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sd-mob-psycho-100-psychic-smack
"Mob. If you continue down this path... it'll be a Psychic Pen Pen at the end of it." Reigen said in all seriousness. His face was firm and schooled to graveness and gravity. It was only the cascades of perspiration at the back of his neck and the telling just-stepped-out-of-the-pool saturation of the spine of his grey suit jacket that belied it. He'd not had to break out his hastily thought of (and his personally dreaded) method to temper and aid Mob's psychic and emotional well-being when his inner percentage threatened to go out of line, and he was hoping that the mere embarrassing mention of it would be enough to straighten the kid right out like pulled mochi.
"Psychic..." Mob repeated, cheeks rosy, looking at his clasped hands and watching his thumbs turning loops around each other. He looked up, his eyes all innocence but a glimmer of petulance beneath that only Reigen could pick up on, "But you..."
Reigen waved his hands expansively, and wagged a finger at his prodigy, nipping it off right there with his usual 'I'm the bullshitter here' charm, "THAT doesn't make a shred of a difference. If it's earned, it's earned. Just like Yen - doesn't matter if you pay cash or card, it all spends and buys Takoyaki, right?"
Dimple stared at the citrus-haired man with impassive eyes, "And you prefer cash in hand, don't ya, buddy?"
The Head of Spirits and Such was savvy enough to ignore the cheeky spirit's accusation (however true!), as a veteran well-practised in the art of 'hiding under the covers'll keep the tax man and law suits away', and continued, "And playing hooky from cram school... geez, that's not like you..." he moved his stern dark eyes from the youth for a moment and back down to his paper-strewn coffee table, "You think that's gonna help these grades?"
Reigen reluctantly plucked up one of the several papers that had fallen from the boy's satchel, and squinted as he struggled not to get a seizure from the aggressive use of red marker pen all over it. It was almost like some macabre clue in a particularly grizzly homicide investigation. He'd always fancied being a PI, but knocked the idea on the head when it was less Maltese Falcon and more peeking through trash and underwear drawers for evidence of Slap and Tickle Out of Wedlock for his liking.
"Aw, quit ragging on the kid, Reigen, they're probably not even that ba- holy CRAP!" Dimple bellowed in genuine amazement having sailed over in Shigeo's defence and now found himself at a loss, eyes bulging and ogling the sheet that Reigen had wafted before him as grounds for his concern, "I...I've never seen scores like this... and I've been around since you guys discovered fire!" His eyes travelled down the page in wonder, "If I still had my Divine ass I'd need to sit down!"
Meanwhile, the tips of Mob's ears reddened as he ducked his head slightly, staring at his twirling thumbs as his cram school grades were, uh... assessed. The stress inside him bubbled to black ooze like forgotten soup.
"It's like the stuff of legend..." Reigen concurred reverently, as both he and Dimple perused over the outrageous test paper, astounded by the sheer folly of it all. Reigen had sailed through school, gotten pretty good grades, so this was foreign to him. He was awestricken, truth be told. It was a 'hell I'll write anything and Buddha will save me' lunacy that he'd only come close to the time that he'd been delirious with fever and had signed his paper 'Rooftop Aubergine'. He had also answered his main humanities question with another question about why had they stopped serving yakisoba on Tuesdays, and why was there always a guy with monstrously long back hair at the local bathhouse on the off chance that YOU decided to go.
Despite the feverish delirium and mid-question hallucinations; Reigen had still gotten a higher average than Mob's cram school tests combined.
Arataka placed the paper back down with the others, grimacing as he pushed them as far away down the table as possible. He was starting to get palpitations just looking at them! He adjusted his tie to help him breathe a bit better.
"What I'm saying is... you can't keep getting scores like this, Mob," Arataka lectured, raising a hand jabbing at the offending papers. He then levelled Shigeo with a grim stare, "Does Ritsu know? ...Your parents?"
A jolt went through Mob's body at that which told Reigen all he needed to know that the wide eyes had already conveyed. Reigen waited for an answer, surprised at the kid's sudden negligent streak. Granted, Mob had been a lot more open with his emotions and had been trying to let himself relax a little more over the past couple of months, but this was going overboard! Like going to a tempura stand and double dipping on the sauce. Out of control!
Dimple suddenly groused, floating closer to his lying ass of an employer and griping, "So what if his grades aren't so hot? Ya don't wanna be a rocket scientist, do ya, kid?"
Mob opened his mouth to answer, until Reigen raised a palm and rammed it to the side of his and Dimple's cheeks, his eyes wide and vein-crossed with frustration and fear of Armageddon, "With those grades he'll bomb the entrance exams for any academy that Tsubomi is going for!"
The ethereal green spirit blinked for a minute, slack-jawed and drooling, before he set himself to rights, "Oooh... yeah, that'd destroy him..."
"And half of the city," the fiery-haired faux-psychic nodded, sweat at his temples. Plus the FamilyMart on Vinegar Avenue that sold those Choco Pies that had all that extra cream in them! "But more importantly..." Reigen looked the rosy cheeked spirit in the eyes, and within them even Dimple whose prime interest was the study of all things Gloriously Dimple, saw the man's meaning.
This man with no psychic powers of his own, who understood people and their complexities beyond any reasonable means.
In Reigen's dark eyes, the spirit saw Mob's trembling tears of frustration. The shattering hurt inside.
Damn... It would break Shigeo's heart.
With that understanding passing between them, Dimple raised a tiny hand into a hearty thumbs up, and Reigen grinned, extending his own. The two males so often at odds, in that moment stared at each other in manful approval and camaraderie. The air between them radiating testosterone together with cheap cologne and natural ectoplasm spirit man-musk, before they both turned back to the super-psychic Kageyama teen.
"SO! You can't afford to miss out on any more cr-" Arataka began, hands waving and readying his patented ornate lecture gestures(TM!), before he blinked, finding the vacant sofa before him, "...Mob?"
The red-head spied the youth halfway out the door, hand gripping the handle as he pulled it to and fro, casually tapping the toe of his sneakers on the flooring as he had his new cell phone to his ear.
"Tsu-Tsubomi-san... this Saturday? Sure, I-I can come..." his fist clenched at his side to stop the excitement from bursting out of him like an overstuffed onigiri, as he happily promised away his cram and study sessions, life and future for the chance to chat to and woo his childhood sweetheart... well, girl friend. N-no. A girl that was a friend! ...Potential sweetheart? M-maybe... it was okay to say that, right? "Cram school? N-no... not Saturday, it's alright... I'll be there. What time...?"
The Head of Spirits and Such and the otherworldly aqua-green entity glared and contorted their faces monstrously at though engaging in life-changing gurning competition final. The force of their frowns seemed to give them their own gravitational pull, bringing all matter and manner of darkness around them both like a supernatural shroud of blackberry jam.
The kid had it bad, and was gonna get it good.
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