy shoes or smothered his pizza in ketchup. “That’s what my dear donor friends are saying. You’re supposed to call it an oversized anole.”
“Excuse me?”
Reigen wonders deliriously if he’s having some long, strange and very specific nightmare. If he isn’t, he sure would like to rip Roshuuto a new oversized an—
“You’ve heard of the People for Ethical Treatment of Psychic Anoles, haven’t you?” Roshuuto continues. “It’s okay. I know as a union outsider, you lack proper connections, but I’ll throw you a bone. They’re an up-and-coming fan club, and they were on the cover of the paper of record this month.”
A fan club? On the Asahi Shimbun? Reigen’s pretty sure the National Diet was on the morning’s copy he spied in the self-service newsrack when he’d walked home from union headquarters. Not some weird lizard fan club. As he ponders, the audience gets louder, chatting, seats shifting. Beyond them, the knocking sound intensifies.
“As a leader,” Roshuuto says, “you have to listen to the will of the people. What an enormous cruelty! What a loss for science! Before that loveable creature could—”
Reigen barks, “You think we should have let the evil spirit just pass us by? You think it would have wandered into town and what? Hung out? Attended your trivia night? No! Serizawa didn’t kill it. I didn’t kill it either. It wasn’t alive! We—I exorcized it, because I’m a damned good psychic and that’s part of the job. This is a union full of exorcists! It’s not unique! Even someone as low-level as you would have—”
“Surely, there were plenty of other options if you’d cared to consider them,” Roshuuto deflects. “Any union member might have handled the threat in a more dignified manner with zero casualties, people or property. Does the government animal control service execute creatures on sight? Absolutely not. That’s why we need proper licensing and oversight.”
“Shinra Banshomaru was there! He’ll tell you. He didn’t exorcize the threat.”
Reigen can practically hear the “please no” from the audience. And more knocking. What the hell’s with all the knocking?
“Shinra-san assisted the evacuation effort. His priorities helped prevent casualties,” Roshuuto rapostes. “You clearly stated your deeply-held morals earlier: people with powers bear incredible responsibility. Do you believe that or not? For yourself? Does your husband get special treatment for murder and property destruction?”
Reigen steams at the impossibly childish argument. It’s like talking to a toddler, completely lost to facts. But it signals something — if Roshuuto’s depending on such a flimsy argument for a cornerstone, he’s either in debt to some donor or it’s his last hail mary in the debate. Reigen figures if he can stay on course, he might be able to snap the guillotine and wrap this whole debacle up.
He wonders if Serizawa’s doing okay, wherever he went. He wonders if he’ll be able to look Serizawa in the eye when he comes home tonight after everything.
“If you’re going to blame anyone for the lighthouse, cut it with the Serizawa stuff and blame me,” Reigen says, unable to stifle the irritation in his voice. “Whatever! But lives are lives and spirits are spirits. Exorcisms are a standard part of any psychic office, yours included. Something we’re good at, or did you forget about the time we had to exorcize the curse that almost killed you?” He points an accusatory finger at his opponent. “You’re negligent, your comparison is crap, and you sound disingenuous.”
“And you sound like a lovesick hypocrite. That’s a bit sad, isn’t it? Maybe an investigation is in order,” Roshuuto replies mockingly, as if Reigen hadn’t said anything at all. Over the background crescendo of knocking, adds, “As I understand it, Serizawa’s had some other past difficulties, right?”
Okay.
Alright.
That is enough.
Thoroughly incensed, Reigen opens his mouth to let free loose the angry deluge that’s lapped at the confines of his chest since the projector screen first blinked on — divisive, yes; loud, most likely; coherent, possibly; riddled with expletives, certainly—
Something else beats him to it.
The auditorium doors burst open, banging hard against the walls. There’s running, stomping, yelling, chanting.
Just when Reigen thinks the debate hadn’t lobbed enough lemons, rocks, boulders, flaming piles of crazy shit at his campaign, his marriage, and his belief in basic human decency —
“Lizard murderer!”
— in comes the next circus act, hurtling toward their ringleader.
.
Saturday, November 28, 2015 — 20:59 | Warehouse 4 (Parking Lot) | Latest Poll: 50%
Ritsu lets his first utterance adequately sink into his captive audience before continuing. Serizawa recognizes this public speaking technique from Winning your Supernatural Election Campaign: A Primer Chapter Seven: “How to Give an Effective Speech without Drawing Laughs, Groans, or Legal Scrutiny.”
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Ritsu says — the usual grim preamble he mutters before denying pollyannaish budget proposals or rejecting love confessions. “But Serizawa-san, you aren’t special.”
The spoon in Serizawa’s grasp crushes into a crumpled, grotesque marble in his palm. It slips through his fingers and clatters to the concrete.
He blinks. “Oh. Oh, god, sorry, I’ll just—”
Sho snorts, punching Serizawa’s shoulder. He stabs a thumb in Ritsu’s direction. “Can you believe this guy?” Sho dons his best overly-serious Ritsu voice, “‘I don’t mean to be rude.’ Seriously! And then he says the rudest thing you’ve ever heard! After you took us to that movie and everything!”
Ritsu grumbles, “I’m pointing out the obvious since none of you are looking at the big picture. If Reigen-san’s campaign can’t win the election, it’s because Reigen-san’s campaign can’t win the election.” He waves a flippant hand toward Serizawa. “Hiring you is part of a series of choices. You have no idea if they were bad choices until election day comes.”
“You’re probably the only decent choice that dumbass has ever made,” Dimple adds. “Well, you and Shigeo. And upgrading the air conditioner.”
“Saying anything about the campaign outcome without evidence is completely irrational,” Ritsu says.
Serizawa says, “But polls—”
“There’s no polling this quickly,” Ritsu dismisses. “And the debate hasn’t ended either.”
“And Mezato-san’s reporting—”
“Press, even bad press, only brings more attention to your campaign,” Ritsu says. “It’s free advertising. In a weird way, Hoshida-san, and by extension, Roshuuto-san, might have done you a favor. A campaign should take advantage of opportunities as they come and discard anything that doesn’t work. In the end, you need to win with whatever means you can. You shouldn’t knock any approach unless you’re completely sure it’s detrimental.”
“You’re kind of twisted, aren’t you?” Sho says to Ritsu’s chagrin.
Ritsu flushes. “I’m just saying. I mean, it’s not like it’s over. Even in school politics, I’ve recovered from worse than this.”
He and Dimple share a meaningful look before he concludes, “Ignore it and move on. Only apologize if you have to. Most importantly, keep fighting.”
“Fair point, little brother,” Teru chirps. “My life didn’t end after I lost my clothes, my hair, my pride, and my entire middle school gang. Actually, it ended up being a good thing. I don’t know you that well, but I think you’re resilient, Serizawa-san. If you can survive fighting Kageyama-kun, I know from experience that you’re pretty tough.”
Serizawa says, “I don’t know if a middle school gang is exactly the same thing as psychic business politics.”
“You’d be surprised,” Teru says cheerfully. “It’s very organized, and there’s heaps of subterfuge.”
