Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Reigen had uncharacteristically, inconveniently, and irritatingly left his cell phone behind at the office. Years of self-employment had taught him rigid organization habits; he'd never before forgotten about something as vital as his work cell. But yesterday he had. And so today, no option was left to Reigen except to make the commute all the way to his office just to pick up the damn thing. Spirits and Such was not supposed to be operational today. The ease with which he could've avoided the waste of time and travel fee peeved Reigen, but there was nothing for it, except to be more careful in the future.

Reigen unlocked the door and quietly stepped inside. The small building went unused on Sundays, and was empty apart from him. He noted with approval how the door swung open as silent as a breeze; the hinges had been terribly squeaky until recently, when Reigen had finally gotten around to greasing them. The door was within an inch of slamming shut when Reigen's hand paused on the knob. A clatter.

The skittering taps of small things falling to the floor. A meek giggle.

The building should have been empty apart from him.

Reigen's hand went automatically to his pant pocket, then cursed inwardly. He would've rather called police than risk confronting the situation, but remembered his phone was still in there. Hopefully it was just some unruly teens taking advantage of a secluded place, and not anyone actually dangerous. He hoped a little sternness from a grownup would suffice to shoo them away.

"Nii-san..."

Teenagers, then, definitely. Even sounded a bit on the younger side, actually. Reigen felt himself relax a little bit. If it was just some punk kids who broke into his office, he probably had nothing to worry about except property damage. There was a chance he could drag them by the ears to their parents and demand reparations, too. Reigen's mind hardly ever stopped making calculations like this, sizing up the situation as it presented itself and sifting through a file cabinet of solutions.

The only question was how a break-in occurred when the lock was perfectly untampered with, and when only he and Mob had keys to the place.

"Mm-nn-nh..."

Reigen froze. His stomach flipped.

"Ouch... your teeth..." The soft voice of his student floated to him. Reigen could not mistake the owner of that voice, that boyish treble, if he tried. His ears were too attuned to it, from years of hearing it pitch and sigh through the growing pains of adolescence.

"Sorry, Nii-san..." Reigen's gut twisted again, a second blow too soon after the first that knocked the wind out of him. Now that he had a context-- of sorts-- he recognized the first hushed voice he'd heard as Mob's younger brother.

No third voice detected so far. He concentrated his attention, and once he recognized what the sounds reaching his ears were he could never again unhear them. Soft, wet, tender smacking noises. A languid exhale, punctuated by a gasp. Rustling, and sighing, and more wet smacks.

"Take off your jacket, Nii-san..."

"Ah... but it's cold in here without the heat on, Ritsu."

"I'll keep you warm if you'll let me."

A puerile giggle. Then a gasp, which was soothed down by soft shushing, and more rustling sounds.

Reigen's hunter-silent creeping finally brought him to the office entranceway. The door was ajar, if only by a few inches. A voyeur's idyll.

Reigen's thoughts were scattered to the winds, and for once he had no earthly idea of what to do. His mind was blank. Or nearly blank, but with one exception: the hedonistic desire to indulge, regardless of morals. The wolf's appetite.

The pang low in his body jolted Reigen, and pushed him to panicked action. Before he could think about it he gave the door a hard push, swinging it outward with too much force to be casual, striding in with fake confidence.

"Who's in here?" He demanded, as if he didn't know, with an authoritative tone, as if he felt in control.

Two peals of alarm, twin puppy yelps, and Mob and Ritsu were frantically disentangling themselves on the couch. Ritsu sprang to his feet while Mob shrank on the couch, as if he were trying to squeeze himself inbetween the cushions.

"Reigen--" Began Mob's startled brother.

"Ritsu? Mob!?" Reigen boggled his eyes, peering around Ritsu's combative stance to stare at Mob with shock and scandal. "What are you doing here? I thought I heard vandals, but you two broke in to set up some kind of prank, didn't you? Of all people, I didn't think you'd be so immature, Mob!"

"Tch," Ritsu's body language melted from 'backed into a corner' to 'sullen adolescent'. He'd immediately recognized the escape route. "My brother had nothing to do with it, it was my idea." His acting was convincing enough, except for the conspicuous way he fussed with the front hem of his shirt. Reigen was ignoring that with fierce desperation of his own.

Mob did nothing to hide his own feelings, and was staring at his master from over his bent knees with blatant, owlish confusion.

"I didn't give you a key to the office so you could abuse it, Mob. Go home, I'll figure out what to do with you tomorrow," Reigen waved them towards the door dismissively, the image of exasperation.

Ritsu was tugging insistently at Mob's arm since the first syllable of 'Go home.' Mob allowed himself to be yanked to his feet, but unnervingly, his eyes never stopped searching Reigen's face.

Reigen met his gaze, resisting the impulse to swallow nervously. Mob had yet to say anything, and Reigen was trying hard not to allow the tender intimacy in his student's voice, which a grownup should never have been in a position to hear, to echo in his head. Not yet, not yet.

When Mob's lips finally parted, his tongue flicked out first, licking his lip nervously, and it wasn’t fair, Reigen was trying. Finally, Mob spoke, soft as a caress, "I think... you know the truth, Shishou."

Ritsu's face drained white, but he tried valiantly to recover, "What are you talking about, Nii-san? Let's just go." A note of pleading entered his voice.

"I think Reigen-Shishou knows, Ritsu, and he's just trying not to embarrass us," Mob explained, the patient elder brother even in this perverse circumstance.

"Nii-san," Ritsu tugged at his arm again, eyes acutely distressed now. "Please."

Mob leaned close to his brother, too close even for Reigen to ignore, a little too lingering to be casual brotherly reassurance. Mob's pale cheek nearly brushed his brother's as he dipped his head and silently comforted him, neck bowed like a weeping willow.

After a moment longer than was socially comfortable, they resurfaced from their bubble of intimacy. Ritsu sighed the tension out of his body, and gave a mute nod. They both turned to face Reigen, now. The look in their eyes sent impulses racing in Reigen's body like confused, spooked horses. He didn't know if he wanted to step backwards and run, or to step forward and seize. He didn't dare analyze any of it yet.

"I wanted to apologize, Shishou," Mob tilted his chin down a bit, gazing up at Reigen from under his fringe. His actual face changed little, but Reigen knew the pose as Mob's expression of sincere remorse. "I lied to you... I've been using the key you gave me to sneak into your office with Ritsu when we are not at work." As untrembling and frank as his confession managed to be, at a high vantage point looking down, Mob still gave off the impression of an admonished little boy. His brother stood at his shoulder, radiating fierce protectiveness. They awaited his response, anxious and still.

Somewhere inside Reigen, a switch flipped. He had done his part-- he'd cut himself off from temptation, he'd offered Mob and Ritsu a chance to scurry away with their dignity intact, he had been prepared to never speak a word of this again. It would still creep into his head like black tendrils during the quiet moments when his mind could wander, he knew. And he would've endured it, maybe found some masochistic enjoyment in the frustration. He could never think of Mob in quite the same way after this, but he was above all his student, and Reigen sincerely would do anything rather than alienate him.

He'd resigned to letting this tantalizing mystery slip through his fingers, and live in the aftermath of endless wondering, rather than pry it open and risk hurting a tender heart. But here it was, the mystery pressing itself into his palm insistently. And there was a line where Reigen's self-control ended, and his wickedness began.

He felt like he was in a surreal dream. He'd never expected to find himself in a scene like this.

