Chapter Text
In retrospect, perhaps he should have paid closer attention.
No, attention was not the word. Attention would imply that Mob wasn't the color in his life, that the taciturn boy with an amusing bowl cut wasn't the best thing that ever happened to him and that he didn't spend more time focusing on Mob's goals and dreams than his own.
So if Reigen was to metaphorically lick his finger and pour over the dictionary and thesaurus in his head for pages and pages on end, while several libraries full of every known edition of either form of literary aid would have proved useless in exactly describing what he felt about all this, he would have to settle for this as the most accurate descriptor for what he should have been doing.
He should have been more concerned.
He still remembered, vividly as though it had happened just a few seconds ago, as if someone had recorded the scene and played it for him every day for years on end, that afternoon several years in the past.
It was spring and Mob was still fourteen and a second year but only a couple months short of fifteen and only a few days short of moving onto his third. He had been taking a break from fiddling around on his laptop and had turned to the window to take in the fresh spring air when Mob came in for the day, standing boldly against the bright sunlight streaming into the room casting a gold sheen on to the black that made up the majority of his color palette.
Reigen smiled and turned in his chair towards him casually waving his hand at him.
“Yo Mob.”
“Hello Master.”
Mob looked well that day, the smile on his face turning a little silly as the sudden thought passed through his mind. The boy had managed to grow an inch and put on a tiny bit of mass but much more so than that, through the frankly fucked up year the two of them had shared together Mob had come out of it with a quiet confidence and peace of mind to replace much of what had been bottomless self hatred and doubt before.
Of course Mob still had his dark moments but his current state of being was a far cry from the frightened little boy that had stepped into his office years before.
As if sensing his praise Mob smiled gently back at him, fondness seeming to pour from him and for a moment the two simply smiled upon another until Reigen suddenly came to the embarrassing realization that they had essentially just spent several minutes staring at each other with goofy grins and promptly started coughing before grabbing the paper on his desk and quickly rolling it up to occupy his hands.
“So.” He said, hands twisting to tighten the paper further before looking up again at him.
“Something good happen today?”
A small flash of surprise flashed over Mob's face.
“How did you know?”
The grin on his face must have been mildly dizzy to look at as he spun around in his chair before brandishing the paper tube at the middle schooler with a flourish.
“You can't hide anything from me Mob, I know you back to front. So what's up? Did you finally talk to that girl you like?”
He chuckled as the little smile slowly crept back onto Mob's face, his lips quirking ever so slightly.
“Yes actually.”
Reigen had been in the process of taking a sip of the lukewarm coffee on his desk and promptly acted on the cliche by choking on it and scrambling for a napkin to save his suit before turning back to Mob and staring at him very hard, eyes scanning every feature of his face as if they could spell out the truth as clearly as written text. And for Reigen when it came to Mob, perhaps they could.
“Really…?”
Mob nodded, the soft smile still on his face before replying.
“Really.”
Reigen's face split again into a grin and he leaned forward on his desk, hands gripping the edge to beam at him jovially.
“I knew you could do it! So did you ask her out? Ah, no that might be a little too much for you right now Mob-kun, are you guys friends now? Dating can come later-”
“Master.”
Reigen stopped his instinctual gesticulating, hands frozen in the air before they slowly returned to his sides. Actually he stopped every current train of thought he had been pursuing right at the station at the tone of Mob's voice and instead started to study him.
He was still smiling, but his face had taken on a much more serious tone the usual blank expression giving way to something with more gravity. Reigen felt apprehension leak into him as he backed up and lowered himself into his chair, his eyes never leaving the teen. His voice was measured and careful when he again spoke.
“….What's up? Did something happen?”
Mob shook his head and Reigen felt a slight trickle of relief as he let out the breath he had been unconsciously holding. And then Mob spoke, his voice quiet and steady.
“I've actually been doing a lot of thinking recently since I'm going to be in my third year soon. I've met a lot of people this year and seen and done more things than I've ever thought about. Many bad things happened and many good things too. “
Reigen waited as Mob seemed to ponder the silence.
“I think I've learned many things about people and where I want to go in my life. And who I really care about. And who I really like.
“When I spoke to Tsubomi-chan today I think I already realized that after everything that's happened that I don't like her that way. Not any more. And I'm okay with that. I'm just happy I got to talk to her after all that because if it wasn't for her I don't think a lot of things would have happened the way they did.”
Reigen continued to look at him intently but there was no sadness on his face, simply satisfied (if a bit bittersweet) contentment and Reigen leaned back with a sigh of relief.
“Is that so….”
“You really have grown up a lot Mob.”
Reigen looked at him with open fondness before switching tracks in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“So who is it?”
Mob cocked his head to the side, the familiar blank expression back on his face spelling a return to normalcy .
“Who is what?”
A teasing grin slid back onto Reigen's face and he again pointed the paper at him.
“The person you “really” like! Is she prettier than Tsubomi-chan?”
Mob's lips quirked again at the corner as though Reigen had said something amusing and his voice seemed to radiate warmth as he replied.
“A lot prettier.”
Reigen's grin grew wider.