As normal as Serizawa wishes his childhood was, sometimes he’s grateful he forwent aspects of the middle school experience. Mercifully, the only subterfuge Serizawa experienced at night school was when he went drinking with a seatmate after a geography exam — and when the bill came, his seatmate claimed his “cat” ate his “wallet.”
“Even if it’s about Claw… My mom and I, we had to lie low after everything happened with my pops,” Sho says, regarding the flex of the toe boxes on his sneakers. “Got everything delivered. We can go to the grocery store without weird looks now though. I dunno. I guess people forgive things after a while. Or maybe they just forget.”
“Sho-kun…”
Sho picks up the lumpy hunk of metal from its rest over the oil stain, straightening it back to form with his powers.
“No offense, but you were pretty bad at being a bad guy. And even if that fake psychic guy brings it up — at least this isn’t cable TV,” Sho says. “That’d be a tougher recovery. Trust me! Going without SmileMart pork buns for that long was a real bummer. I like seeing how long I can turn that glasses guy’s tongs invisible before he notices.” He hands the spoon back to Serizawa. “Anyway, bellyaching about this stuff is boring. You’re more interesting than that, y’know?”
It’s warped and grainy — a ghost of its original form. The neck is too thin, the handle too pancake flat, and the bowl too lopsided. Still, it’s unmistakably a spoon.
“Hm,” Ritsu observes. “Metal fatigue. You can only warp spoons so much before they fall apart entirely. And you put so much pressure on it that it practically melted.”
“...Sorry.”
Ritsu says dismissively, “No. It’s pretty cheaply-made stainless steel, so I’m not surprised you crushed it. It’s not as nice as Mitsuura-san’s spoons.”
Teru hums knowingly. “He has real silver. That’s the Lamborghini of flatware.”
Serizawa says, “This isn’t yours…?”
“I swiped it from the kitchen section,” Ritsu admits. “It’s called Mobsig, and it doesn’t contain an ounce of nickel. I’d never own something like this myself.”
“Spoon elitist,” Sho accuses.
“I take my hobbies seriously!”
The banter continues. Serizawa bends the worn-out spoon into a final resting loop and twirls it around a finger, resuming his attempt at self-regulation. This time, the traffic feels more manageable. No strings that he’s aware of. His heart isn’t pounding in his chest, and he can feel the ends of his toes in his dress shoes.
He’s not okay. Not really. But he’s grateful.
Between Sho’s lasting familial trauma, Ritsu’s emerging machiavellianism, and nearly everything about Hanazawa Teruki, the whole experience leaves Serizawa wondering if he should refer his therapist’s services more gratuitously. He gazes at Dimple and decides she probably doesn’t take ghosts.
For now, he’s usurped the steering wheel of his psychic faculties. That’s more than enough to re-enter the action.
But more importantly…
Arataka.
Serizawa checks his watch and frowns. He’s tuned out for longer than he thought.
“Ar—Reigen-san has things under control, right?”
Teru pulls out his phone. “Hard to say. Mobtter’s kinda broken right now, but I’ve been following the feed. The debate’s still going, but everything’s taking forever to load.”
Ritsu glances at his own phone. “Mezato-senpai’s tweets say there’s been a lot of mud-slinging. I suppose that’s Roshuuto-san’s style.”
“I’m going to—”
“Stay out of the warehouse,” Sho warns, “You don’t want to attract attention from Ritsu’s brother’s master, right?”
“Yes. Right. Then I’d like to watch Kurata-san’s livestream.”
Dimple asks, “Even if it’s about you?”
Sho brings up the feed. He has the best cell signal in the basement level, and, he tells them, his phone plan gets charged to his father’s account. He backtracks several minutes so Serizawa can watch what he missed.
If there’s still a chance left, Serizawa decides, the worst thing he can be is a liability. The second worst thing? Useless. If Reigen’s winning, he’ll happily support him. But if Reigen’s losing, if they’re both losing — then he’ll share that as well, however he can. Part of being married is that Reigen’s pain is his pain too.
“Yes,” Serizawa says. He regards the 2006 Honda Civic, pleased that it remains firmly planted on the pavement. “I have to see things through. Even if it gets messy.”
.
> Refreshing feed…
mobtter — @sho_not_tell
For you | Following
Vote Reigen Arataka is live (unfollow)
@reigen_for_president • started an hour ago
let’s all just settle down now (edited)
⏯️ —————————————— 🔈
401 comments • 542 retweets • 752 likes • 5321 views
(auto-generated transcript:)
[...]
[The camera points to Tome’s wide-eyed face. In selfie mode, she pans around the warehouse front row until the stage is visible behind her. It’s chaos. Speckled head-to-toe with green, Reigen’s clutching Roshuuto by the collar, yelling something unintelligible, and Roshuuto is white as a sheet.]
[Next to them, there’s an overturned bucket bearing Roshuuto’s campaign logo and the phrase #ReigenPailsInComparison and #ThirstyforRoshuuto. It’s spilling out an unidentifiable liquid. In front of the stage, a security guard missing a chunk of an ear wrestles a wriggling masked stranger to the ground.]
Tome: You guys are never gonna believe what just happened!
Shigeo: Please be careful.
Tome: Seriously, I’m never gonna forget this!
Shigeo: I should have skipped arm day.
[Behind them, someone yells, “Leave Lizzy alone—!”]
Shigeo: Kurata-senpai, you need to duck.
Tome: Mob-kun, look at these engagement numbers!
Reigen: [Faintly in the background] Fucking hell, Roshuuto—move!
[The phone shakes, showing nothing more than a green-tinged blur.]
[This livestream has paused.]
.
Saturday, November 28, 2015 — 21:09 | Warehouse 4 (Parking Lot) | Latest poll: 50%
The group stares in stunned silence at Sho’s glitching smartphone as the feed dissolves into colorful static. Whatever semblance of calm the group managed to achieve quickly dissipates. Sho raps the phone over the back of his hand as if he can manually coax the pixels back into position.
“That guy looked kinda familiar,” Dimple says.
“Yeah…” Teru says, tapping his chin. “You’re right.”
“This,” Serizawa bleats, “is too messy.”
Serizawa jumps up from his seat on the parking block. His tense muscles had finally relaxed before the stream started, only to pump back full of raw adrenaline at the first sign of trouble.
Sho refreshes the glitching stream a few more times unsuccessfully, mumbling about the ads loading better than the content. He pulls down to refresh once, twice, three times. Each attempt yields nothing more than a halfhearted spin of the loading wheel, a distorted two second clip shilling a tower defense game, and disappointment. He closes and reopens the app. Still nothing.
When Sho looks up from his handiwork, the rest of the group is gone — the only proof they were ever there lies in the swinging door and the misshapen spoon left over the oil-blotted parking surface.
“Geez,” Sho complains. “You guys couldn’t have waited a bit?”
He ties a loose shoelace into a neat little bow and takes off too.
.
> Refreshing feed…
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mobtter — @reigen_for_president
For you | Following
⏺️ Your live stream is paused. Continue?