"And what do you and Ritsu get up to in here?" Reigen asked in a low voice. His eyes passed over both Mob and Ritsu, brow quirked. It would seem he was still trying to be stern with them, if not for the intensified heat of his gaze.

Mob's fingers found the hem of his jacket now. He breathed in, let out a little stuttering exhale, then answered. "We kiss, mostly," He whispered. "We do it here because we might get walked in on at home, and everywhere else is too public."

A roaring silence followed his words. Mob did not break gaze, despite what Reigen recognized in his eyes. Trepidation and trust and hope and guilt, all in one little face. Reigen had the knowledge and ability to hurt him very badly, now. And yet, he was the conman who, through some perverse stroke of fate, had partially raised this boy, and Mob trusted him.

"I see," Reigen said plainly, as if he heard teenagers admit to incestuous relationships every other weekend. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "Your parents don't know, then."

"What? Of course they don't know, just what kind of sick- what kind of parents do you think would-" Ritsu stammered in a rare moment of lost composure. He quickly realized there was absolutely nothing he could say, too aware of his glass house to throw stones, even with his formidable disdain for Reigen. He fell back to an icy glower.

"So there's nobody else that knows about this?" Reigen asked calmly, as if he hadn't noticed the outburst.

Mob shook his head. "Only you, Shishou."

Reigen's face was immaculately set into stern, paternal chiding. "You two are too young to be messing around like this in secret. If something happens and you feel like you can't go anywhere for help, you'll try to stumble through on your own, and then you might end up seriously hurt."

Now Mob and Ritsu were staring at him openly dumbfounded.

"Didn't even think about it, did you?" Reigen reprimanded gently. "If one of you accidently hurt the other, would you know how to recognize it? Or speak up about it?"

Ritsu snarled, "I would never hurt Nii-san. You're not a part of our relationship, you can't understand it."

Reigen resisted an amused grin, and maintained his scolding tone. "Isolation is never, ever healthy. You're setting yourselves up for disaster. You remember all those years you hid your feelings from your brother? Remember the meltdown it eventually led to?"

Ritsu physically flinched, not expecting that rebuttal, nor had he expected Reigen to even know about that. Reigen grinned on the inside; Shishou was a good listener and often a patient ear for Mob to unload his deep and personal stressors on. Thanks to that, even standoffish Ritsu was now looking at him with an unsure, faltering expression.

"What do you know about that." Ritsu caught himself sounding meek, and said with more firmness, "What do you know about anything?"

Fortunately the second question absolved him of having to answer the first. Reigen exhaled through his nose, as if he were stifling a sigh. "Listen. I won't meddle in your lives. I won't even ask about it. You just need to know someone's willing to offer help, if you need it. If there's nowhere else you can go." He sounded sincere. And in this, he was.

Ritsu had now been thoroughly thrown off balance, eyeing him with wariness, like a sparrow eyeing seed in an outstretched hand. Mob glowed at him, flushed with happiness and gratitude.

Reigen never lost an argument. He was very confident in his skill with words. He weaved together ulterior motives and pure motives, into an elegant web of sound wisdom and subtle coaxing, that held firm under as much stress as steel cables. His solutions benefitted all.

"Thank you, Shishou." Mob's small, rare smile was a coveted reward.

Even Ritsu looked more embarrassed than aggressive now. "If you tell anyone..." His eyes were narrowed, but his threat was defanged. It was almost redundant to say by this point.

"I won't." Reigen said simply. Nothing else he could say would be more striking.

He turned away for the first time since walking in. He strolled over to his desk, opening the top drawer and finding his cell phone with amusing anticlimax.

He held it up with a wry grin. "I actually came back today to get this. First time I've ever left it at the office."

"You didn't plan all this out on purpose?" Ritsu grumbled.

Reigen chuckled, "Sure didn't."

Ritsu looked away. After all that spitfire, it was kind of endearing to see the younger brother act so fidgety. He said, "Nii-san."

"Hm?"

"We should go. Mom and Dad said dinner would be soon."

"Ah, that's right." Mob exclaimed softly. "I completely lost track of time..."

The brothers stood by the doorway, casting glances back at Reigen. "Goodbye, Shishou," Mob said politely.

"See you tomorrow, Mob," Reigen waved casually from behind the desk. "Good seein' you again, Ritsu."

Ritsu nodded once in acknowledgement, and then they were heading towards the front door. The sound of the door opening and slamming shut. Silence.

Reigen flattened his sweaty palms on the surface of the desk, leaning forward. The edge dug into his lower abdomen, above his clothed bulge.

Thank Christ. Neither of them had noticed. His cock was heavy and aching in his stiff pants. Reigen thought it would be smarter to wait this wave of arousal out until he was composed enough to call a cab and go home. He could rub himself raw at home. It'd be beyond stupid to be caught in an ironic repeat of the whole situation, except with a grown man's erection replacing the furtive, sweet, exploratory kissing of two inexperienced brothers.

He bowed his head, scraping his short nails against the treated wood like some kind of beast. He bit his lip and nearly groaned at how severely turned on he was, from no contact, from nothing yet. It was no use trying to talk sense into himself now, not after everything that had happened. To think he had come in today by accident, and found out that his demure disciple was fooling around with his own brother. To think he'd listened in on them in the act, however briefly, their guards completely let down, wrapped up in each other and intoxicated by soft and clumsy contact. So much that they hadn't even heard him come in. Reigen almost regretted bursting in so soon...

No, he regretted nothing. If he'd been discovered as a voyeur, he would've lost all trust, and as it was he had cemented their trust in him more than ever before. He was their sole and only confidante. Mob could freely talk to him about this, too, now. Ritsu could loosen up in front of him if he ever came around; Reigen had neutralized himself in his eyes. He was absolutely benevolent towards them, and wished them safety and wellness. And whatever devilish pleasure he derived from the experience cost nothing of them. It was a victimless indulgence.

He was unable to resist such an exceptional opportunity. Reigen left the desk and sat hunched on the couch, the very couch where the boys had been pawing at each other just minutes earlier. His mind, finally given free rein to pour over the auditory memories and weave images from them, raced through implications. Teeth had been mentioned, he remembered. Teeth where? There was barely room for guilt beside the hot bubble of poison in his gut, beside the thought of Mob's face scrunched in dreamy pain, teeth at his lips or his neck, wrenching from him sharp little gasps.

Who topped? He imagined Ritsu. His forwardness was a volcanic eruption of several key reactants. His near-worship of his older brother, evident in the little tremble of his hands as they hovered over Mob's body, in awe that divinity was really within their right to touch. His possessiveness, his venomous love, that part of him that resented his Nii-san sharing any small affection with anyone else at all-- and if it wouldn't kill, it perhaps would not mind if every other person important to Nii-san all dropped dead. And his rolling hate, fear, and wrath, which snarled at the thought of being under his brother once again, and triumphed in dominating him. And his gentle guilt, his desire to make up for his cruelty with honeyed kisses and doting.

Mob loved purely and without contraindications. He would let his beloved younger brother do anything he wanted to him, not limited by even the forgiving boundaries Mob had in place for other people. Mob grew into his monstrous skin, transforming as if under a full moon, only when Ritsu was amputated from him. At Ritsu's side, he was a veritable lamb, following him no matter where they both ended up.

He would sigh and twist under Ritsu, breathing an apology if he squeezed Ritsu's waist between his knees a little too tightly. If he got overwhelmed and tried to curl up, Ritsu would hold him open. If he tried to hide his face or muffle his open mouth, Ritsu would grip his wrist in a vice and pin the errant hand to the couch cushion. They'd swallow each other’s voices, practically breath the air directly of each other’s lungs. Coil around each other like mating snakes.