“I'd like to see this person one day if they're that pretty! Come on Mob, throw me a bone. Who is it?”
Mob's slight smile grew stronger and warmer, almost bathing Reigen in its glow and at that moment Reigen wondered how anyone could have ever considered the boy plain.
“Someone you know well.”
For a moment Reigen's brow furrowed in thought as he came up empty.
“Someone I…? Well I don't really know any super pretty people. Except maybe myself.”
Reigen ran his hand through his hair with a mockingly preening flourish before laughing only to trail off into the oddly piercing silence that Mob was maintaining while still steadily keeping his eyes trained on his face.
“You got it right.”
“Huh?”
The smile on his face slid slowly into confusion as he looked at him.
“You got it right.”
“What did I get right?”
“The person I love. You named him.”
Reigen's mind and face went blank as he attempted to digest the statement and extract the answer. He named who…?
“I love you Master.”
Reigen froze for a moment before breaking into a laugh and shaking his hand back and forth dismissively.
“Hey I know I'm incredible but you shouldn't joke around like that Mob-kun.”
“I'm not joking.”
The pleasant mood had vanished in an instant leaving behind what could be none other than a steadily growing tension, not thick enough yet to choke them but voluminous enough to stifle him.
Reigen now very closely examined his student's face with heavily narrowed eyes, looking for any sign of what this was all about. Try as he might however, there were no signs of falsehood in those features, everything from the firm line of his mouth to the steady hold of his eyes on him were truthful down to the very last cell.
However Mob might be truthful, but Reigen at least believed that he was old enough and smart enough to see this for what it was.
“I see.”
Reigen then snapped the tension immediately rather than let it grow until it festered and came from around the desk to pat Mob on the head, his hand lingering slightly as it brushed down the smooth head of black hair.
“Thank you, that means a lot to me. I'm happy to be the Master you love the most. You're the student I love the most too.”
Reigen took care to keep the confident tone in his voice, was mindful to keep his voice light and happy but absolutely decided so that if Mob didn't want to drag them both back to something with the potential to hurt them both that he would be unable to pursue the conversation further.
Mob looked at him so intensely that Reigen almost felt the need to step back before it melted into his usual calm demeanor.
“Thank you. Shall we go meet the client now?”
Reigen internally heaved a sigh of the utmost relief though truthfully his heart was a bit bruised at having to hurt Mob's. Mob had taken the implicit rejection well and without much fuss. He was sorry to be so blunt but it wouldn't do Mob the slightest bit of good to entertain any possibility of what was certainly simply a crush on someone double his age and in a position of authority to him.
Not that he wasn't upset. Reigen thought with some worry and pity as he noted the slightly furrowed look of Mob's brow. But he was about to enter his third year of middle school and he'd probably be over it in a week with all the girls that he'd be meeting. There was nothing particularly good about someone like him anyway that a crush would actually stick around. It would be fine.
In retrospect he should have realized that if Mob, the Mob that he knew so very well had actually confessed to him after all the hesitation and the time and preparations he had taken with Tsubomi-chan, that Mob had something more serious than a simple crush.
But it had been so easy to brush it off and push it to the back of his head. To just ignore the issue and pretend or even believe that this was nothing more than an idle crush, that he would at some point grow out of it.
Mob was fifteen and several days from entering high school. He recalled again, an inclement gloomy day in April instead of the bright sunshine and breeze from the previous year. The air tasted of a storm coming in, humidity thick enough to cut flowing in waves through window that he had been too lazy to close.
Mob had come in that day, again taller, stronger, and a product of the year's past experiences this time having exchanged the contentment of the previous year's transition for some sort of almost desperate resolution. Without a word of greeting Mob had stood in front of his desk that day staring him down for a minute before again confessing.
“I love you.”
Reigen glanced at him and turned to his laptop, keeping his voice casual and his eyes focused on the screen.
“Yes, yes. Thanks very much.”
Reigen chanced a look at the teenager in front of him.
Mob at this point had looked stricken, heartbroken and angry all at once and after a moment of a mutually locked gaze he had opened his mouth and Reigen had all in that moment prepared himself for a horribly uncomfortable argument when all at once a flash of comprehension flickered across Mob's face and he closed his mouth again, all expression vanishing again from his face.
And as Serizawa had burst into the room at that very moment in a panic and Mob hadn't brought up the subject again even when they were alone later that night that it may well have never happened, to which Reigen again gave an internal sigh of relief though some vague foreboding began to prickle at the corners of his mind.
And he continued to push it back, the idea that Mob might actually be in love with him, that it wasn't some childish infatuation that Mob would easily and quickly forget about and grow out of the moment he met any one of those millions of potential girls out there, all of them young and pretty and in every way better for the boy than a man in his early thirties with barely any friends and barely any good attributes.
It had to be a crush.
Mob was sixteen then. He hadn't brought up the subject as expected at the turn of that school year and so Reigen breathed more freely. It was the day before Mob's seventeenth birthday and the two of them had found themselves caught in an early rain for the season, cursing and running for cover.
“There would be shitty weather on a job like this.” Reigen brushed water out of his hair and took off his jacket when he suddenly became aware of a warmth on his shoulder only to look up to see Mob gazing at him steadfastly, hand resting there.