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LIZZY-POCALYPSE @mezato_writes • 1 hour ago
🧵RSSU DEBATE LIVE TWEET THREAD 🧵⬇️
└LIZZY-POCALYPSE @mezato_writes • 1 hour ago
@mezato_writes Opening statements from @reigen_for_president are…fine? Nothing to write home about. Standard issue campaign promises. Where’s the drama?? 😴
└LIZZY-POCALYPSE @mezato_writes • 1 hour ago
@mezato_writes Breaking news! My pen ran out of ink.
└LIZZY-POCALYPSE @mezato_writes • 1 hour ago
@mezato_writes Yup, ended as boring as it began! @roshuuto_official is up next. Hopefully this is less of a snooze fest. I wanna see some action!!
|
~ Open 40 More Tweets ? ~
|
└LIZZY-POCALYPSE @mezato_writes • 9 mins ago
@mezato_writes They’re having some back and forth about something. The sound quality isn’t very good. Reigen looks pissed. Is it loud in here or is it just me?
└LIZZY-POCALYPSE @mezato_writes • 8 mins ago
@mezato_writes WHOA WHOA HOLD UP
└LIZZY-POCALYPSE @mezato_writes • 8 mins ago
@mezato_writes くぁwせdrftgyふじこlp
└LIZZY-POCALYPSE @mezato_writes • 8 mins ago
@mezato_writes ….L.
└LIZZY-POCALYPSE @mezato_writes • 7 mins ago
@mezato_writes …sorry, dropped my phone
└LIZZY-POCALYPSE @mezato_writes • 6 mins ago
@mezato_writes Breaking news! Lizard protestors have slithered into the building. They’re attempting to scale the stage!
└LIZZY-POCALYPSE @mezato_writes • 3 mins ago
@mezato_writes INCOMING!!!!! [WTF.mp4]
[alt text: A twenty second video clip. In the clip, several masked protestors run past security and approach the debate stage with two buckets. Roshuuto greets them happily and attempts to thank them for their support of the campaign.
Reigen seizes the back of Roshuuto’s jacket before the first wave of slime can hit him. The bucket flies through the air and splatters green sludge over the stage and between the podiums. The second bucket gets thrown at Reigen from the other side of the stage. He ducks with the agility of a man well-practiced at dodging projectiles. The wave of goo is about to hit a dumbstruck Roshuuto in the face, mere centimeters away when the video cuts.]
└LIZZY-POCALYPSE @mezato_writes • just now
@mezato_writes OH SHIT that was wild
└ Yuzu Pepper HS Student Council @YPSeitokai • just now
@mezato_writes Use of vulgar language violates student social media policy. This will go down as a demerit on your permanent record. Please refrain from further transgressions. Thank you. #AlwaysWatching
└LIZZY-POCALYPSE @mezato_writes • just now
@YPSeitokai you guys are so obsessed with me! a girl commits seditious libel ONE time and suddenly she’s the bad guy
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Mitsuura @ESPerEnthusiast • 7 mins ago
Hmm… The broadcast keeps getting interrupted. I really wanted to watch the #RSSUDebate live! What’s going on, @BS_WTF_TV? #MyMoneysOnReigen #Literally
└Wilderness, Transit, Finance @BS_WTF_TV • just now
@ESPerEnthusiast We apologize for the delay. Our crew on-site is having issues with the equipment. Please be patient.
(@techn0kinesis retweeted this)
Asagiri Masashi’s Jet @MasashiJet • 13 mins ago
Landed at Seasoning City International Airport (OMOB) 40 mins ago. Remained grounded due to ongoing electrical interference.
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Saturday, November 28, 2015 — 21:08 | Warehouse 4 (Main) | Latest poll: 50%
“Fucking hell, Roshuuto—move!”
Reigen braces instinctively at the pending impact. Roshuuto’s doing a piss-poor job of protecting his vital areas. And since Reigen’s been on the other side of that bucket already this election season, he knows the heavy sludge will smack Roshuuto with enough force to turn him into next Tuesday.
But the goopy impact doesn’t come.
Reigen opens his eyes, thinks wildly, There’s absolutely no way Roshuuto has powers—
“Reigen!” calls Tome from the audience. And when he turns his head, he can see Shigeo, hair floating, outstretched arm directing his invisible aura into holding the bucket afloat a hair’s breadth from Roshuuto’s face.
“Ah,” Reigen says, relieved to be wrong for the first time since he took the stage. “Right. That makes more sense.”
Reigen appreciates the subtlety of Shigeo’s disdain for his opponent — that even though his student stops the brutal execution, he still holds the threat looming overhead. Or he might just be oblivious. Either way, he can see the sweat gathered in the crease through Roshuuto’s forehead.
He relinquishes his grip on Roshuuto’s emerald-lined suit jacket and brushes himself off, surveying the danger.
The two attackers already threw their buckets and dashed away, pursued by the frazzled stage manager and her assistants. Reigen can only assume it’s the same group that drenched him and Serizawa earlier in the month.
There aren’t many protestors out in the audience. They’re dressed in black and green, holding signs and buckets and megaphones, and one of them is dressed in an iridescent lizard suit — an unfortunate choice as a security guard grabs them by the tail. Only a few lucky protesters made it past the backrows to the stage in the first place, hampered by a combination of security and limited audience ESP.
Roshuuto’s stunned into silence, and Reigen wants to comment on it — but then the floating bucket drops to the floor, spritzing Roshuuto with a thorough coating of green paste. Some chunky splotches land over Reigen before the bucket rolls away, oozing over the stage between the podiums. The spill soaks through Roshuuto’s ostentatious patent leather shoes. Roshuuto spits green onto the stage, making a face at the acrid taste on his tongue and the glitter particles stuck between his molars. Reigen curses both Roshuuto and the pending dry cleaning fees.
“Sorry, Reigen-san!” Tome bellows. “Mob said his arm got tired. He’s sore from training.”
Reigen waves them off, wipes his face of slime and leftover makeup, and then affixes Roshuuto with a glare. After everything Roshuuto put him through in the afternoon, the whole campaign, Reigen should be steaming with anger. But the protest interruption threw him off, and frankly, Roshuuto looks so helplessly pathetic as he stands in front of him — betrayed and splattered.
“Did you seriously trust those people?” Reigen says. “They’re basically a cult.”
Roshuuto says nothing. He wipes his face with the black handkerchief from the pocket of his elaborately-trimmed and equally elaborately-stained trousers. He trudges past the spreading ooze of slime and sits down on the stage far behind the podiums, watching security scramble through the aisles.
Reigen continues exasperatedly, “You pulled out this many stops. Geez. Are you that desperate to win this?”
“You’re not in the union,” Roshuuto says from the floor. He wrings the handkerchief out beside him and then smushes it in his hand. “You don’t get it. You barely know what the union does.”
“I know plenty about this union,” Reigen says. “Even before all of this… I know how it all works.” He whips his hand around. “It’s all business. You think I don’t know what a promotion cycle looks like? When I worked corporate, everyone went absolutely insane every time a higher-up left. Half the time, the whole thing got so messy that the loser had to quit the company entirely. I didn’t get it then, and I don’t get it now.”