Reigen's pants were unzipped, his swollen, heavy cock in his pumping fist. He breathed raggedly, a bead of sweat trickling down his nose. He imagined Mob's little mewls, climbing higher and higher, trapped between the couch and his brothers knee inbetween his legs and his brothers lips on his white throat. Ritsu would be worked up into a near frenzy. Half-delirious and drunk with desire, he'd babble fawning praise directly into Mob's ear, both violently possessive and slavishly devoted. I love you Nii-san, thank you Nii-san, you feel so good Nii-san, thank you, thank youuu, Nii-sannn-nnh. Mob would squirm with embarrassed pleasure from the praise as well as the tightening coil low in his belly, an enigmatic ache that neither entirely understood. They had the child's instinctual knowledge of when they were breaking a serious rule, the sense that they had stepped outside the boundaries set by adults-- perhaps a feeling comparable to skipping class and walking the deserted hallways alone, tingling with awareness. But their heated breath would fog up their thoughts, and they would claw at each other's sensitive skin with impunity.

The veins stood out on Reigen's hand as he worked himself to the edge. The image projected behind his eyelids was of Mob, frail chest heaving, glossy-black hair fanned over the couch, bangs plastered with sweat and eyebrows delicately cinched, arching and keening through bitten, tormented red lips. Ritsu on hands and knees above him, eyes spiraling with madness, thin arms shaking, mouth a shocking display of incontinent drool. Them crashing their lips together to muffle their screams. Reigen came into his hand with a throaty grunt.

He panted for breath. The tension melted from his aching body as he came down from his high, and he nearly slumped over on the couch from sudden bonelessness. His heavy breathing slowed, stabilized, settled. Then Reigen heaved a single burdened sigh.

He was familiar with the cold sobriety as the same feeling he got from looking at the open porn tab on his laptop after he'd already come. He felt tired, and vaguely unproud of himself, but also lazily satisfied. God, he was such an old creep. At the very least, he told himself, he would let no harm come to those two. He'd keep his hairy-knuckled hands to himself. And Ritsu and Mob had someone to go to for help if they needed it. It was a flawless arrangement. Reigen had already long been a dirty old tom. The only downside, as he saw it, was that online voyeurism porn was going to be severely less interesting from now on.

Reigen drummed his fingers on his desk. Spirits and Such was just a few minutes shy of operating hours. He scratched his chin and glanced around the office, wondering if there was any minor sprucing he could busy himself with until Mob came in for his shift. Ah, the plant in the hallway hasn't been watered for a while.

Reigen filled a coffee mug with water from the bathroom tap. He strode with it to the door, and emerged in the hallway.

Ritsu and Mob broke away from each other like startled cats.

They stared at him with twin wide-eyed looks. Their hands, still clasped, hastily tore apart one lagging moment later than their lips. Ritsu's vulnerability closed off into a hostile expression, fueled primarily by embarrassment; Mob seemed like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar who suspected he would not really be scolded.

"Oh, hey, Ritsu," Reigen spoke after a moment's pause. He turned to the plant of his original intent, pouring the water in nonchalantly. "You don't usually pop by here." Recent events excluded.

Ritsu was entirely at a loss for words. It was rather cute. Mob took it upon himself to answer, "It's been kind of strange since yesterday, after you interrupted us-“ He paused, the resentful wording seemingly unintentional. “Sorry, that's not what I meant, Shishou... Ritsu just wanted to walk together with me today."

They were still frustrated after going home yesterday and had tried to sneak a kiss in the privacy of the hallway today. Reigen felt amused and a little bad for these kids. He quirked a brow, "Is Ritsu in the neighborhood for a part-time job too?"

"Hardly," Ritsu said coolly.

Reigen shrugged, "Alright. Well, come on then, Mob. Let's get the day started."

Chapter Text

"Oi, Mob, you're ten minutes late," Reigen frowned at his student entering through the doorway. "That's unlike you."

Mob shut the door behind him and turned around, clutching his bag in front of him with both hands. He shuffled forward like a sorry schoolboy called to the principal's desk. His cheeks were a dusty petal-pink, and sweat beaded on his face. He said quietly, "I'm sorry, Shishou."

"What's up, you run here or something?" Reigen furrowed his brow. If anything came up that would keep Mob late enough to need to rush here like that, he'd normally just send a text or call ahead.

"No. I was in the hallway for about fifteen minutes, with Ritsu."

That was how Reigen came to learn that every day, Mob and Ritsu walked here together, kissed in the hallway for as long as they could get away with, and then Mob walked in to work like nothing was out of the ordinary.

"Oh. Well. Always plan pleasure around business, Mob." Reigen had then replied, in a bit of a daze. He hadn't fully processed the information until later.

He was now aware of the fact that every time Mob walked through that door, he had just been rubbing tongues with his brother right outside it. Reigen sat at his desk, eyeing the time on his phone, projecting his arousal onto the stark, passionless numbers. He didn't know exactly when they came in, the damn door was too quiet for him to hear. He didn't know when they started. He only knew that it happened, and then Mob walked in precisely on time. It was a little dose of psychological torment every day.

The sleepy sound of footfalls padding towards his desk made Reigen look up, and he saw that Mob was on a different level entirely today.

Reigen immediately pinpointed the single, most glaring anomaly, and then from there his gaze wandered, appraising the rest of his student. Mob stared through him as if sleepwalking. Reigen saw the glisten of saliva before Mob wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and when his hand fell away his lips were no less wretchedly red. His soft panting was the only sound in the office. A vulgar tint stained his cheeks, a flush that creeped all the way down to his neck, where the hickey commanded attention above all.

"Hi," The word was nothing more than a feeble huff, "Shishou."

You see?  Reigen orated to an imaginary jury. If he had a real courtroom to pace, his hands would be making many confidant and dexterous kinesics as he insisted, I'm not jumping from my chair, frothing at the mouth, and slamming my dick on top of the desk. I'm calm. Seated. Prioritizing Mob's dignity and safety.

"You need to clean yourself up before work," Reigen informed him.

Mob blinked hazily. "Oh." He started combing his disarranged hair with his fingers, getting it to look more presentable, less pornographic. He looked hesitantly to Reigen as to whether it was alright now.

Reigen cleared his throat, and tapped his own neck. Mob looked no more enlightened.

"Do you know what hickies are?" Reigen asked in a clinical tone. Mob shook his head, the sheltered kid. "There's a big one on your neck right now. It's too high up for your jacket to hide." Mob perplexedly laid a hand on his neck, on the wrong side.

"Here, I'll show you," Reigen stood up. He glanced around the office, trying to spot a reflective surface, something sufficient for Mob to inspect himself in.

He saw none. And then an idea trickled like ice water into his brain. Reigen reached into his pant pocket and pulled out his phone slowly, almost in disbelief of himself, and the extent of what was either his brilliance or his filth.

Reigen kept the hand holding the flip phone steady. Mob waited compliantly on his little screen, waiting to be captured, hooded eyes and debauched neck. He snapped the photo.

He came over to Mob's side of the desk, leaning down to show him, "See? That bruise right here, that's a hickey."

Mob stared at the photo, what Reigen knew was the distilled moment of one gate of innocence breached, and what Mob knew could get him in trouble at home. He gasped softly, eyes wide. "I don't even feel it." His voice tilted up with worry. "It's so red. Does it fade?"

