Work Text:
They got a new job offer.
Dimple, given the task of manning the telephone, had begrudgingly taken down the info for Reigen; it’s a ghost in a rural town about five hours away by train, apparently malicious and causing a huge ruckus for the locals. Sounds like an easy fix for Shigeo.
“It’s really bothersome. We’ve called so many other places, but they’ve all failed. You’re the closest agency that we haven’t tried yet,” comes the staticky voice.
Reigen, at this point, has stopped whatever bullshit he was doing on the computer to come and take the phone from Dimple’s ghostly little hands. “Sounds like a classic poltergeist to me. You’re lucky you called us; we’re not like those other frauds. Leave it to us, ma’am.”
Logistics are discussed and then, when the call is over, Reigen immediately starts to dial another number, pointedly avoiding giving thanks to Dimple for his hard work and unpaid labor. Ugh, whatever. He knows exactly who he’s calling, and when the monotone voice on the other end of the line mumbles a greeting, Reigen perks up.
“Hey, Mob. Seems like there’s a real simple exorcism project for you a few miles north. It’ll be a two-day excursion and...No, it’s alright. I’ll sign the permission slips... Well, this is the kind of thing you have to do in the real world, Mob. It’ll be a good experience for you. Swing by after school and we’ll head to the train station... Yes, we’re leaving today. Customers don’t wait, Mob.”
And so now the three of them are resting comfortably in a shuttle train to B City. Reigen is typing away on his laptop about something (probably stupid) and Dimple is hovering next to Shigeo, looking over his shoulder as the boy stares dazedly out the window at the flashing scenery. Which is a little odd, considering the time. “It’s a little early to be getting tired, isn’t it, Shigeo?” he asks.
Mob takes a second to turn to him. “Sorry, I’ve been really tired today. Don’t know why.”
Reigen speaks up from across the aisle. “Don’t worry, Mob, when we get there we’ll have plenty of time to rest. We aren’t meeting the client until tomorrow morning, so make sure to sleep in until a reasonable time.”
Mob nods in response. The tacking from Reigen’s keyboard continues, and it’s starting to get on Dimple’s nerves. It takes multiple repeated obnoxious slams on the enter button until Dimple gives in. “What are you even doing over there? There shouldn’t be any wifi on the train.”
Reigen looks up from his laptop, grinning suavely. “Me? I’m updating our website. Check it out, I’ve been watching some coding tutorials on Youtube and I think I’m onto something here.” He turns the computer so it’s facing Dimple and Mob, and Dimple can easily say that the disarray cluttering the screen is probably the most horrific website design he has ever seen.
“That’s awful,” he says bluntly.
“I didn’t ask you,” Reigen curtly replies. “What you think, Mob?”
The boy in question takes a second to realize he’s been spoken to, and Dimple can tell he’s trying to put together context for the parts of conversation he’d zoned out for. “I...think it looks fine, Master.” Right answer.
“Hah! See, it’s just you, Dimple. Maybe you should learn coding.”
Dimple rolls his eyes, already having moved past Reigen’s attempt at banter and instead moves to float in front of Shigeo’s face. What’s up with Mob? Is he missing something, or is he really just that tired? He’s been like this before, Dimple thinks, but that was when...
“Dimple? What are you doing?”
Was he staring? Oops. “Sorry, Shigeo. Just a little worried about you,” he says truthfully. Mob smiles for a second before his face contorts comically and a small sneeze erupts from his mouth.
“Bless you,” Dimple and Reigen say in unison.
“Thank you,” Mob replies, muffled by his attempts to wipe away the snot.
The rest of the trip is spent in relative silence, broken only by Reigen’s ecstatic fingers.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
They spend the beginning of the second day talking with the client (which means Reigen spends the beginning of the second day talking with the client), receiving more in-depth information than was obtained over the phone.
“It’s really big,” the lady anxiously begins describing. She’s not very tall and her clothes give her the appearance of a clown. “It looks a bit like a donkey, but its teeth are sharp like an alligator’s and it has paws for feet, like a cat. I’ve heard stories that it lurks around the forest during the day, but it comes to ravage our townsfolk at night. The other night, I saw it walk through the main road myself. It was terrifying! The other psychics we’ve called only managed to get themselves hurt or told us it was too powerful.”
Reigen holds up a hand and lets loose his charming business smile. “I assure you, ma’am, I, Reigen Arataka, am among the best of the best. You can leave it to me.”