“Nope. Wrong. As usual, dear rival, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, well, I know more than I wish I ever did.”
“Then you’d know that if you hadn’t interfered, I would have won. There’s no question. My policies protect all the existing member businesses from outsiders like you. I’d make them money,” Roshuuto offers. “It’s actually amazing that you managed to tie up the polls at all.” He coughs a laugh. “What sort of promiscuous deals did you make behind closed doors, hm?”
Reigen’s eye twitches. “Your apprentice yakked all about it.”
“Origo-chan,” Roshuuto says with a quirk of his lip. “How’d you figure it out?”
“You,” Reigen says. “Just now.”
Roshuuto stills.
“You had his cold. It went around my office too.”
“I see. l’ll give you this then — you managed to hire a good team. Your secretary, for example. Origo never shuts up about her. I should have poached her when I had the chance. Then it would have been a landslide.” He pauses. “But there’s still time.”
Of course he had a good team, Reigen thinks. It’d be an affront to humanity to think otherwise.
In the audience, he finds Tome waving her phone at the action. Shigeo rubs his aching bicep muscle. In the chaos, the other esper kids managed to squeeze themselves into the front row, stuffing themselves three to a loveseat with Ritsu unhappily squished in the middle. Dimple settles on the back of the loveseat, crossing one popped-out leg over the other. It’s remarkable — the way all these people can spend weeks, even months apart throughout the year, and yet in these moments throughout the campaign, come together as if time had never passed at all.
Then Reigen’s breath catches in his throat when he notices — Serizawa returned. He settles back next to Tome. He’s harried, worn, worse for wear, dried blood, clothes ripped. But he’s okay. He’s okay.
“Maybe you’re right,” Reigen says, hesitant to tear his eyes away. But he too wanders over and settles, seated on the stage as security bangs through the doors. It’s over, and he’s tired.
He’s so tired.
“I don’t get the union, because I don’t get all of this.” Reigen gestures at the abandoned bucket in front of them. Roshuuto grimaces at the visibility of his own name on the exterior. “Why bother? You have your business alr—”
“Business and gift shop,” Roshuuto corrects. “And I’m working on a licensing deal. Maybe books too. I know a guy.”
Reigen rolls his eyes. “You have your shitty business already. Why do more?”
“Because I’m running for president,” Roshuuto says.
“But…why?”
“Because I’d like to be president.”
“But why go this far?”
“Because,” Roshuuto emphasizes each syllable in the most churlish manner possible, “I’d like to be president. What an inane question! Why does anyone want anything?”
“You want to be president for the sake of being president,” Reigen summarizes warily. “So you call a guy’s mother.”
“It’s part of the game,” Roshuuto says dismissively. He pockets his damp handkerchief and checks his cuticles. As if he can’t help it, he smirks, “She was lovely by the way. Maybe I’ll add her to my network. She’s well-connected, you know? She said her shogi league started up again.”
“She doesn’t play shogi,” Reigen snaps.
“She doesn’t play shogi,” Roshuuto agrees. “You act all high and mighty, but you’re running for the same job I am.”
Reigen hesitates. Security sweeps the last fragments of PETPA out the backdoor.
“I’m not running for president,” Reigen insists. “I didn’t— I’m…opposing. I’m running for you to not become president.”
“How admirable. Truly, you’re above all of us.”
“Look,” Reigen says. “It’s been a long, tiring, and incredibly gross day. I don’t care about this anymore. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like you. Actually, I hate you. I’m furious about all of this, but watching you get hit in the face made me feel a little better. Lucky for you, Serizawa tends to be more forgiving than I am. So. I can’t believe I’m saying this but… Let’s wrap this up.”
Roshuuto narrows his eyes. “A truce?”
“Whatever you want to call it. I want a shower, and I’m sure you want to recoup your remaining dignity, so…”
“But I wasn’t losing,” Roshuuto argues. “Why would I do that?”
Reigen gestures at the sheen of residue splattered over his opponent. “All of this. I thought—”
More desperately, Roshuuto presses, “What? That I’d roll over?”
“What? No? But we’re done here.”
“You think this means you win, Reigen?” he rises to his feet hurriedly. A little too fast. He holds his head, blinking away lightheadedness and stumbling haphazardly toward the goo. “...Don’t be ridiculous! Why would I stop when I’m winning?”
“Who said you’re winning? I thought I was—”
“So one thing went wrong!” Roshuuto all but shouts at him. “It’s not over. I’m not done here! Not by a longshot.”
Reigen rises to his own feet, seized by pending fear. Roshuuto nearly slips on his frantic dash toward the podium. “We’re not done at all. The voters have to know! They have to know about you, who you really are! The whole story. And I know they’ll be shocked to know all about who Serizawa really is.”
Reigen’s blood runs cold.
“Don’t you dare.”
.
> Opening Mobtter…
> Refreshing feed…
mobtter — @serizawa_k
Vote Reigen Arataka is live (unfollow)
@reigen_for_president • started over an hour ago
Debates are just one facet of a campaign (edited)
⏯️ —————————————— 🔈
481 comments • 567 retweets • 811 likes • ??? views
[…]
[The camera fixes on Reigen and Roshuuto, seated and chatting unintelligibly behind the podiums, as the rest of Reigen’s campaign, gathered on sofas out of view, spin idle conversation.]
Serizawa: —came back as soon as I saw what happened. It seems like I missed it. I-is everyone okay? I was worried.
Tome: Never better! If Reigen-san told me politics was gonna be like this, I would have told him to run ages ago! …Oh, but um, Serizawa-san, I’m sorry about…
Serizawa: It’s fine.
Shigeo: It must have been hard to see that.
Tome: But Reigen-san said…
Serizawa: I saw what he said too, bits and pieces. I was upset but… I’m okay now. I promise. I’m more worried about Arataka.
[Roshuuto looks visibly more agitated, the longer Reigen speaks to him.]
Serizawa: I could never do what he does. I could tell things got to him, but he stayed so calm. He’s amazing, isn’t he? And I couldn’t…
Dimple: You had your hands full, Katsuya.
Serizawa: Sure but… Aah, Kurata-san! I have to tell you something!
Tome: Mob told me you went after Hoshida-senpai.
Serizawa: He—
Shigeo: Sorry. I didn’t think it needed to be a secret.
Serizawa: I see.
[On stage, Roshuuto stumbles to a stand.]
Serizawa: I wanted to make sure you were okay.
Tome: I don’t want to talk about this on stream. But…he’ll get an earful from me later.
Dimple: That’s surprisingly mature.
Tome: What can I say, Dimple-chan? I’m a charming and talented woman with a budding online career.
Dimple: Don’t get ahead of yourself.
Shigeo: Hey, uh, everyone, is he—?
[Roshuuto seizes the mic, and Reigen looks furious.]
Tome: Oh shit, there’s more? I thought they’d call it. I gotta make sure I get this. Roshuuto’s last stand before Reigen strikes him down for good!
Serizawa: Let’s maybe watch the language on the official account.
