Chapter Text
Reigen Arataka was a bright, talkative kid. Passionate when it came to spirits and psychic abilities, with unmatched determination and drive. He could easily talk with clients, and had a talent for improvising. He was clever and sensible, knowing when to stand his ground and when to flee. When he said he was going to become the greatest psychic of the 21st century, he meant it. (Even if he lacked natural psychic powers.)
He was brilliant.
Shigeo Kageyama knew this better than anyone.
Still, he was concerned about his student sometimes.
Reigen Arataka was a bright, talkative kid, and it was all too easy for him to steer the conversation away from what he wanted to avoid talking about, all while leaving his conversation partner oblivious. But know him long enough, and the discrepancies became apparent.
He never talked about school much. When he would, it was only to talk about how boring it was and then quickly change the subject. His grades varied. Although he had a talent for wordplay, he had no patience for writing. He tended to struggle in math, but rarely asked for help. When there were no clients around, he would sometimes do homework, but he was always rushing through it. He never mentioned friends, or even classmates, and he would always arrive at Spirits and Such out of breath, as if he had rushed there from school.
He never mentioned his home life either, if he could help it. Shigeo had met his parents a few times, but there was this distance between them and their son. Their house had a methodical, all encompassing, stifling, cleanliness to it that seemed fundamentally incompatible with what he knew of his student.
Reigen ended up spending a lot of his time at the Spirits and Such office.
Shigeo Kageyama knew his student was lonelier than he let on.
He didn’t know how to help. For all his ESPer abilities, he was practically useless to his student. He did what he could. Took Reigen out to eat, tried to help him with homework, and invited him along on the less dangerous exorcisms. He hoped that he was doing it right.
Reigen deserved to have people in his life who could genuinely support him.
It was only a matter of time before he found the people who could recognize and appreciate that in him. For people like him, it always only is.
It was a cult meeting.
A client had called them in regards to a newly founded religious organization, LOL, suspected of using hypnotism to gain a following.
In Shigeo’s defense, he wasn’t intending to have the two of them infiltrate the organization. But by the time they got the location from a cult member, while maybe obfuscating some details, when the two of them were brought into the LOL meeting area, and they happened to be shuffled on stage, it would be rude to leave, right?
The crowd began to stir as their leader arrived on stage, then began to cheer with a hungry fervor. “Everyone,” the leader proclaimed, “Are you laughing?” The crowd exploded into laughter.
“Are you sufficiently warmed up now? Why don’t we take off those masks, then?”
Their religious leader himself, Dimple-sama, seemed strangely young, maybe even around Reigen’s age. His cheeks seemed overly reddened for his complexion, and his face was equipped with a smile that didn’t seem to fit on his face properly. He wore robes to complete the strange image. Reigen, from his position next to him and some other guy who had been brought there, was staring at him with vague recognition. The cultists removed their masks in turn, matching glimmering unnatural smiles on their faces.
“You’re all smiling so brightly.” Both the boy and the crowd began laughing once more.
“What a creepy bunch…” the other man on the stage murmured.
The roaring laughter continued until the boy commanded, almost jovially, “Stop.” The laughter ceased completely. Shigeo wasn’t entirely familiar with social conventions, having spent a not insignificant amount of his life as a hikikomori, but something, clearly was wrong.
But he couldn’t just attack the kid. Psychic powers shouldn’t be used on other people, much less a child. He should probably get more information on the hypnotism being used.
Reigen kept glancing in the leader’s direction.
“Today, we have three more smilemates joining us. Give them a big hand!” Applause.
“Huh? What?”
“Wait, shishou,” Regien whispered.
The leader waved his hand, and the applause ended. He turned to the three on the stage. “In order to accept happiness, you must set your hearts free. But your hearts are locked up. See? It’s completely obvious why you’re unhappy. You aren’t laughing.” He turned again to the crowd.
“What is it, Reigen?”
“Laugh. If you laugh even in pain, your hearts will be unlocked! And once they have been set free, your hearts will have the ability to accept happiness as it comes. In order to live a happy life, you must have a hearty laugh. That is the teaching of LOL.”
“Hah. How I wish people could be happy just by laughing.”
“And who might this be?”
“I know how I know this cult leader.”
“We found him on a park bench.”
“How sad. A victim of the recession - ”
“You know him?”
“- It’s no wonder you’ve lost your smile. But worry not!”
“He’s a student at Salt Middle!”
“Let’s put on this smile mask and fix that.”
“Yoshioka Mamoru! That’s his name!” Regien finished, evidently forgoing whispering entirely.
Everything stilled. Both the cultists, some attempting to drag the three of them off stage, others holding smile masks, and others observing, and the very “Dimple-sama” himself froze.
“He may be kind of a jerk at school, but no way would he go around starting a cult. Shishou!” He pointed at the leader for impact. “He’s an evil spirit.”
“Oh?” The spirit emerged from his host, who fell to the ground. The spirit was a green construction of tightly woven muscle and tissue, with red cheeks and a vicious smirk. The third guy on stage wisely decided to flee into the crowd. The spirit flexed his muscles. “Well, then -”
Shigeo Kageyama, in a single release of energy, exorcized the spirit. The cultists collapsed like puppets with their strings cut. The third guy had vanished into the elevator.
“Reigen, give me a minute to make sure no one is injured.”