Reigen shut his phone, and put it back in his pocket. He gazed down at Mob dispassionately, almost overcompensating into callousness. "It lasts longer than you would expect. A few days at least, before it's not noticeable anymore. They're fun to get but less fun to keep, huh?"

"What are we going to do..." Mob murmured. Reigen intuited that 'we' was not referring to Mob and himself.

He patted Mob's shoulder, and when their eyes met he gave a controlled smile. "This is easy to handle, Mob. All we need is makeup. I can come back with some from the pharmacy in ten minutes."

Mob nodded, his worry evaporated. Shishou will handle it, his expression said.

Reigen left, idly considering how it would look to any client who might happen to come in while he was gone, seeking the world's greatest psychic Arataka Reigen, and finding a room deserted except for what appeared to be the middle school kid he'd molested. Someone up there seemed to like him though, or else wanted his crimes to stack higher before the gavel fell, because he came back to no sign of any such unfortunate incident. Mob was waiting on the couch, looking just as indecent as he had left him.

Reigen sat down next to his student, leaning one arm over the back, ultra-casual, as he began to explain to Mob the tools they would use. "First you apply the corrector, that's this light green one, to balance out the red color. Then you put this concealer on top. I had to guess your skin tone, I just picked the palest they had... Looks about right. Blend it in with your finger-- dab, don't smear-- And then use this, the setting powder, to make it last longer."

He paused, seeing Mob's subtly overwhelmed blinking. Reigen braced himself, and said, "I'll apply it for you now, and you pay attention so that you can do it at home by yourself. Okay?"

"Okay," Mob nodded.

Reigen briefly hoverhanded, before smoothly integrating the awkward raise of his hand into a gesture for Mob to zip his jacket down himself. Mob guilelessly did so. He unzipped to about mid-chest, revealing white tee and white skin, and tugged the collar of his jacket down around his collarbone. It was more than enough room for Reigen to work with, more than enough.

He squeezed a bit of the pale green paste on his finger, and-- Jesus Christ-- Mob yielded his neck to him, tilting his head to the side to let Reigen touch as much of him as need be. The cream was cool, but his pupil's skin seemed to sear the tip of Reigen's finger, warm live young skin, like it was something he wasn't meant to touch, like crucible fire burning away impurities.

Get a hold of yourself, Arataka.

He fell back on a tried and true way of upheaving himself from pits of tar. Keep talking. "You're gonna have to hide this stuff somewhere, of course, but it'll be easier than wearing a scarf to the dinner table. Girls have an advantage with this kind of thing, since it's not out of place for them to have makeup lying around. If your parents find it, say it belongs to a classmate, you found it during cleaning duty and you're going to return it to her. If your parents do see the bruise, say it's a bug bite. Hardly ever works, but maybe at your age they'll still believe you. Don't try that at sixteen though."

He worked the entire time. He'd had to lay it on thick until Mob's neck looked completely unmarred. As he patted the powder onto Mob's skin with a soft pad, he mumbled, distracted, "Damn, did you give as good as you got?"

"Yes."

Reigen's mind took a second to place the speaker as Mob. He'd somewhat forgotten he was talking to someone.

Following that was the quiet absorption of what Mob had just said. The ghostly image teased his mind, of another boy, another neck, anonymous and slight in the mingling street crowd, passing by good and upstanding people, none of whom happen to glance down, and if they did, wouldn't have time to recognize the wine stain of adultery on a schoolboy's skin.

"Oh," Reigen said. Then because he could think of nothing else to say, "Good for you."

It had been a productive day, for a Sunday. Stocked up on groceries, finally replaced a dimmed lightbulb, vacuumed the apartment, and answered half a dozen emails from clients with noble, personalized assurances and suggestions of when to pencil them in for consultation. Now Reigen reclined on his bed, phone in hand, staring at the photo of Mob with his precious first hickey, cock hardening in his loose sweatpants.

Was it better, or worse, if he also cycled through a few of the other candid photos of Mob he kept on his phone? A shot in profile in the amber light of a ramen bar, snubbed nose and round cheeks. In blurred mid-motion, on a hot May afternoon in Spirits and Such, of peeling his hoodie over his head, shirt hem riding up. Smiling adorably at a cat on the street. It was probably worse, but not much worse.

He went back to the bruise photo. As he began to stroke himself Reigen thought, It's funny, there was a mirror in the bathroom the whole time.

He gazed at the photo with half-lidded eyes as he lazily jerked off. Mob's expression was largely unreadable, as it usually was, but void enticed the imagination to fill it with intense and eerie meaning. Mob seemed darkly precocious with a rosy bruise on his neck like that. To add to it, Reigen had the knowledge of what his student was getting up to right now. He was the only one in the world who knew that in a certain office building in Seasoning City there were two boys, with darling blushes and dimpled backs, brothers who loved each other very much and were awfully curious about each other's bodies. He was the only one who knew about that side of his student, which he knew he would not see, but that breathed through this photo like vulgarity breathed through a euphemism. Mob, Mob, Mob, Mob--

Reigen jumped, nearly dropping his phone, fumbling as it screeched and vibrated against his hand as if outraged. The caller ID said Mob. Mob was calling him.

The shrill ringing assaulting the air struck Reigen with a bolt of graceless shock, but after a moment he finally recovered, wiping his other hand against his sweatpants and answering, "Hello?"

"Shishou?"

"Yeah, Mob?" The small voice of his student stirred up a bit of arousal, but he crushed it between two great boulders, reality and his conscience. He sighed a bit, already mourning his orgasm. "What's up?"

"Can you come to the office?"

Reigen's eyebrows shot up. "What? Why?" Kids these days advance so fast to threesomes, cracked his mind, a joke he could share with no one.

"Um... can I explain when you get here?"

Reigen frowned, concern trickling in. "Can you give me an idea? Are you hurt?"

"No."

This was odd. Mob wasn't usually this deflective. "Did you break something?"

Silence. Reigen rolled his eyes. "Mob, just tell me. I can't help if you don't."

He was answered by more silence. Then-- "Reigen?"

"Ritsu?" He said, surprised. Then supposed he really shouldn't be.

"Nii-san lost control of his powers." Reigen's heart gave a single, hideous thump. "He didn't do anything bad, just accidentally knocked a lamp down. It shattered on the floor and set the curtain on fire. We, um, didn't notice until the sprinklers came on. Your office is mostly fine. Nii-san is trying to clean the glass up--"

"Tell him to stay away from the glass," Reigen interrupted, mind a swirl of emotions, but predominantly relief. "Don't touch the glass."

"...Fine." A more distant voice begrudgingly relayed the command to Mob. Ritsu spoke into the phone again, "Your office isn't that bad. You don't really have to come here."

"I think I do," Reigen said, "To make sure you two are okay."

"...We're fine."

Ritsu had been in an unguarded, intimate space with Mob when things got too intense and for a moment, however brief, Mob's powers had escaped his control and lashed out. After that, Ritsu, who had harbored fear and resentment and awe of Mob's potential for destruction since they were eight years old, was fine. Reigen shook his head. Regardless, he remained patiently authoritative on the phone. "Alright. Please stay until I get there, though."

Ritsu's angry sigh filled the line with static. He verbalized the most defiant compliance he could, and hung up.

Reigen decided to splurge on a cab, expediting his usual commute, and upon arrival noted the building exterior, cheerfully unscathed. It was discongruous, and he took a breath, preparing himself for the damage inside-- structural or emotional as it may be.