The woman moves to shake his hand and nod, giving him a few more useless details and crying on him a bit. Eventually, Reigen turns to his “workers”.
“Come on, Mob, let’s go. Dimple, you go high to look down from above. Bird’s eye view, and all that.”
Dimple doesn’t miss the hesitant way Mob follows after Reigen, nor does he miss his slightly labored breathing and unnaturally flushed cheeks. He decides to disregard Reigen’s order and descends to hover next to Mob, taking note of his poor posture and clammy skin.
“Shigeo, you okay? You don’t look so good,” he whispers, despite all its worth still not wanting to be caught by Reigen. Luckily, the man is blissfully unaware, moving just enough faster than Mob to slowly increase the distance gap between them.
“I’m fine, thank you, Dimple,” comes the blunt, airy reply. Which is expected, but still disappointing. He stares at Mob dubiously for a couple seconds before sighing.
“Whatever you say, Shigeo. Just be careful, okay?”
He doesn’t wait for a reply before ascending over the treetops, trying to put his mind on the donkey-cat spirit instead of the sickly boy they’re bringing out into the woods to take care of it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Turns out, the ghost actually isn’t that big of a deal. It’s just very, very angry.
They find it off the main trail about thirty minutes into their search, Dimple quickly coming down to tell the location to Reigen and Mob. Reigen praises him haughtily and Mob continues looking like he’d just escaped from a hospital. Oh, god, did Reigen not even notice? Dimple turns to him, seething, and whispers, “Have you seen Mob? Why are you bringing him out here if he looks so terrible?”
Reigen turns his head around to glimpse at the boy, then turns back. “I think it’s just allergies. Once we leave the countryside he’ll be as good as new, just wait and see.”
“You do not know what allergies look like!” Dimple gestures urgently with his hands toward Mob. “Those are not allergies!”
“They could be. Have you ever had allergies? Ghost allergies? Didn’t think so. Let’s go,” he says, the last part loud enough for Mob to hear.
It takes another ten-minute trek until they’re in a clearing surrounded by fallen trees and upturned roots. A monstrous energy emanates from the hollow.
“Don’t know about you guys, but I’m definitely getting a spirit-y vibe here.”
No shit, Reigen, Dimple thinks, but before he can reply a distorted braying comes from the left and bushes rustle open to reveal a huge ass with cat claws and fangs.
“Woah! Mob, you gonna take this?”
Dimple looks over to see the boy trying to get a foothold in the muddy grass, swaying to keep upright and hold his arms outright at the same time. The mule spirit is clearly displeased at its uninvited visitors and starts kneading its claws in the ground. Not good. “Uh, Reigen...I think we better start booking it.”
The man starts to sweat. It’s clear now that something really is the matter with Mob, and he’s obviously thinking fast. He runs and clasps his hands on Mob’s shoulders from behind to steady him, pointing him toward the direction of the ghost in the process. “Mob, I don’t ask much from you, I know, but the one thing I need you to do right now is blast that ass away. Can you handle it?”
Mob blinks and nods dazedly, shifting his hands into a pushing motion and letting loose a wave of energy towards the ghost. It lets out one final shriek before dispersing into the air, enveloped in a blanket of shining light. Which, Dimple observes, is a lot more power than Mob would exert on a ghost like this, which means he doesn’t really know what he’s doing, which, implying that’s true, also means...
“Ahh, fantastic, Mob! Great job! Let’s head back to the hotel and get some food, hey? You don’t look too good.”
And then Mob hits the ground.
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“Reigen, we need to get him medical attention! We can’t just keep him here, what if he gets worse?!”
“A doctor? I’m not paying for that, do you think I’m made of money?”
They’re back in the hotel room, Reigen having carried Mob bridal-style the whole way to lay him down on his cushy futon. His cheeks are flushed and breathing whistley, and Dimple is about to actually lose it from sheer frustration.
“Reigen, we need help! Do you even know how to take care of a sick person?”
“Doctors are just glorified nurses. There’s nothing they can do that I can’t.”
Dimple covers his face with his hands. “Oh my god...”
“Hold that thought, Dimple,” he says, flipping open his phone. “I need to call his parents.”
Finally, doing something reasonable, he thinks. After a few beats someone picks up, and though Dimple can only hear half of the conversation, it’s enough to leave him at a loss for words.