Tome: Yeah, yeah.
[Roshuuto yells something into the mic, but the mic is muffled. He shakes the mic, taps it a few times, and points an accusatory finger at Reigen. Reigen stares defiantly into the viewfinder.]
Roshuuto: My opponent, Reigen Arataka, is married to —
Reigen: [Muffled] Don’t you dare say—
Roshuuto: —some kind of criminal!
[The audience rumbles confusedly.]
Shigeo: Oh.
Tome: I didn’t know he would say something like… Ah, Serizawa-san, what should I…?
Dimple: That’s kind of open-ended.
Serizawa: …Shit.
[...]
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r/relationships — posted by u/psychic_saboteur_throwaway ??? secs ago
i (20M) ruined my crush’s (18F) boss’s (31M) husband’s (33M) life at my former boss’s (35M) request (pls help me)
hi this might be a longshot but i think i have messed up my chances at happiness, love, and career. it’s a long story but it all starts with my lifelong desire to bring potential paramours to sketchy locations and
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Following | For You
@noster0ids how i trained to lift a car axle without psychic powers
??? likes | 122 comments | 101 saves | 29 shares
(auto-generated transcript)
[…]
[A tall and extraordinarily beefy man with a spiky haircut drops a fully-loaded trap weightlifting bar to the ground with a resounding thump. He chats at the waiting car axle.]
Shibata: It’s just you and me on a Saturday night, buddy…
[…]
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mobstagram — @serizawa_k (New Post) (Likes) (Messages(???))
@reigen_for_president | 99 posts | ??? followers | 99 following
[profile_picture.jpg – ERROR, this image failed to load!]
⚡REIGEN ARATAKA 4 RSSU ⚡
The century’s greatest psychic runs for president, and you can help!
(People who follow @reigen_for_president also follow @serizawa_k, @??? and @roshuuto_official)
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mobtter — @serizawa_k
For you | Following
(@roshuuto_official liked)
anole to dig 🦎 @mezato_writes • ??? mins ago
this is definitely one of the Debates i’ve watched
└some guy idk @hater123 • just now
@mezato_writes these guys all suck
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mobbit.
r/personalfinance — posted by u/imanaccountant ??? minutes ago
Learning to distinguish between equity, assets, and liab
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Mobipedia - The Free Encyclopedia
This article is about the Basil Beach Kaiju (Lizzy the Lizard), a mysterious and one-of-a-kind psychic disturbance. For other uses, see Lizzy the Lizard (disambiguation).
Contents
History
Scientific View
In politics
???
See also
References
The Basil Beach Kaiju, also commonly referred to as Lizzy, is a giant quadruped psychic lizard alleged by enthusiasts to inhabit the depths of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Seasoning City, Japan.[???] While some other sightings have been reported in other parts of Japan, scientists have dismissed the provided evidence as a hoax [???] and
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mobtter — @serizawa_k
For you | Following
The Yodeler @YuzuPepperHSYodeler • ???
Developing story: Striking new allegations in the race for RSSU president: https://…
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Saturday, November 28, 2015 — 21:15 | Warehouse 4 (Main) | Latest poll: 50%
“Serizawa-san,” Shigeo says, tugging at Serizawa’s still-intact shirt sleeve. “You need to turn off your phone.”
“…Huh?”
“Your powers. It doesn’t feel very good. Can’t you hear it?”
Shigeo’s powers tug the device from Serizawa’s pocket. It’s practically sizzling, too hot to touch. The battery bulges, pushing out the boundaries of metal and plastic and bulging the screen. The screen itself is nearly burnt over white, and what few working pixels remain are sluggishly processing through a rotation of the most-used app tray — social media apps in endless rotation.
“Yikes,” Dimple says.
“That’s super bricked,” Tome adds, pulling her own phone closer to her chest.
It explains the burning sensation against his leg earlier.
“Ah. Yes. Sorry.”
Shigeo shakes his head, dismissing the apology entirely.
He finds the psychic string, adhered sloppily across the fingers of his shaking hand. He hadn’t realized how much he’d been stuffing it away. Maybe, he thinks, he thought no one could see it. He cuts it away, and his aura returns. The phone returns to a faded home screen — a picture of Serizawa and Reigen outside the Seasoning City government building on the day of their wedding. The pixels over Reigen’s face are completely dead.
As Serizawa holds the power button down, the pixels fade from the phone lock screen. It feels like a prayer. He wonders if the phone will ever turn back on, thoroughly electrocuted as it was. He waits for the screen to go dark, and he turns his attention back to Reigen, wishing all the while he could restart everything up there too.
There’s quiet on the stage, a hush over the audience, the reaction to a dropped bomb. Roshuuto pants over his microphone in the harsh ray of the spotlight. Reigen remains in the shadow, still as a statue.
[alt text: A row of glitch (Zalgo) font reading “Saturday, November 28, 2015 — 21:15 | Warehouse 4 (Main) | Latest poll: 50%” gradually fades to nothing, indicating the phone turned off.]
.
“Is it a curse?” Shigeo had said.
On a Saturday evening in November, in the bowels of a former boxed furniture store, with much more than the election on the line, Reigen finds himself cornered.
“You’re not seriously considering it,” Tome had said.
He’d set out to strike down Roshuuto’s argument like the pitiful semblance of rhetoric it was.
“You’ve been burned before,” Dimple had said. “What are you gonna do if they go after you? What if they humiliate you on TV again?”
He’d set out to set the record straight, sense over nonsense.
“I’m worried all of this might snowball into something terrible,” Mitsuura had said.
Now he’s a tree, burnt-out and pulpy and rotten and face-to-face with the chute of a rumbling wood chipper.
“Arataka, I feel like I’m going insane,” Serizawa told him.
It should have ended then.
He hardly remembers why he set out to run in the first place anymore. Only a month and it all feels so long ago. To be there for the esper kids? He only knew about that a week ago. To protect his hard-earned business? That hadn’t been it either. To hire an accountant? No. To dissolve the treacherous union in some sort of convoluted revenge plot? What a ridiculous reason to go so far.
That day in the office, what had possessed him?
When he juggled through an endless sea of tax documents and spreadsheets and complete boredom, and Tome had piped up about Jodo’s retirement, Reigen made up his mind in an instant. Impulsive, the way he so often was. He’d seen Shigeo float a teacup and instantly offered mentorship. Saw Serizawa unfurl an umbrella in front of a blast and instantly offered a job. Saw a psychic whirlwind and instantly ran into the fray. Saw a silver ring in a velvet-lined box and said yes.
And this too.
Under a spotlight, behind a microphone, suffocated under the attention of a crowd of strangers and camera viewfinder, he’s afraid the shameful answer might be all too familiar.
“With a chosen family like that, you can’t be trusted,” Roshuuto says breathlessly, sticky fingers splayed over the edges of his podium. “I don’t know exactly who Serizawa is either — but I know enough to know it was a real shady business! You spent all that time denying he was dangerous, but you knew it too! Not someone to be trusted by any reasonable member of this union! But you wanted to hide it, didn’t you? And the voters want to know who you really are.”