He unlocked the door and stepped in, calling out, "Mob? Ritsu?"

He discovered Ritsu had kept them to the promise he'd made, but engulfing that was the sight of them: huddled together on the couch like a pair of parakeets, black-and-pale coloring, looking mirrored with identical water-sleeked hair, and identical clammy, dejected faces.

"Hello, Shishou," Said one-half of the depressed Rorschach ink blot. Then Mob sneezed.

Reigen was in motion immediately. He cursed and strided and looted his massage equipment for towels and practically threw them at the two, fussing, "How long have you been sitting here soaked to the bone? It's November!"

"You ordered us to wait here," Ritsu chose his words deliberately.

"Would you have walked home like this if I hadn't?" Reigen retorted, descending upon Ritsu with another towel before he had time to recoil. He rubbed the towel into Ritsu's hair with firm, merciless efficiency-- rough in a harmless way. He persisted against Ritsu's indignant swipes, successfully leaving him with a doggedly disheveled, but dry, nest of hair by the time he scrambled away. Ritsu even bared his teeth at him for his efforts, cinching the resemblance to a small terrier he'd pet-sat last month. Past that, though, he seemed to have nothing justifiable to complain about, and continued to rub at his pinkened face with the towel around his shoulders.

Mob was a much more complacent victim to Reigen's mother-henning, though when he pulled away he noticed that his student's silence seemed heavier than usual. He took stock of the room's damages. It did look whirlwinded, but only mildly, upsetted in trivial ways. He had to sweep up some glass, lay his blackened curtain to rest, and clear a veritable forest floor of tossed pens and books, and that was all. To Mob, though, who tried so desperately hard to keep his claws sheathed at all times, an errant scratch was a tragedy. Sitting on the couch, staring forward and mindlessly rubbing the towel into the same spot on his jaw, he gave off an air of despondence.

They both did, the young and the younger Kageyama. Both were acting like dampened fires, sparking only when Reigen prodded them. The intimate magnetism between them had been depolarized by hurt and doubt, and they were left mute, unable to ask for the help they needed. Reigen rubbed his neck, concerned for them. He'd help. He started by saying--

"Um, Shishou," Mob spoke.

Reigen blinked, exhaling the breath not spent. He'd taken Mob's taciturnity, especially, as an unbreakable one, unless his student was carefully coaxed to speech. "What?" What was in that unfathomable stare?

Mob peeked at him from beneath his curling fringe and dewy eyelashes. "Can we still use the office in the future? If we're more careful?"

Like standing for hours in front of an abstract gallery piece, staring, romanticizing, and realizing it had been upside down the entire time.

Reigen swam in perplexity for several moments, before it clicked. The trauma that held them hostage-- it wasn't-- it wasn't anything so dramatic, and with sudden clarity, like making out a familiar silhouette from a great distance, Reigen now recognized their expressions: frustrated, poutingly penitent, and a bit hopeful. They weren't afraid of their powers, or each other, or themselves-- at least, they weren't so precariously teetered over these fears anymore that a small and soggy incident could send them plunging. Their greatest fear at the moment was Reigen slapping them on the wrist for what they did to his office, and worse, withdrawing his tacit enablement. It was so much less grave than he'd assumed. It was kind of shameless of them, actually.

Reigen couldn't hold back the throaty chuckle. He was a conman, and he'd been played. Though he couldn't give them credit; the trick was played by his own overzealous virtuosity, or his overzealous attempts to be virtuous, or his tendency to both overcomplicate and underestimate Mob. He felt a bit proud of their growth, and also less inclined to be considerate of their frailty. The brothers looked at him with eyes he couldn't believe he hadn't noticed were blatantly opportunistic. Boys will be boys.

"I'm not mad about the damages. I know it was an accident. I'm just concerned about another, worse accident happening, something the sprinklers can't help." Reigen's eyes were low-lidded. In stern chiding, maybe, if interpreted that way.

"It won't happen again," Ritsu protested.

Reigen practically purred, "What did exactly happen?"

Ritsu and Mob turned wide eyes on him, and then on eachother. They were not brothers who had telepathy, but some form of it seemed to be at work anyway, because they seemed to wordlessly agree Mob would start. "We were kissing, like last time."

"Just kissing?" Reigen prodded.

At Ritsu's scandalized protests, Reigen justified his question. "We're trying to figure out when and why things got out of hand, aren't we? Kissing is safe. What else did you try tonight?"

Mob answered like a soft-voiced, impartial machine, "We did more 'hickies', Shishou."

"You've learned to hide them," Reigen casually praised, and in his devious mood used the excuse to rake his eyes over their clothed, water-clinged bodies. No visible bruised skin, no, except in his mind's eye. "What else?"

"I don't want to be telling you this." Ritsu scrunched up his face. "I think it's creepy. I think it's creepy of you to make us tell you."

"Tell me as much or as little as you like." Reigen blinked innocently. "I'm just trying to figure out how to keep you two content and keep my office intact at the same time."

Ritsu fell silent.

Then he confessed to the floor panel at Reigen's feet, "I put my mouth on Nii-san."

"Put your mouth on...?"

"On his-- through his underwear..." Ritsu clawed and fisted at the couch cushion, shoulders tense as a coil.

Here was the golden apple of Aphrodite. My city and my sanity for it. Reigen felt the backbone of his ethics begin to crumble.

Mob, motivated by something truly unguessable, continued, "And I was feeling-- weird, like I was building up. I felt like I couldn't see or hear or think about anything else. But I didn't feel scared, or want it to stop. I forgot to worry about my powers... I didn't notice that I'd been making things float around the room until the sprinklers startled me and they all dropped."

"Some of that might've been me," Ritsu cut in quietly.

"Oh, yeah," Mob agreed, "That's true, Ritsu." The acknowledgement from both wasn't about shifting blame, or taking credit, but simply an acknowledgement.

Mob turned back to Reigen. "My powers have never acted up exactly like that before," He admitted.

"But we'll figure out how to keep it under control," Ritsu said, bristling against potential encroachment on his territory. "We're both espers, we don't need anything else."

Reigen raised a brow. "You espers were too distracted to notice the curtain catching on fire."

"It's not like the fire pointed itself out to us." Ritsu scowled.

Sprung the trap: "You need somebody to point dangers out, then."

"What-" Ritsu choked, "What does that mean? Are you going to supervise us?"

Reigen gave a calculatedly casual shrug, "It's an offer."

Ritsu's outrage flared. "No! No, why would we allow that? I knew this whole time you must've had ulterior motives."

"Want me to find someone else to supervise you, then?" Reigen asked.

"No!"

Reigen waited, with the genial patience of someone gracefully catering to the whims of an unreasonable patron. It was a silent insult to Ritsu that he could not even parry.

"You don't see how that's an invasion of privacy?" He fumed.

"I don't see what you're so secretive about. I already know what you do, and exactly when and where you do it. Nothing's going to shock me. Unless you think a couple of middle schoolers are gonna bust out some moves I've never seen before?" Reigen sounded amused.

He then gave a little sigh, one that said he felt sorry about antagonizing Ritsu that small amount, and spoke to him with a degree of measured, soothing placation that he knew would set Ritsu's teeth on edge more than anything else would. "I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable. This is just kind of a helpless position you're putting me in. I'll respect whatever decision the two of you make. I'll clean up the office, and have Mob work for me like always, and never bring this up again to him, or you, or anyone, if that's what you choose." Reigen looked off to the side, as if a new thought had just occurred to him, "I could even hire a trained professional to watch you from a remote location. They wouldn't be in the room, you wouldn't detect their presence at all. How's that sound?"