There was no smile on his face but the look in his eyes spoke of such affection that despite himself Reigen's heart skipped a beat and he became acutely aware of just how tall Mob had gotten. The boy that he used to have to look down at now had outgrown him by several inches without any signs of stopping.
If Reigen was correct, by the time Mob was fully grown the formerly waifish and petite boy would tower over him. He had already built quite the body from following his friends in the body improvement club into the same high school and continuing his activities there. Reigen scowled slightly and gave and huffed at him.
“Just how tall do you intend on growing? Look at you, I can't believe your head didn't even come up to my shoulder when we first met!”
Reigen reached up to pat his head as Mob laughed.
“I haven't grown enough yet though.”
Reigen smiled at the slightly petulant touch of impatience in Mob's voice and ruffled his hair before saying in a slightly mollifying tone.
“Well I wouldn't be too worried about that, the way you've been growing you probably have an inch or two left in you.”
“That's not what I mean Master.”
There was something in his tone that made the thirty one year old pull a bit back to look at him. And that something in his tone was only matched by that something in the teenager's gaze. An utterly honest look of longing and affection and the sudden sensation that if Reigen had let him, had given him the slightest opening, that Mob would have swept the smaller man into his arms and never let him go.
They stared at each other.
“I love you.”
Rain poured around them, the sound of the droplets crashing down on the hollow metal overhang like an endless barrage of bullets could have deafened an elephant but somehow the only thing Reigen could hear was his heart thumping wildly in his chest louder and louder until suddenly all sounds stopped when Mob reached out and gently touched his cheek leaving the world in utter silence.
“I'm just telling you for right now though.”
Mob withdrew his hand as softly as he had just spoken, and with a small smile he turned away from him to watch the rain, his profile now more than ever noticeably strong, masculine and confident framed against the blue gray of the storm and now Reigen was the one felt as though he couldn't tear himself away.
But he did, and turned just as his student did to watch the rain. It was at that point, and that point only that Reigen realized that he may have made a mistake by not taking Mob seriously when the whole thing had started years earlier.
He was thirty two now. Mob had just turned eighteen years old today and he should have known.
He should have known what it meant when Mob had told him that he was going to spend his eighteenth birthday with him at the office instead of with his family or his myriad of good friends.
He should have wondered at that, he should have been concerned as opposed to indulging in his happiness that the teenager would actually choose to spend such an important day with him above all the other people he had known.
They had come back from dinner about fifteen minutes ago, having been delayed by the long lines at the new ramen restaurant that Reigen had insisted on treating Mob to and so sunset had nearly completely melted into dusk, only the slightest hint of red on the horizon even hinting at the last dregs of the day.
Reigen kept the lights dim in the office for the occasion, the only momentary brightness coming from the little fridge as he opened and closed it to bring out the chocolate frosted cake that he had spent the day baking for him and then once more from the lighter as he lit the tall striped candles that he had inserted on top.
“Happy Birthday Mob, make a wish.”
His voice had come out more softly than intended, perhaps affected by the tranquility of the evening, or more likely though he wouldn't like to admit it, by the serenely happy and affectionate look that Mob had worn the entire time that day as he watched him. With a gentle nod, Mob closed his eyes for just a moment and blew out every single one of the eighteen candles. Reigen clapped a little too enthusiastically for just one person, though both the applause and the frankly sparkling grin on his face were both so sincere that it could be nothing other than endearing.
“Lucky! You got every single one so you're in for a good time!”
Suddenly recollecting that he had left the clear plastic knife on his desk he got up abruptly from the sofa to fetch it. “Just getting the knife and then we can eat this thing. You wouldn't believe how many recipes there were to choose from in this day of endless house wives and college students running baking blo-”
Large hands gently but firmly had grasped his shoulders and turned him around and suddenly Mob was there looking down at him.
Reigen stared up at Mob, his back pressed into the edge of the desk where Mob had him pinned, built arms on either side preventing his escape in any sense of the word.
“What are you doing. Mob.”
It wasn't a question but regardless he received no response as Mob stared down at him, his expression serious and so passionate that almost nobody could have recognized it for him.
“Hey Mob-”
“I'm not a child anymore Master.” Mob's voice was ragged as though it had taken all his breath and will to speak, though it increased with clarity as well as desperation as he continued speaking, more and more rapidly. “I'm eighteen. I've finished high school. I've grown five inches taller than you. I can pick you up with one hand. Now will you finally take me seriously?”
Reigen couldn't do much more than stare in shock at this sudden full frontal assault to his emotions, his voice weak as he attempted to respond.
“I..”
“Now let me say it again. And now please, finally believe me. This isn't a crush. I'm not a kid. Not anymore.”
And with a deep breath, before Reigen could stop him, Mob drew in and then there were lips softly touching his own, lingering only for a moment before pulling away and leaving Mob looking at him like he had never wanted anything or anyone in the world as badly as he wanted him.
“I love you.”
Reigen's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates and his mind shut down as heat flooded his cheeks like the coming of Noah.
The word he was looking for was definitely “concern”.