“Hello, Mrs. Kageyama? I’m afraid the exorcism is a bit tougher than expected. ...Yes, no, he’s fine... Well, it’s just that the spirit is all worked up now that it knows that we’ve come to take care of it, and we need to make sure no damage is done to the town... Is that all?... Yes, that’s it. Alright, thank you for understanding. Goodbye.”
Reigen closes his phone with a click and places it on the floor, finally turning to Dimple. “What were you saying?”
Dimple pinches his non-existent nose, trying to keep back the maelstrom of irritation bubbling up inside him. “I just...don’t know how to process what you said. Please tell me I heard wrong.”
Reigen smiles in a manner that’s probably supposed to be convincing but fails in every conceivable way possible. “Look, if they find out something happened to their kid on this trip they’ll never let me take him on one of these long-distance exorcism jobs again. That’ll hurt my business big-time. So, we just have to nurse him back to health and no one will be any wiser.”
“Reigen, I can’t tell you the amount of flaws in that reasoning--” Dimple’s tirade is interrupted by Reigen’s phone jingle, indicating an incoming text. He reaches for it and Dimple hovers around to look over his shoulder at the message.
If anything happens to my brother, I’ll kill you with my own two hands.
-Ritsu
Reigen is visibly shaking as he closes his phone and puts it back where it was before. “So. You were saying?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
An hour later and Reigen returns from the local convenience store, plastic bags wrinkling in his hands and the sun setting below the horizon. Since it was impossible to convince Reigen to take the trip home, Dimple agreed to watch over Mob while he went and got some ”medical supplies”. He places them on the bed and Dimple comes over to rummage through them, holding up a suspiciously colorful package.
“Are these...band-aids?”
Reigen looks over at him. “Yeah, Spider-man band-aids. I thought they were cool. Why?”
“Just...nevermind. What else did you get?”
They splay everything out on the covers and Dimple, for one, is at a loss for words. “What is all of this shit?”
“Well, for starters, I thought I’d get some cough medicine. I always hated cherry flavor when I was a kid, so I got banana for him.”
“Gross, but he isn’t coughing.”
“He might start.”
Dimple sighs, not wanting to get into some stupid argument. “Whatever. What else?”
Reigen holds up a jar of honey, fixing his expression into one of astute pride as he inspects the label. “I’ve heard honey is good for soothing nerves when applied to areas of tension and stress. I feel like Mob’s had a lot on his mind lately.”
Dimple inhales deeply, trying not to lose his temper. “This is getting fucking ridiculous, no. Mob’s health isn’t business, Reigen, it’s health. You don’t need to bullshit your way through this. Besides, I’m pretty sure that would just make him sticky, and I haven’t seen any reasons for him to be more stressed than usual.”
Reigen clearly takes offense at this but puts the jar down and attempts a cool façade. It fails. “Okay, since you clearly know what you’re doing, what do you propose we do?”
“Have you seriously never taken care of anyone before?” Dimple pauses for a moment, thinking better of his inquiry. “Don’t answer that, I know about your lonely home life. Come on, follow me to the bathroom.”
Minutes later they return with damp towels. Dimple zooms over to Mob’s bedside to inspect the resting boy, and Reigen cross-leggedly sets himself down next to him. Dimple sticks his hand out to feel Mob’s skin and frowns. “Not good, looks like his fever’s getting worse. Reigen, hand me a towel.” The man obliges and Dimple gently places it on Mob’s forehead. He retracts his arms and watches for another few minutes, Reigen anxiously wiggling his legs and tapping his fingers on the floor in the meantime. He’s obviously waiting for Dimple to give more instructions, but Dimple is enjoying his restlessness so he pretends to ignore him. He makes a game of waiting for how long it’ll take for Reigen to break, counting the time by the rises and falls of Mob’s chest.
Surprisingly, the man lasts about twelve minutes. “So...so he’s set like this? There’s nothing else we can do, right? The boy needs his sleep, I’m assuming.”
Dimple turns to him with a half-smile. “Yeah, it’s getting late. Go to bed or something, you’ll just be annoying me here. I’ll watch over him tonight.”
“Fine. Wake me up if he starts dying, or screaming.”
“Will do.” Not.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The morning rolls around quickly and soon enough Reigen finds his way back to Mob. Dimple’s hardly moved at all, but from the pile of towels next to the bed he can tell that the cloth has been replaced frequently.