“Shishou, they’re fine. The spirit had no time to hurt anyone, and you definitely wouldn’t hurt someone.”
“Just in case,” spoken with faint urgency.
They had had this conversation before.
Shigeo carefully checked the pulses of those closest to the stage.
[Yoshioka, having regained consciousness and control over his body, stood up slowly. He looked at Arataka, then at his shishou, then at the room of unconscious people before turning back to Arataka. Arataka looked back at the kid as his shishou checked on the unconscious people scattered across the room. “whu… ?”
He seemed to be in shock. His focus turned back to his hands. He bended and unbended his fingers, with a methodical caution. He turned back to Arataka. “Y-you…?” Confusion had set in now. Yoshioka blinked at him. Arataka couldn’t figure out how to reply to him. They hadn’t exactly been close at school. He shrugged. Yoshioka looked at the room, the clothes he’d been wearing, the people who’d started waking up. He was quiet.
Yoshioka, drained of the confidence and pride he exhibited at school, looked utterly lost within the room. Afraid. It was a foreign emotion on his face, even more so than the smile.
Arataka dug through his pockets, before he found what he was looking for: a small omamori gifted to him by his master, complete with some of his shishou’s power. He approached his peer slowly, until they were only around a meter apart. “Here,” he said, offering the charm. “As long as you carry this with you, you’re safe from spirits, 100 percent guarantee!” He smiled and gestured with his free hand, as if to accentuate his point. There was a pause.]
More people were slowly waking up. He was bad with people. Psychic powers only complicated things.
[Yoshioka stepped forward slowly, his gaze never leaving the ground, and accepted the charm. He met Regien’s gaze.
“hey-” he began.]
“Arataka, we better leave before more people wake up,” Shigeo called, heading to the elevator.
“Okay, be right there.”
[“Sorry, looks like I’ve got to go,” he said to Yoshioka. He and his shishou walked away, though just before they entered the elevator he turned and added, “See you at school,” while waving. They stepped into the elevator and disappeared.
Yoshioka looked down at the omamori in his hand, then back at the elevator.]
Hopefully, the incident wouldn’t be traced back to him. He was not at all ready to deal with the ramifications of destroying a cult. That sort of thing was always… messy.
Regardless, the job was simple enough and paid well. There would be more than enough time to stop for ramen on the way back.
In the following days, Regien seemed more excitable, partially in his usual awe of Shigeo’s powers, but also partially from something else. He’d been heading into work later. Shigeo was relieved Reigen seemed to have something fulfilling in his life outside of Spirits and Such, and thought nothing of it.
Around a month or so after the cult incident, Arataka arrived to work around an hour and half later than usual, a fellow student in tow. The very same student from the other day, now unpossessed.
Arataka was talking to him, or at least, at him, a smile on his face. The other student, standing a few inches above his companion and shifting uneasily from foot to foot, seemed to be torn between following Arataka’s words and glancing in Shigeo’s direction.
Reigen finished his idea, before turning towards Shigeo. He straightened, and the other student stiffened slightly in turn, their combined attention fully on Shigeo.
“Shishou, this is Yoshioka, from the other day,” he introduced, gesturing to Yoshioka. His gaze returned to Yoshioka, and he gestured to Shigeo in an exaggerated manner. “Yoshioka, this is my shishou, Mob.” He patted Yoshioka on the shoulder as a cue to say something.
“Uh-” Yoshioka began. “I’m, uh- sorry. For the other day.” He looked towards Reigen, who nodded enthusiastically. “I’m Yoshioka Mamoru. Being possessed was… bad. So.” He looked towards Reigen once more.
“He can tag along with us on exorcisms, right? So he can be more informed on evil spirits and all that,” Reigen continued, with a wave of his hand.
He considered this.
On one hand, Shigeo Kageyama was still not entirely used to socializing, and could barely manage one kid, let alone two.
On the other hand, Reigen was excited, and his voice had a certain eagerness to it, one that Shigeo couldn’t exactly place.
Oh.
It was obvious.
“Your friend can come along.”
The job was simple enough. A young woman was convinced a cursed tea kettle had caused her boyfriend to begin neglecting her and going to hostess bars. Reigen easily reassured her that, while the kettle was cursed, the truth was that it was her boyfriend’s neglect that had caused it. He ‘purified’ the kettle by preparing some tea and throwing some salt around, then advised the woman to break up with him. The woman seemed relieved that someone had told her to, that she even had the option. Reigen comforted her, Shigeo offered vague advice.
Shigeo felt almost embarrassed at his lack of contribution.
Of course, another thing drew his attention. Yoshioka’s look of faint awe towards Reigen never left his face. When they set off, Reigen’s work completed, and the middle schoolers began yet another somewhat one-sided conversation, the awe was replaced with fondness.
[There was a poster advertising a new religious group looking for their founder, ‘Psycho Helmet’, posted neatly outside the konbini.
“Regien.”
“Huh?” Reigen was attempting (and failing) to remove the cap off his drink.
Yoshioka took the bottle from him and also attempted opening it. During this process, he vaguely gestured towards the poster as best as someone whose hands were occupied with opening a bottle could. “Doesn’t that Psycho Helmet guy kinda look like Mob?”
He succeeded in opening the bottle and handed the bottle and cap to Reigen.
Reigen took a sip of his drink, looked at the poster, screwed the cap back on his bottle, looked at the poster some more, and said, “Nah, not really.”]