Ritsu looked horrified, a disgusted shiver rippling through his body at the idea. He did not seem to like the sound of that.

He blurted, "I'd rather take you than a total stranger," using his disdain for Reigen as an intensifier to describe his disdain for Reigen's suggestion, and realizing too late that the insulting tint mattered less than the binary of what he had said.

Seizing the flow of the conversation, Reigen turned to his student. "How do you feel, Mob?"

"I'd rather Shishou watch us than anybody else," Mob answered with easy indifference, so unfazed it sounded like it belonged in an entirely different conversation. Never come down from the clouds, kiddo.

That was the straw that broke Ritsu's back. He gave in. He spat, in case Reigen was thinking him toothless, "Fine, pervert." What scary teeth.

Reigen had put the brothers in a position balanced not on blackmail, not on threat of exposure, not on Reigen's desires, but on their own reluctance to forfeit their copulative freedom. They'd had a taste of adult fun, and like budding addicts, their fear was to be cut off. In pragmatic terms, cutting out things like motivations and predilections, counting up Reigen's sins on the abacus, there was not even much he was doing wrong. More wrong than at conception, anyway. Was it immoral? Was it unethical to disable two underage brothers from having illicit sex, on the grounds that they wouldn't let you watch? This Reigen asked the courtroom. Why not write a think piece, your honor, and be sure they stock it in the prison library. Please and thank you.

One week til turned to one minute til. Every minute up until this last had been a Herculean effort to slog through. This final grain of sand was endless, interminable, Sisyphean.

The time after he had sent them home was like a caterpillar quietly settling into its silk pad, shedding its gentle and mild face. The week was pupation; outside, a charming but ultimately cold shell-- innards a broiling, churning, amorphic black goo. Now, the chrysalis cracked under pressure from what had coalesced within: a gagged, bursting beast.

Reigen was sitting at his desk, laptop open to some random news page, eyes looping over the same purgatorial line of text. His heartbeat in his ears was his only company, and then it was not when the door swung open.

The breathless vision: Ritsu, leading grimly as if into a dragon's menacing lair, hand clamped on the doorknob as if it were his dagger-- Mob curiously gazing over his shoulder, as if he did not know to fear fire. Reigen met their eyes.

Looking as interested in them as a bird glanced through the window, he turned back to his laptop.

Without actually looking directly at them, Reigen focused on where they stood in his blurry periphery. They were obviously hesitating. Whatever they had been expecting, apparent total indifference was not it. Soft insouciant footsteps-- this was probably Mob stepping through the doorway. His carefree staccato was joined by a slower tempo, as Ritsu followed his brother with considerably more reluctance. Springs creaked-- Mob was seated on the couch.

Ritsu remained standing next to it. Reigen felt the white-hot burn of his stare.

"Ritsu," Mob gently called for him.

A pause, and a sigh. Quietly, "Are you sure about this, Nii-san?"

Two pats of a palm on the couch cushion. Another pause. Then-- a sound as victorious to Reigen as fanfare-- another creaking of springs.

"Don't you think that he's..." The rest of the whisper was indiscernible.

"It'll be okay, I think."

"Nii-san..." Ritsu made a final appeal, almost a whine.

A tiny, chaste smack. Ritsu made a noise of surprise, and Mob sighed with heart-breaking, cock-shattering longing, "Ritsu."

Reigen glanced up, a motionless portrait with eyes that followed. They were separated by a fraction of space. Ritsu's eyes gazed helplessly, painfully infatuated, into Mob's eyes, and Mob met his intense stare with smoldering serenity. Slowly they were drawn towards each other, eyes falling shut, pink lips brushing together. The hair of their fringes laced together.

Mob parted his lips and exhaled on Ritsu's mouth. Ritsu's brows furrowed, looking truly overwhelmed, almost looking on the verge of tears. His little pink tongue flicked out from between his lips, touching hesitantly to Mob's lower lip. Mob's lashes fluttered against his cheek, his tongue met Ritsu's, an introduction so chaste it was nearly celibate. They hid their hot breaths behind innocent presses of their lips, and then panted like the heat inside was immensely difficult to contain.

Ritsu's helpless hand was drawn to Mob's neck, his fingers curled around his nape, then caressed up and entwined in his sleek hair. Mob tilted his head, leaning into the pleasurable contact, the reverent stroking. He opened his mouth once more onto Ritsu's, and licked his parted lips. Ritsu's tongue rolled into his, and they pressed together sweetly, wetly smacking as they pressed their lips together, opened their mouths to feed from each other, and receded like the tide, drowning more and more in each other each time.

Ritsu tugged Mob closer, and he complied at once. Mob's hands remained mannerly in his lap, as loose paw-like things, while Ritsu quickly grew unable to let one inch of him go untouched. One hand rubbed his arm up and down, rustling the fabric-- palm cupping his elbow, thumb pressed into the inside hollow, and then fingers running down his forearm. The hand followed his arm down to his thighs, squeezed tightly together. This starving, greedy hand, it spread over Mob's thigh like a spiderweb, and traveled down, towards his trembling knee, and slowly up once more, groping.

Ritsu's hand massaged Mob's hip, grinding the heel of his palm into his pelvic bone. Mob's hands finally found the courage to wander, fluttering up like twin doves to Ritsu's face. Mob held his little brother's face between his hands with the tenderest care as he slid his tongue into his mouth. A tiny breathless note, the first one, sounded from somewhere inside Ritsu's throat, and his hand moved to squeeze harshly at Mob's waist, absolutely desperate. On the desk where sat the clothed beast who was watching them, a stapler began to float. It rose for a moment, dreamy and weightless, before some equally unseeable power slammed it down forcefully.

Ritsu's hand went to the small of Mob's back, arm curled possessively around his waist, and Ritsu yanked him breathlessly close and at the same time shoved his tongue into his older brother's mouth. The sweetness had escalated frighteningly quickly into insatiable, ravenous hunger. Mob pitched high in his throat and Ritsu ate the sound eagerly. Ritsu's other hand, the one that was not clamping Mob to him, still tangled in his hair, and had grown more vicious, gripping and holding his head in place so it was questionable whether Mob could break the kiss, had he wanted to.

On the shelves, a scattering of books began to tease out of place, sliding slowly free, beginning to float, until with a cacophony they all smashed back into position. They eased out once more, and once more they were thrust back inside their slots, like some unintentional parody, a grotesque euphemism.

The hand around Mob's waist remained; the hand gripping his hair gave it a parting stroke, and wandered elsewhere. They were locked at the lips as Ritsu's hand creeped between their bodies, into that sacred warm alcove, and started petting at the hem of Mob's hoodie. Mob's eyes half-opened once-- they were marbled with dew and heat and fog, unseeing-- and shut again as he pressed hard into Ritsu, bare hot tummy arching up into the flat of his hand. Ritsu only took advantage to press him impossibly closer, as if threatening to snap him in two.

His arm hiked up Mob's hoodie and revealed a satin-silk, luxuriously soft, pale and perfect little stomach, whose little quivers could now be appreciated. His hand was hidden away inside Mob's bunched shirt, in a private world. Some unseen action under his shirt made Mob's eyes shoot open and he squirmed, wailing into Ritsu's mouth; the office window rattled and crashed shut. The cannibalistic kiss broke for the first time as Mob panted raggedly, voice hitching, "Ri-Ri-Ritsu-- Ah--!"