“How’s he doing?” Reigen asks. “He looks a little better, I think.”
“No, he doesn’t, but he should be waking up soon anyway. Human bodies can’t normally stay in a state of rest for more than fifteen hours.”
“Oh.” Reigen’s pretty sure that’s not true since he’d regularly slept for twenty hours during school breaks, but he doesn’t comment on it. “I’m gonna head out and get something to eat, maybe bring back something for Mob. I was going to ask if you wanted anything but, y’know...”
“Just go, already.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mob wakes up while Reigen’s out.
“Oh, Shigeo! Good morning!” He blinks blearily up toward Dimple, and Dimple does his best to give him a solid smile.
“...Good morning, Dimple.” His voice is weak. Dimple immediately checks his temperature again as Mob casts his eyes around the room. “...Where are we?”
“We’re still in B City. Reigen decided to keep you here until you’re better. Erm...to make sure you don’t get any worse.”
“That’s nice of him. Where is he now?”
“Uh, getting breakfast, I think. He should be bringing you back something, too--” He’s interrupted by the slamming of a door and an all-too-familiar voice.
“I’m back! Mob, you awake?”
“Yes, Master,” comes the small reply.
Reigen shuffles into the room, MobDonald’s tucked under his arms. “You’re looking fantastic, Mob. How’re you feeling?” Despite the utter lie, Dimple has to give him credit for trying.
“...not very good,” comes the answer.
“That’s okay. I got you some pancakes, if you want.” He settles down next to Mob’s bed and pulls out a box of greasy fast food to offer the child. Dimple immediately puts himself between them, holding out his hands.
“Woah, woah, woah! You can’t give him that to Shigeo, he’s sick!”
“I see nothing about pancakes that isn’t healthy.”
“There might be trans fats, Reigen, you can never tell with big-wig fast food companies. Do you really want to be putting chemicals into his poor, weak body?”
“Um,” Mob interjects, “I don’t mind pancakes.”
“Hah! Here you go, Mob,” says Reigen, helping the boy sit up so he can place the container on his lap.
“Ugh, fine, do whatever you want,” Dimple huffs. “I’m going to go search the town for any remains of that spirit from yesterday, make sure it won’t return to attack and all that.”
“Just say you want to go look for something to eat, you idiot.”
“Fuck you.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mob slowly cuts his pancakes into squares, raising them to his mouth one at a time; he decided to go without the maple syrup, saying that it’d make Dimple happy. Reigen watches him as he takes a bite of his breakfast burrito.
"I'm glad you're up, Mob," he says truthfully, his mouth full. He takes a moment to let that rather disgusting expression of fondness hang in the air before adding, “Sorry I didn't realize how sick you were yesterday. Why didn't you say anything?"
Mob ponders this while he chews for a few seconds, then swallows. "I...didn't really want to worry you. Sorry.”
Reigen places a greasy hand on his shoulder reassuringly. "Don’t apologize. Believe me, Mob, your comfort is is a priority for me. We would've stayed home if you said you were sick." Though my wallet wouldn't have enjoyed that, he mentally adds.
“I understand. But, couldn’t Thank you for the food, Master.”
“No problem. Don’t listen to what Dimple says, corporate schemes are total bull.”
“Really?”
“You bet. Now, don’t do anything too energy-consuming. Sick bodies use all the calories they intake and use them to fight off illness.”
“Ok.”
“Oh, and Mob? If Ritsu calls, don’t pick up.”
Mob stops eating to look over at him quizzically. “Why?”
Reigen gives him his best, most fatherly smile. “Just trust me.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Dimple returns an hour or so later. Reigen is still sitting next to Mob, but he has his laptop out and is back to working on his coding monstrosity. Mob’s sleeping again.
“How was he?” Dimple asks as he comes closer.
Reigen looks up. “Not very sociable. Weak. Sleepy.”
“So, like always.”
“Yeah, like always.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mob wakes up again around supper time.
“Alright, Mob, we’ve got a few options for dinner,” Reigen counts them off with his fingers. “One, I can go get more Mobdonald’s. Not sure how you’d feel about that. Two, I have some leftover protein bars that you can eat. Your choice.”
“Now, hold on!” Dimple hurriedly interrupts. “Reigen, why don’t you go to the grocery store or something, make some homemade meal rather than buy all that processed stuff. I don’t care what you do to your body, but Shigeo needs nutrients if he’s going to get better. Good nutrients.”