“I want to be someone you can rely on.”
Serizawa had said that so earnestly, as if he was the unreliable one.
“Ha! Based on the look on your face, I was right! He was a criminal, wasn’t he? Then Reigen Arataka — will you submit to an investigation?”
He never learns.
“I—”
“It’s a simple question. A yes or no! Will you submit to an investigation?”
What a terrible time to be lost for words.
“And if over time the investigation finds you or Serizawa culpable for damages to the city at any point, will you take responsibility? Will you do what’s needed?”
“I’d like to be whatever you need. And if you need time to figure out what that is, I’ll wait for you.”
As if Serizawa had to change a damn thing about himself for someone like Reigen.
Reigen starts, “It won’t—”
“Will you take responsibility? It’s a simple yes or no question! If an investigation finds you or Serizawa guilty of any harm, will you condemn those actions? Will you work in the interests of the people? Will you do what they want?”
“What I want is you, Arataka.”
It’s too much. He’s sick with it.
Roshuuto’s mouth cracks into an ugly sneer, interrupted only by the flecks of green dried paste that settle into his laugh lines. “Or are you so blinded by your relationship that you lack proper judgment? You should be able to tell good from bad. A leader has to mean what they say.”
“I love you, Arataka. I mean it.”
It’s all far too much.
“A leader has to be rational,” Roshuuto says. “A leader has to be—”
“Oi.”
And a guy can only take so much before he folds.
Reigen wrenches the mic free from the podium stand. His silver ring clacks loudly against the receiver, jarring the audience. The cord drags along the green slimy residue left on-stage.
With the detached mic in hand, he steps away from the podium toward Roshuuto, whose treacherous grin only grows even as he shrinks back. “Trying to intimidate me? You learn that one from Serizawa? It’s only reasonable to—”
“I want to say this as clearly as I can,” Reigen says in a low voice, “so that even someone like you can understand.”
“Personal insults? Ha! That’s low even for you.”
“Shut up already,” Reigen snaps. “I’ve been way too lenient. I even tried to be nice. But now I have something to say.”
Smile melting from his face, Roshuuto slowly clamps his mouth shut. The crowd below the stage falls into an uncomfortable silence.
“Whatever you have to say about me, say it. Say I’m a fake. Say I’m a liar. Say I’m a terrible person! Say whatever you want. I can’t stop you from saying what you want to believe. I’m not listening to anyone anymore — especially not to some asshole who almost killed my colleagues twice. I don’t care! But there’s one more thing.”
He tightens his fist over the microphone.
“You want to talk about good people and bad people? Or responsibility? What a joke. You should know — you and I, Roshuuto? We’re not so different. Maybe we’ll be neighbors in hell.”
Reigen wonders if this was the corrupting energy around politics Dimple once warned him about. If it spread into him the minute he stuck his nose in things and infected him like a curse. Then again, if he were possessed, the narrative might not feel so troublingly familiar.
He can’t find Serizawa’s face in the crowd. The lights are too bright. He’s thankful, at least, to be spared that.
“Katsuya’s one of the only good people in this whole room. You and I might talk a big game, but he actually tries. He does the things we all say we’ll do. He’s not a superhero, and he’s made plenty of mistakes. I won’t lie about that, because I think he’d get mad at me if I did. Powers or not, he’s living his life like anyone else. But every morning, he wakes up and tries to help people. And me? I don’t deserve someone like him.”
It’s still true, he muses wistfully. He loves Serizawa so much it aches to his very core. But nothing’s changed at all.
The worst feeling is knowing that try as Reigen might, he — not the person he’d tried to craft for Serizawa but the man underneath all the layers of charisma and bravado and bullshit, the man he knows he really is — would never be enough.
And the second worst feeling is knowing Roshuuto, of all the wretched people on earth, is the one who got him to admit it.
“You should have left him out of this,” Reigen says. “You should have gone after me alone. This is over.”
Reigen lets the mic fall from his hand, where it clatters to the stage, rolls through the congealing slime, and clacks on the edge of Roshuuto’s podium with an unpleasant squeal of feedback. Reigen trudges toward the opposite edge of the stage, to the exit door behind the curtain.
“Gonna run away, Reigen? We’re not done here yet,” Roshuuto calls. He sets his ring hand on the podium, takes a step into the slime as if to chase after Reigen. “Then it’s my win! And we still need to talk about possible reparations for the lighth—”
“Fuck off,” Reigen mutters under his breath.
He disappears. Stage left.
There’s a thump, a yell, a soft gasp from the crowd in his wake. It doesn’t matter to him anymore, so he doesn’t look back.
Because there’s something he has to do.
Something he should have done a while ago.
.
Excerpt from Winning Your Supernatural Election Campaign: A Primer, Afterword
Thank you for reading my book. I’d like to thank my many lackeys for their assistance on the proofreading. Their previous experience was with union constitutions, so they’re a rigorous sort. And as you can tell from the nearly perfect editing, they do very good at their jobs.
I dedicate this book to any other benevolent psychic attempting to rid the world of frauds. May your crusade remain righteous and your stomach un-kneestruck.
Normally, this book is the sort of advice you’d need to pay through the nose to get out of me. Lucky for you readers, my supporters have bugged me nonstop to assist them with their own campaigns. Nonstop. Yes, it’s true. That’s why I wrote it all down in a book for your consumption. And once this is published, it’ll be onto the next big thing.
That’s the thing about political campaigns. Even if you win, you’re never done. There’s always a Next Big Thing. People’s attention spans are short, and campaigns are long. Even if you win today, it’s only another stop in a marathon. You always have to think ahead, or they’ll turn on you in a minute. And no matter how many times you win, you’ll never be satisfied. You’ll be stuck in this business forever. You’ll chase the next one until you’re retired, dead, or completely unelectable — whichever one comes first.
Candidates are expendable, dear reader. They practically rain down from the sky.
No, the key asset of a campaign is the campaign manager. If I can leave this book with any final nugget of wisdom, it’s that — at the end of the day — winning your supernatural election campaign begins and ends with you, Mr. Campaign Manager. Don’t mess it up.
.
After the dust settles, Serizawa has a lot to say to Reigen. He thinks he does. There are a lot of emotions threatening to burst from behind the dam of his chest. He’s not sure how they’ll translate lexically. There might be a lot of gestures.
The trouble is, Reigen’s nowhere to be found.
He can’t sense him, even in the outskirts of his psychic radar — and when Dimple comes phrasing through the wall, past the chaos of paramedics on stage, cops in the warehouse, flabbergasted union members milling about, and a handful of wayward Tanaka Kenjis, he admits to Shigeo that he can’t find Reigen either.
Tome runs to get ahead of whatever the press decides to cook in the aftermath. Serizawa takes off on his own recovery mission. He’s crossed back and forth through the layout so many times, he’s nearly got it memorized. He painstakingly ignores all the scrutiny from the crowd as he shoves past and through the exit door. Bloodied, mussed, and labeled as a former criminal, he can’t look good. But there’s nothing he can do about it. At least they stay out of his way as he clamps as hard as he can over his powers and carries on.
