Chapter Text
Mob is squinting at a worksheet about adding numbers with decimal points. It seems like normal addition, which he can do (albeit slowly) but something about having to keep track of the dot is making the numbers that much harder to wrangle than usual. In the background, Reigen’s animated voice drifts in and out. He’s on the phone with someone, but Mob isn’t willing to expend the energy to pick out the individual words.
A drop of sweat rolls down his cheek. Have numbers always been this intimidating?
As if he can sense his distress, Reigen stands up with a flourish and snaps his phone shut. “Put that away, Mob, we’ve got a client.” he says, making his way over to Mob’s little desk.
Mob blinks up at him warily. “...Is there actually a spirit this time?” he asks. He’s been working for his master about a year now, and half the time he doesn’t do anything but stand around while Reigen prattles on about a spirit he can’t see or sense. “I have homework.”
“Of course there's a spirit. There’s always a spirit, Mob, some of them are just too powerful for you to see,” Reigen answers, predictably, “And anyway, this one sounds like the perfect kind for you to deal with. It’s making things float around and scaring some of the residents in an apartment complex on the other side of town. Simple stuff, good for practice.”
Mob shrugs, because his master is usually right about these things, and he isn’t likely to finish his math worksheet anyway. He’s kind of glad to get a break from it, to be honest.
They make their way to the haunted apartment complex. It’s all the way across town, so they take the train, and Mob has to call his mom to let her know he’ll be home late. She doesn’t pick up, but he leaves a message on the answering machine so she won’t worry anyway.
“Sense anything, Mob?” Reigen asks, one hand in his pocket and the other gesturing vaguely ahead of him. The apartment complex is ordinary-looking, if a bit on the expensive side, built of red bricks and cream plaster. There are a few trees outside of it, which Mob thinks is nice. He likes trees.
“No, Master,” Mob says, which isn’t entirely true. He feels- something. It’s bright and swirling, and it envelops the whole top floor of the building in a yellow glow. But it doesn’t feel like a spirit, so he ignores it.
Reigen closes his eyes and nods sagely, his hand on his chin. “That’s right. It’s either hiding or it’s too powerful for you- either way, we’re going to exorcise it. Isn’t that right, Mob?”
“Yes.” Mob says.
Reigen jerks his head decisively and starts towards the building. Mob trails after him, but there’s an interesting bug nestled into the bark of one of the trees that he stops and looks at for a little while.
“Hey Mob,” Reigen calls from the entrance of the complex, “Don’t just stand around.”
“Ah!” Mob squeaks, standing ramrod straight and trotting over as fast as his small legs will take him, “Sorry, Master.”
“Did you find the spirit?” asks Reigen, one eyebrow carefully raised. He squints at the tree that Mob had been staring at for the past minute, broad hand spread over the lower half of his face.
“There was a bug,” Mob says, glancing over at it himself. He can’t see the bug from here, but maybe Master Reigen can. He has all sorts of interesting powers.
Reigen’s other eyebrow rises as well, and he purses his lips. “Sometimes spirits look like bugs,” he announces, as if he’s distributing sage advice, “Are you sure this was just a bug, Mob?”
“It was a bug,” Mob repeats, because he’s really not sure what else he’s supposed to say.
“...Alright then. In we go.” Reigen says, holding the door so that Mob can go through, “I hope you’re ready to melt some spirits.”
Mob absently scuffs his shoes on the floor. He still doesn’t really understand what Master Reigen means when he says ‘melt,’ but it’s usually better to just go with it. Otherwise he gets a fifteen-minute speech that he didn’t ask for that he’ll zone out of halfway through.
The client is a young woman in her twenties who lives on the top floor. She meets them in the lobby and describes the phenomena that’s been causing her distress with a shaking voice- strange noises in the night, from the apartment next to hers, floating objects, doors and windows slamming shut with no wind and no one near them. Mob thinks she’s being a little overdramatic, personally, but he doesn’t say anything as Reigen comforts her and assures her that they’ll find the spirit and exorcise it.
“Ninety-nine percent spirit reduction,” he says, his mouth curving sharply to one side in that way that shows all of his teeth, “Guaranteed.”
Actually finding the spirit proves to be difficult, though. Mob can’t feel any spiritual energy in the apartment building whatsoever, which is almost weirder than there being an excess of it. Low-level spirits are just about everywhere. Come to think of it, the only place he’s felt anywhere this empty of spirits is his own house.
The top floor still has that curious, bright aura, and Mob starts to wonder if it is a spirit, just a different kind than what he’s seen. But he can’t find anything and Master Reigen is getting impatient, and he has a feeling in his gut that that’s not what he’s looking for.
There is something, though. It feels similar to the aura on the top floor, but more concentrated, stronger, and it’s moving through the building. Mob figures, since that’s the only thing he can sense, that it’s probably what they’re looking for.
“It’s going down the elevator,” Mob says, opening his eyes and looking up at Reigen.
“Why would a spirit use the elevator?” the client asks. Mob pauses. He never would have thought to ask. Why would a spirit use the elevator? Couldn’t they just phase through the floor?
“An excellent question, that I've got an excellent answer for,” Reigen begins, accentuating his words with a flurry of rapid hand motions, “You see, some spirits, ah, remember what they did when they were still alive- that is, they don’t realize that they’re dead. So they’ll just go through the same motions they went through when they weren’t dead. That’s why you’ve got spirits phasing through walls, because the walls weren’t here when they were alive.”
Ah. That makes sense.
They track the presence downstairs, in the slightly-grungy lowest floor of the building. “Basements,” laments Reigen, looking suspiciously twitchy as something that looks like a cockroach skitters into a corner, “Spirits just love basements.”
Mob doesn’t say anything to suggest he disagrees, but Reigen keeps talking as they comb through the boiler room, offering explanations and justifications that fly right over Mob’s head. The presence he felt before is close, but it still doesn’t feel like a spirit. He furrows his brow. “I think it’s in the other room,” he says.
Reigen’s mouth curves into a sharp grin. “That’s right, Mob, very good- uh, spirit-sensing technique, there. Not as good as mine, of course. But very good. Let’s hurry up and melt it before there’s a cockroach.”
There’s another boy in the laundry room. He looks around Mob’s age, with a mop of dark brown hair and a bright pink t-shirt. Behind him floats a heavy-looking basket of clothes, encased in a swirling yellow-green cocoon. It’s positioned so that if it drops, it’ll land directly on him. Which, honestly, probably wouldn’t be enough to seriously injure him, but it’d still hurt. His back is turned.
“Kid, watch out!” Reigen yells.
The boy jumps and turns around. The basket wobbles precariously in the air.
“Go, Mob, melt it!” screeches Reigen, and Mob extends his hand, already coated with the swirling blue discs of his aura. Only-
Only he can’t exorcise the spirit, because there isn’t one, and the boy is staring at him with wide blue eyes. His hand is glowing the same yellow as the basket.