Reigen feigns thoughtfulness, bringing an arm up to scratch the back of his head. “Well, I don’t know...I’m not the best cook...”
Mob quietly speaks up for the first time in the conversation. “I’m sure whatever you make will be great, Master.”
Reigen quickly turns away to hide the haughty grin caused by the boy’s words. He coughs to cover it up. “Alright, if that’s what you really want, Mob, I’ll take my leave now.”
And so he ventures back to the store.
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“Do you need anything, Mob? Are you comfortable?”
“I’m good, thank you, Dimple.”
Dimple has nothing to do with himself, and he doesn’t feel safe leaving Shigeo alone to explore the town. Normally he wouldn’t have any problems with it, but in his current state...
“Dimple, you don’t have to look so high-strung. I’ll be fine, it’s just a little bit of a fever.”
Embarrassed he got caught worrying again, Dimple tries to look nonchalant. “S-sorry, Shigeo, I’ve just never seen you so...weak before.”
He shrugs. “I don’t get sick often, but I guess somewhere I picked up a virus...?” He pauses to lift a finger to his chin, looking thoughtful as he stares off at the opposing wall. “I hope Ritsu doesn’t get it, too...”
Dimple hastily gives him two thumbs up. “I’m sure he’s fine!! You only started getting ill the day we rode up here, right? So he probably didn’t have enough contact with you for it to spread.”
Mob looks relieved. “Oh...you’re right.”
Dimple lets out a breath that he didn’t know he was able to hold. “Great. Now, you sure you don’t need anything from me, Shigeo?”
“Maybe my backpack. I’d like to get started on my homework.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Reigen returns once again with two armfuls of groceries, clumpy with leafy greens protruding out of the top.
“Okay, I’m back.”
“Welcome back,” says Mob.
“Welcome back,” says Dimple.
He dumps the bags on the kitchenette table, watching as one of them topples over and a few onions tumble out. “Okay, so I was thinking gyudon. That okay, Mob?”
Mob yawns. “Sounds good, Master.”
“Alright,” he says. Then adds, sotto voce, “Dimple, come here,”
The ghost flies over to him. “What?”
“How do you make this?”
“Ugh.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
All things considered, it didn’t turn out that bad.
“I mean, it could’ve been worse,” Reigen admits. After bringing two ricey, meat-filled bowls over to Mob’s bedside, he tentatively took a taste. It was edible, at the very least, and that’s all that mattered.
“I think it’s very tasty. Thank you for the food, Master.”
Reigen spits abashedly, then recovers, churning out some feasibly rhetorical lesson for the kid. “You don’t have to compliment something if it’s not worth complimenting, Mob. It’s not your job to nurse people’s expectations.” Despite knowing better, R finds himself feeling proud anyway.
“Oh. Then I guess it’s only okay, thanks.”
Reigen tries to hide his disappointment behind his bowl as Dimple snorts from across the room.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“My secret technique...Toxin-Ridding Body Massage!”
It’s the next day. Mob fell asleep immediately after eating and Reigen just hung out on his laptop for another hour or so before hitting the sack. Currently, Dimple’s watching him give Mob a massage despite his warnings otherwise.
“It doesn’t work like that,” he tried to tell them, but does anybody ever listen to Dimple? No. Mob just looks uncomfortably warm now and Dimple tries his best not to sigh with exasperation as he turns to head back outside.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mob needs a lot of tissues.
A lot.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lunch. Reigen attempts oyakodon; it turns out just as mediocre as before. Mob tells him as much. Dimple laughs hysterically at his dejected look.
“I’m trying. That’s better than you can say, Dimple.”
“I’m the one helping you cook! It’s not my fault you keep messing it up!”
“Oh,” Mob says, “Thank you, too, Dimple.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The afternoon, Mob sleeps. Reigen types. Dimple’s out looking for snacks. It’s quiet.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mob wakes up again, looking marginally better than before. Reigen tells him so.
“Really?” he asks. “I guess I’m feeling better, too...”
Reigen jovially pats him on the back. “Fantastic, Mob! I think we’ll be able to head back home soon. Just make sure rest up, okay?”
Mob, for lack of a better word, beams. “Ok, Master. Thank you for all your efforts to make me well again.”