Immediately backstage, he finds a discarded and thoroughly stained tie — rose quartz, satin finish, green uneven polka dots.
In the hallway, he finds a trail leading to a broken bag of salt.
In the green room, he finds Reigen’s flip phone left on a teak nightstand. It has 20% battery. He briefly debates the ethics of attempting to unlock it, wonders if he’d fry it with his powers, and then decides an AWOL and phoneless Reigen is a troubling enough development to warrant a few wild guesses.
He tries 1010.
Nothing.
He tries 1984.
Nothing.
He tries 0331.
The lock screen reveals. He recognizes the photo.
How could he not? It had been one of the best days of his life.
.
Friday, June 26, 2015 — 22:22 | Metronome Metrodome | 30 Days Left
One of Reigen’s special moves, Serizawa learned, was his prodigious ability to repeatedly refresh a reservation website at the drop hour for halfway decent tickets to an upcoming concert. Serizawa was impressed as he rested his head on Reigen’s bare shoulder, watching the checkout screen in Reigen’s lap. With his laptop and his determination alone, Reigen even managed to outdo some of the scalper bots — and he did it in a half-dressed whirlwind at Serizawa’s passive mention of the upcoming concert date.
“I'm talented with my hands,” Reigen explained. Serizawa had to enthusiastically agree, if the previous thirty minutes of his life were any indication. When Reigen clicked ‘order,’ Serizawa balked at the price tag, but—
“It’s a late birthday present,” Reigen told him in rapid dismissal. At Serizawa’s doubtful look, he adds, “I had a big ticket client yesterday.”
Serizawa only recalled an elderly gentleman who paid them exclusively in low denomination coins.
“And it’s been a good month.”
It had been a devastatingly average month.
“And don’t worry, I checked my bank account.”
Serizawa observed no such behavior.
“Let people do nice things for you, alright?”
That argument, Serizawa could accept.
That had been back in the spring, when the trees first began to bloom on their joint commute to the office. A few months later — as the pollen invaded, the temperatures rose, and the changing seasons offered up a handful of rain storms — so much of Serizawa’s life had changed for the better.
Serizawa hadn’t realized how overwhelming the event venue would be. He’d always been at his most comfortable in dark, enclosed spaces. And while he’d always listened to music, even back in his sheltered days, he hadn’t been prepared for the brutal sensory experience of such a well-attended concert. The pounding bass rattled his bones, and that was only the opening act he was less excited to see.
“I didn’t know how loud they played,” Serizawa told Reigen, thankful that the combination of Reigen’s hair color and strange aura was distinct enough to spy even among the undulating crowd.
“What?” Reigen yelled.
“I said I didn’t know—”
“Too loud to hear you!” Reigen said.
“Yeah.” Serizawa replied diffidently.
Being stuffed in a stadium with thousands of people was even more awkward than he anticipated. He didn’t know the opening act from Adam. It felt wrong to dance, he couldn’t mumble to keep up with the unfamiliar lyrics, and someone spilled a beer on his sneakers.
Ah, he thought, that must have been why Reigen insisted he didn’t show up in crocs.
He watched Reigen for cues — his go-to in an unfamiliar situation. Reigen nodded along with the music, a small smile on his face, staring away at nothing, threading his hands together like his mind was somewhere else just out of reach. The opening act wrapped, and they stood, awaiting the promised show. Reigen gestured for him to lean down. Reigen cupped a hand over his ear.
“It’s been a big day, eh?” Reigen told him. “We should take a picture. Tome-chan’ll be upset if you don’t tell her all about your first concert experience.”
Between his longer arms and higher-quality camera, Serizawa insisted on snapping the photo. Reigen posed in front of him, hand up in a peace sign, wearing the over-the-top toothy smile he reserved for photos. Serizawa draped his free arm over Reigen’s shoulders, hoping the familiar move in public would be excusable in the dark of the venue.
He sent it to the office group chat on MBNE without a second thought, swiveling his attention to the stage as the second act began.
Two spotlights swiveled, dragging light over the stage back and forth in a pendulum until they came together at a single point at the stage’s center. The first few notes of the song blared from the speakers — a heartfelt ballad that gradually built into a catchy chorus. As his fumbling hand found Reigen’s, he thought he was beginning to understand why people did this. The crowd went nuts at recognition of the idol group’s older hit, Serizawa among them.
He used to listen to it in his room alone.
“Is it what you thought it would be?” Reigen shouted over the roar of the crowd.
And Serizawa wondered if he was going to cry right there in the dark, lights flashing, sound pulsing, bodies swaying, Reigen’s hand in his. He could feel the silver ring around Reigen’s finger pinch where it settled over his own skin.
Serizawa could do this forever, sop up all these cherished moments, and it wouldn’t feel long enough. He’d wonder if he could have had another month, another year, another decade. He’d still greedily ache for more. The thought caught in his chest. It was hard to breathe.
Reigen nudged him.
“...Katsuya? You like this song?”
“Yeah,” he says, wiping the corner of his eye with the heel of his hand. “I love it.”
After Serizawa had pulled himself together enough to enjoy the remaining setlist and they’d exited to the street, Reigen had struck a match to enjoy a cigarette on the walk home. Or, he’d set out to enjoy it, but Reigen’s phone had buzzed in his pocket. And again. And again.
He sighed, smothered the cigarette, and flicked open the device, looking annoyed at first and then deeply, deeply troubled.
“‘Tsuya, you sent that to the group chat?”
“Yeah,” Serizawa replied. “I thought Kurata-san would want to see—”
And then immediately realized his mistake.
Why didn’t you tell me you were proposing to Reigen-san????? demanded Tome’s incoming message. I would have helped!!! (ง •̀_•́)ง You guys never tell me anything!!!
“I’m sorry. I would have kept it private,” Serizawa said. “I didn’t realize…”
“Cat’s out of the bag now,” Reigen groaned. He sounded grumpy, but Serizawa could see the twitching line of his mouth threatening to give away his excitement. “She’ll get over it.”
Five minutes of vibrating and twenty missed calls later, she still wasn’t over it. And soon, the rest of Seasoning City knew too.
.
That night, Serizawa had checked off yet another item off the bucket list Reigen insisted he make. He would have checked off two if not for the limits of bureaucracy. The bucket list was nearly dry — save for a few items, there’s little left of the fresh-faced inexperience he’d once had as he integrated back into society. Curiosity had been replaced with worldliness and memory.
He’d done most of what he’d said he wanted to do. And Reigen had been there for every moment. Reigen said he enjoyed himself every time they went out. In fact, Reigen saved excessively for everything. Even once their paychecks evened out, Reigen was so fastidious about saving their money to pay for the things Serizawa wanted to do.
At no point had Serizawa ever asked Reigen about his own bucket list. He wonders what Reigen might say. He’s never been particularly forthcoming. He relates all his rotating hobbies to the consulting office or the kids, even when the connection is tenuous. Lately, even when he plans things outside Serizawa’s list, they’re usually things Serizawa wanted to do — go out for dessert, visit the model store, lie on the beach with a new book. It’s like he’s trying to mold himself into a perfect fit. Reigen never talks about his dreams much.