His pleading earned him no mercy; Mob's mouth was only captured by Ritsu again and again Mob's squeal was eaten upon birth. Mob's hands were gripping desperately at Ritsu now, one clawing at his shoulder, one latched onto his hair, yanking, but without intent to actually pull him off. That mean part of Ritsu thrived off his brother's tortured writhing, drooled and panted over his pleas. It was that same cruel bully that could bring itself to terrorize, to kick the stool out from under the hanged man, to publicly humiliate innocents and laugh in a beggar's face. And, while no longer allowed free reign to do as it pleased, Ritsu let it out to feed sometimes, such as now.

They finally broke apart, a tiny liminal space between their bruised lips, heaving chests still pressed together. Ritsu hungrily pulled at Mob's hoodie with both hands-- the abrupt loss of support made Mob topple back a bit, needing to prop himself up. His ribs heaved with anticipation as they were revealed to the light, along with the smooth plane of his back, and the curve of his spine, and wriggle of his hips. And decorating his vulnerable thorax, secret perverse flowers that bloomed under his clothes, there were the brandings from their last little playdate. The proof that they had reached this point once before was bitten into Mob's skin, and, in that geminate connection the psychic brothers shared, probably mirrored by Ritsu's skin.

Mob finally pulled free of the hoodie, and before his ruffled hair even settled completely Ritsu was upon him again. He was barely in control of his desires, or it was his lack of exposure to conventional sexuality, because he acted out in strange and visceral ways. He mouthed sloppily at Mob's jaw, and then, aroused to near lunacy, bit his cheek. Mob clearly felt the pain, but he tolerated it like a tree tolerates the heart-shaped carvings of the lovestruck. In the wake of all that Ritsu had demanded, Mob took one thing for himself: with a touch of his fingers to his chin, he guided his feverish younger brother into a mellow, intimate kiss. In that instant, the cruelty was banished-- it went willingly, purring and satiated. Now Ritsu was washed over by overflowing devotion, once more the lovesick little zealot.

He kissed the redness, and slight teeth indents, apologetically. He kissed his jaw, and near Mob's ear, and kissed the pulse of his neck. Here he lingered, and the sweet press turned to indulgent turned to vampiric. Ritsu sucked and teased the pale skin into darkening red and purple, overlaying a fresh bruise on the barely yellowing old one. That part of Mob was a beautiful gradient of abuse. Mob, who could comprehend consequences right then as well as Ritsu could, gave a small trembling moan, positively wanton for his range. Ritsu kissed his collarbone, then, and then lower. Mob was forced to lean back, supporting himself on his arms.

Ritsu kissed and groped at his brother's milky chest, all the more endearing for being utterly flat-- it was such a far cry from the chest of a mature, voluptuous girl, that it seemed even more frail and unguarded. And it was such a licentious aberration, that a handsome, popular boy like Ritsu, who had all the schoolgirls' eyes upon his bold face and athletic shoulders, felt less than nothing for their curves, and spent his private after-school hours salivating over his own brother. Mob's hand pet and stroked Ritsu's hair as his younger brother began to lavish attention on his small, pink-- a little redder for its rough handling earlier-- nipple, pressing the flat of his tongue on it. Mob's harsh exhale and subdued squirming spurred him on, and Ritsu mouthed his chest luxuriously, and then pulled his lips back and teased Mob between pearly white teeth. He released Mob's nipple and enjoyed his wince and pleasured gasp.

Under the dark overcast of his fringe, Mob's eyes were wide, showing white, showing thrill. He seemed to be less active than his brother only because of his inherent repressed nature-- where Ritsu gripped a leash over his urges, Mob's were restrained in a straitjacket. That he exhibited desire to touch and be touched at all was remarkable, though at least part of it may be that Ritsu had always been the exception, that many of his walls built over the years allowed passage for Ritsu alone. He did not have many ways to express it, but he wanted Ritsu. Mob again reached for the simplest way to show his affection, to stake his claim on Ritsu back, that felt good for them both: he coaxed Ritsu back up to his face with the barest brush of his fingers, controlling him as if he conducted the blood in Ritsu's veins. Ritsu locked eyes with him, dark, nearly delirious, descending on his lips before he was jerked back by a firm hand grabbing the scruff of his hoodie.

"Somebody's at the door, hide," Was all Reigen had time to hiss. He strode without interruption to the closed office door and stuck out his hand, halting it just as the door began to swing open.

He hadn't heard the front door-- that blessing from the monkey's paw-- but he had heard the clack-clack-clacks of somebody's swift approach, that only quick-thinking, and a suppressed but deep-rooted paranoia, enabled him to recognize in time.

When Mob came in, he must have left the door unlocked. The sublime show, the nymphic vaudeville, his staining dress shirt pits and bursting erection, for Reigen everything turned to white noise in the horror and echo of those uninvited footsteps. The strangest of sounds could be utterly nightmarish, in the strangest of contexts.

"Oh!" Reigen made a noise of surprise, not extreme panic, no, only an everyday spook. He peered through the four-inch crack in the doorway, looking totally innocent of the knowledge someone was there. "He-llo! Oh, Jesus, you scared the shit out of me." A nervous laugh, hopefully untinged with hysteria.

The woman scrunched her face, curling her thin lips in distaste. "Such language," She said with deep disapproval. "Are you Arataka Reigen?"

Her sunken eyes flickered suspiciously from Reigen's sweaty face, to an attempt to peer into the office, but because he had about thirty centimeters on her she couldn't manage it. Reigen replied casually, "The one and only." If this was some kind of door-to-door religious spokesperson he might burst into manic laughter, at the sheer worst timing for him, and best timing for irony.

"We're here for a consultation. May we come in?" Each and every word of hers was as piercing as the clack of her heels.

"It's not possible today, I'm afraid," Reigen said remorsefully. "Spirits and Such isn't open today, I'm normally not even at the office, but I warmly welcome you to stop by tomorrow. Our hours of operation are-"

A man appeared in the crack behind her, hawk-eyed and ruler-spined; this one was Reigen's height. "We do not have the time nor patience to be stalled. You are here; see us now." Reigen felt a firm push of the door against his obstructing hand.

"Why won't you let us in?" Snapped the woman. She seemed the type to be unreasonably critical of everything, calm down, just calm down Arataka.

"Pardon my rudeness," Reigen placated, and with a sickly hammering heart stepped to the side, letting the door open at the same time as he got to finally survey the state of the office.

Empty. Disaster averted.

Hoodie left slung over the couch. Problematic.

Calculate, navigate, keep talking.

"The reason I am reluctant to let you into the office today is because, as you can see," Reigen gestured dramatically to the splayed hoodie, "I am in the middle of a very difficult curse removal. It may not even be safe for you to be in the same room as this hoodie! The spirits, seeking escape, unable to possess me because of my formidable psychic barrier, might jump right to you."

"Don't spout nonsense. The Lord protects us from demoniac influences," Snapped the woman. "We would never succumb to any servant of the Devil."

"If this clothing is so hazardous, why is it tossed lackadaisically on your sofa?" The man frowned. His eyes inspected Reigen's office floor to ceiling, his casual, and very very deliberate, posture with hands stuffed in his pant pockets, and of all of it he seemed to thoroughly disapprove. Mirthfully, Reigen wondered how the man would react if he knew his dick was rock hard, and if the floor were cluttered with shit with the curtain on fire. Then he wondered why, as a matter of fact, nothing much seemed out of place this time, but he put it away to consider later.