Reigen smiles back. “No problem. You mean a lot to me, Mob.”
This brilliant student-mentor bonding moment is disrupted by the blaring of Reigen’s phone across the room. He quickly scrambles to pick it up, sliding on his stomach the final distance to flip it open with a flick of his wrist, Business-Mode activated. “Reigen Arataka, Greatest Psychic of the twenty-first Century, at your service.”
“Reigen-san?” comes a suspiciously teenage voice, “You have one minute to explain yourself as to why it’s taking so long for Shigeo to get home.”
“A-ah! Ritsu! What a wonderful surprise,” Reigen chirps fakely. “We’re heading back tomorrow or the next day, so don’t worry about it.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.” He doesn’t sound happy.
“It’s really nothing of importance...but we ran into some trouble with the spirit and now we’re taking some time to recoup. I--” He cuts off from sound of crackling and many thumping noises on the other end of the line. “Are you doing that?”
“He’s okay.”
“Huh?” Reigen says dumbly.
“Shigeo. He’s okay.” It’s not a question.
“O-oh! Yes, he’s perfectly fine! Better than fine, in fact! The amount of worrying you do is ridiculous, Ritsu. You need to learn how to simmer down.”
“Let me talk to him.”
Reigen starts rubbing his hand on the floor right next to the receiver. “Huh? Sorry, I can’t hear you, we’re breaking up!”
“Reigen!” the other end yells before Reigen flips the phone closed. He turns to Mob with a phony grin.
“He can’t wait to see you, Mob!”
A large smile breaks out on his disciple’s face. “I can’t wait to see him, either.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Dimple comes back to Reigen haphazardly throwing clothes into his dufflebags. He shoots Mob a curious look. “What happened?”
“Ritsu called. I guess he’s just excited to get home.”
Dimple tries to hold back his laughter and only partially succeeds. “Yeah, I bet.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The next morning Mob is only sniveling a little bit, which is deemed as not good enough to Reigen. He makes a hearty omurice omelette for breakfast, which Mob once again tells him is decent. It’s good enough for him, he’s decided.
“Do you need any more tissues, Mob?” he asks, trying to be congenial, a vivid picture of Ritsu gutting him for mistreating his brother at the forefront of his mind.
“No, thank you,” comes the soft response.
Reigen turns to his laptop then, pounding away at the keys to take his mind off of the imminent danger he’s in. He feels a tickle in the back of his nostrils that hopefully won’t turn into a sneeze, and Dimple glides around to take a look at his ongoing project.
“That still looks terrible. You’ve been working on that for how many hours and that’s all you have to show for it?”
“Shut it. It looks great, Mob even said so.”
“Hmmm?” Dimple hums. “Does it really look that good, Shigeo?”
Oh, shit. Mob tilts his head towards them, and time seems to freeze for a moment as he opens his mouth to say, “It looks...decent.”
“Hahaha! Looks like he’s still trying to spare your feelings, Reigen!”
“Shut up!”
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The day they’ve all been waiting for. Reigen spares no time loading their (scarce) luggage onto the train while Mob and Dimple scavenge for open seats. Not that Dimple really needs a seat, but it’s a nice luxury for him. When he’s finished, Reigen settles down next to Mob. “Ready to head home?”
The boy’s voice is soft in that usual way of his, and he’s back to his normal, pale complexion. “Yes.”
Reigen takes out his laptop as the train begins to move. “Good. You probably have a lot of catching up to do on schoolwork, huh?”
“Yeah.”
There’s a brief silence before Reigen...really starts to feel the heat of the train car. He shifts around uncomfortably in his chair as his shirt sticks to the back of his neck with sweat. Not good.
“Is it just me, or is it really warm in here?”
Mob looks over from the window. “I think it’s just you, Master.”
“Because, I really...ah..,” he pauses, feeling the beginnings of a sneeze rampage the inside of his nose, and he flexes his nostrils for release. Dimple immediately notices and comes to hover in front of his face, mouth quirked into a half-smirk and voice oozing with mockery.
“Don’t tell me...”
A sneeze erupts from Reigen’s mouth and splatters through Dimple’s form, causing the ghost to burst into laughter.
“Ha...hahahaah! I can’t believe you got sick!” Dimple howls, impervious to the snot that just phased through him. “Tell me, Reigen, was it all worth it?”
Reigen snivels the gooze back up into his nose. “Shut up.”