No, he thinks, that’s not exactly right. Because one time, Reigen did mention something, and —
Oh.
He has a feeling he knows where Reigen might have gone.
And, he thinks, as he takes in the lonely umbrella leaning against the model kitchenette counter, beside the toppled stack of food — of course, his impulsive husband didn’t bring a damn umbrella.
.
WELCOME TO BASIL BEACH
This public site is overseen by the Rising Sun Spiritual Union via our municipal Adopt-a-Beach program!
Please No:
- Smoking
- Littering
- Troubling the fish
- Trespassing after dark
Climbing the lighthouse unsupervised
.
His suspicions are confirmed when he sets foot in the place. Reigen all but Hansel-and-Gretel’d a trail of breadcrumbs for him to find — except instead of something charming, it’s incriminating evidence of trespassing.
For example, the gated fence to the beach cliff hangs open, and the lock is stuffed with components from the lock-picking kit Reigen keeps in his wallet. Even in the dark and the pouring rain, it doesn’t look like Reigen coaxed the rusted-over lock open so much as bashed it with a rock. Serizawa pockets the pick and the wrench and twists the metal back into position. Close enough.
He wanders up the sandy hill, past the tan trenchcoat, past the discarded heather gray polyester suit jacket, past the base of the lighthouse, past the pack of soaked-through Lucky Strike cigarettes, and finds his sopping-wet husband squatting beside a massive chunk of concrete with his hands slipping, straining at either rigid side, unsuccessful in his attempt to lift it.
“‘Taka,” Serizawa says, as gently as he can, extending a psychic barrier to shield them both from the storm. “What are you doing?”
Reigen doesn’t shift his gaze from the task ahead of him, even as the warmth of Serizawa’s aura passes over him. He grits his teeth at the effort, lifting the immovable boulder from its rest in the dunes — but the concrete doesn’t budge, and Reigen slips out of his damp grip over the edges, nearly falling ass-backwards to the grainy dirt.
“You’re soaking wet, and I’m worried you’ll catch a cold. So why are you—?”
“What does it look like?” Reigen tells him, gesturing broadly at the scene around him. Thunder rumbles in the distance. “If they’re going to blame me for all of this, I should at least get to commit property destruction, don’t you think? It’s only fair! I’m finishing this thing off. It’s a burial at sea! Out of sight, out of mind! Then maybe everyone will shut the hell up about you, and we can end this once and for all. You can go back to life as normal! Now help me.”
“That sounds completely—”
“Reasonable? I thought so too.”
“...Not the word I’d pick.”
Reigen waves at the hunk of concrete at his feet. “Lift it with your powers or something, c’mon!”
“I don’t think more property damage is the solution here.”
“Don’t you think it might make you feel better? I think it’ll make me feel better. Didn’t Hoshida say it was haunted? So this is…it’s another exorcism!”
Serizawa’s never heard of an exorcism by drowning. Maybe if it was holy water? But the ocean is full of salt.
No, Serizawa thinks. He closes his umbrella and sets it aside. There’s no rationalizing this. That’s Reigen’s trap.
“You’ll hurt the fish!” Serizawa cries at him. “And this can’t be good for the environment.”
“The fish will dodge.”
“You don’t know that.”
“They told me!”
“Arataka,” he says, raising his voice to punch through the inanity. “You have to tell me. Honestly, this time. What is this really about?”
Behind them, a jagged bolt of lightning strikes the sea, casting a harsh white flash. It violently illuminates Reigen’s features all at once, and at once, Serizawa sees the wildness of his eyes, the crease of eyelid wrinkles, the vulnerability of it all past the plastered bravado, flecks of stubborn slime, and smudges of melting makeup. The instant boom of thunder startles Reigen so thoroughly he nearly leaves his sand-caked dress shoes.
“I can’t,” Reigen says.
“You can.”
“No, I can’t,” Reigen says. “I can’t do anything! You think I can, because I say I can but... Here’s some psychic advice, free of charge! Look at reality! Don’t let me trick you. You saw the gate! I can’t pick a lock properly. And I couldn’t win an argument against Roshuuto when he was practically pitching meatballs at me, and even though I knew what was coming, I…I couldn’t even stop anything from… You saw what happened. The kinds of things people say about me. I never wanted them to say anything about you.”
Reigen kicks a tiny chunk of concrete hard enough to send it off the edge of the cliff face. Seconds later, a tiny splash sounds as it plunges through the cresting surf below.
“I’m so goddamn useless,” he mutters. “You were right. You were right the whole time. You told me not to do this, and I should have listened to you. I never should have… This whole thing? It’s my fault. I’m sorry. Katsuya, I’m so, so sorry. So that’s why.”
“You don’t have to be sor—
“I quit.”
Serizawa stares at Reigen intently as another rumble of thunder passes over them.
Is that it? he thinks. Really?
“No,” Serizawa says.
Reigen bristles.
“What do you mean no?”
He tries again.
“I said, I quit!”
“No,” Serizawa says more firmly.
Reigen’s face quickly morphs from apologetic to something far more petulant. “The hell? You can’t prevent me from quitting.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“I’m trying to do the right thing here! You heard what I said—”
“As deputy director of the office, I’m trying to tell you—”
“—I tried to do something, and all I did was ruin your life, so—”
“—better yet as your campaign manager, you need to hear me say—”
“—I ran away. I mean, geez! How much of a coward am I? See who I really am? All I do is use people and—”
“Arataka!” Serizawa bellows, grabbing Reigen by the wrist. In his outburst, he loses track of the psychic barrier, and the rain drenches them both in buckets. “As your partner, I am trying to tell you to shut the hell up for ten seconds and listen to me! Just let me say something. Please!”
Reigen stares at him in rapt silence aside from the continued cascade of rain.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so…” Serizawa says frantically, easing his iron grip over Reigen’s arm. “No. Actually. I did! You’re bad at listening! All these years, and you’re still bad! But you — you are not quitting the race. I won’t allow it.”
Water drips into Reigen’s eyes.
“…What?”
Serizawa frowns and replaces the barrier once more.
“Well, it’s not up to me,” Serizawa tells him. “If you do quit, quit because you want to quit. You’ve worked—no. You haven’t been alone at all. It’s not just me either. No, we’ve all worked too hard to let this be the end. If you quit the race because of what they said about me today, I’ll never, ever forgive you.”
Reigen wipes his eyes, gasping. Serizawa’s not sure if it’s a sob or a laugh.
Reigen says, after a moment, “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a pep talk.”
A self-conscious, strained smile tugs the corner of Serizawa’s lip.
“It might be a threat too.”
“Katsuya…”
“I mean it.”
Reigen shivers, flushed and warm underneath his freezing, rain-soaked suit.
Reigen’s seen some crazy shit in his life. He’s seen way too much crazy shit, actually. More than he’d ever cared to see, especially today.
But he’s never seen a man as exhilaratingly dangerous as Serizawa Katsuya.