"The spirits and I weren't expecting company," Reigen said with wry, private humor, and led them to the chairs in front of the desk. "Please, sit down. Tell me all about what's troubling you." Hear them out, get them out.

"I'm going to use your lavatory first," Said the man, turning towards the bathroom.

"Wait!" Reigen's pulse hammered, mind racing. Even if they somehow composed their flushed cheeks and bruised lips and plastered hair in less than two seconds, even if Mob managed to scramble back into his clothes in time (evidently he wasn't even of the mind to grab it), with Mob's newly unconcealable hickey, there was no universe in which it didn't look bad for Reigen. Explanations of the true situation wouldn't... help. So he'd told them to hide, but didn't have time to recommend them a place. And his first guess for where they'd choose to hide under pressure was the bathroom. He needed to keep these people in the room and not looking in any crannies.

"Theres-" A plumbing issue? Carbon monoxide leak? A cursed towelette? Reigen's brain rifling through a library of lies was interrupted by his pocket buzzing.

He paused, taking the opportunity to check his phone and buy himself a modicum of time. Then he stared, incredulous at who sent it.

Mob's text simply read: Under the desk.

"-extra paper under the sink, I don't remember if there's any in the holder. Let me know if the faucet has low water pressure-- I just had someone in to fix it," Reigen finished cheerfully. As the man marched off to the bathroom, Reigen eyed his desk with concealed awe. From this side, it looked totally innocuous; none would suspect an ounce of the outrageous taboo it hid. How had Mob forgotten to grab his hoodie but managed to take his phone? For that matter, how did Mob come to a publicly accessible building with the intention to have sex with his brother and not lock the damn door? Christ, really. Reigen could understand that he was excited, but the kid really couldn't get a clue.

The man returned, and sat down next to what was presumably his wife, and they stared at Reigen's informal lean against his desk with indignation bordering on actual outrage.

"It's appallingly rude to stand when others are sitting, except in the case of pastor and pews. You are making us nervous by standing," The woman berated, looking about a dozen emotions before she looked nervous.

At least when I moralize at people I'm much more charming about it, Reigen grimaced inwardly, while plastering on his face a smile. "I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention."

"Intentions pave the road," The man graveled out. Reigen wanted to give him a gold star for cleverness.

He came around to the other side of the desk, and allowed himself one, lone, single glance down.

The uncanny surreality came from the normalized routine of seeing this desk, the million days he had looked at it from this angle, the million times it had looked the same. This desk was carved into the grooves of his mind, deep from unaltering repetition. The non-native bodies, the tangled limbs, the eyes, it was such a jarring sight to his brain that it felt hallucinatory. It induced physical hypnopompic symptoms in Reigen as the blood rushed out of his head. How could this possibly be real? The devout man-and-wife glared at him prissily from over the horizon line of the desk-- below it, like a diabolical diorama, a dissection for only Reigen to see into the desk's innards, Mob and Ritsu pierced him with twin unblinking stares.

He sat down with none of the unsteadiness that blindsided him. There was no room for his legs under the desk, and he played off as unhurriedness his efforts to sit carefully, so he didn't knee either boy in the face. They silently adjusted themselves in the cramped space; Mob's thigh was crushed against Reigen's shin, Ritsu was forced to relocate his arm and shift his shoulder forward to deal with Reigen's knee, which now jutted snugly against his warm armpit.

Reigen clasped his hands on top of the desk, trying not to let his leg jerk when he felt warm breath on the inside of his knee. He began, "So, your problem seems to be pretty urgent."

"It would have to be, or we wouldn't resort to a place such as this," Snapped the woman, the cords of her neck straining against the thin skin.

"And how may I be of service?" Reigen's sentence ending was fortunately timed, because his mouth went dry, his nails dug into his own knuckles, and nothing could come out of his throat from that point forward more controlled than a strangled groan. A little needy grasp tugged at his pant leg-- Mob-- and a knee was crushing his other foot-- Ritsu-- and as they couldn't move without him feeling it he knew Ritsu had pushed forward and claimed Mob again. Reigen stared ahead as the clients droned on about their story with lifeless eyes, with dummy eyes, with his true eyes looking inward at the sonograms created by the movements felt under the desk.

Mob must be breathlessly squeezed between four walls: behind and to the side of him was the desk, one side Reigen's lower leg, and now Ritsu was on top of him, pressing on him even more. The younger brother must've been so frustrated, patience fraying further with every interruption, every week their Eden had suddenly turned fruitless, every day they had had to content themselves with fifteen minutes of shallow touching, that he had finally snapped. Mob's leg pushed insistently against Reigen's, desperate for room to spread, and Reigen obligingly shifted his leg and now it restrained Mob in a different way, no longer keeping him closed, but now holding him open. Mob had one bent knee against the wall of the desk, one hooked around Reigen's solid calf. Ritsu immediately pressed himself into the newly made space, kneeling forward between Mob's legs.

Reigen was looking down as if listening intently, face set in stone, nodding periodically at what seemed at the right moments. He had a limited window under the edge of the desk, between his legs. He could see Ritsu's shoulder and a section of his back, Mob's bare chest and arm, and through layers of limbs and obstacles, if he leaned back just right, he had an sectioned view of Mob's quivering inner thigh. He saw a flash of something pale that was Ritsu's hand groping between Mob's legs, and saw Mob's ribs articulate as his chest heaved, and through it all they were only an hushed rustle or discreet sigh short of perfectly silent.

Even when Reigen had to look up to fill the quota of eye contact necessary for unsuspicious socialization, he could feel Ritsu elbowing his shin as he touched his brother. Damn it, damn it all, the limited view he had was not enough, and he constantly had to tear his eyes away to look at these turkey-necked nuisances. His blood was boiling, and he couldn't show so much as a twitch in his expression; in a way Reigen was restrained too. He could only imagine that Ritsu had undone Mob's pants by now, and was palming at his underwear or creeping his fingers into them. The way Mob was arching and wriggling seemed more desperate-- his legs jerked and tried to shut, but he should have been careful what he wished for, because this Reigen's lower leg was not going to politely accomodate. He was amazed at how quiet they were managing to be, imperceptible under the caustic drone of the client's ongoing story. Ritsu must be helping his poor brother out somehow, muffling him with his mouth or with a firm hand.

With what mental power he could spare to think about these things, Reigen also found it puzzling that nothing was floating. Unbelievably fortunate, but puzzling.

"Perhaps we were wrong about you," Were the first words that Reigen had heard in a while that sounded like language to him. "Not once have you interrupted us, not like the other psychics who've talked over us and offered drivel such as massages for solutions. You understand the situation now. Can you do something?"

"Of course," Reigen lips pulled into a grin, as if by strings. He obviously hadn't heard a God forsaken word, but he sensed an exit to claw towards. "I will, of course, need a little time to gather the proper materials to help you..."

All the terms had been agreed upon, a price and meeting day had been set, and the forms were always pre-prepared and laid out on his desk for the client. They were leaving.

Reigen went to hand them a pen. His fingers gripped the pen, and it felt as cheap and plastic as any pen, but he couldn't pick it up. His first thought was that it had somehow been glued to the table, but when he realized that the pen was physically untampered with, he had the impression more of trying to pick up a refrigerator with his fingertips. The pen was heavy, or to view it another way, it was pulled downwards by an indomitable force. Without another moment's pause Reigen reached into his pocket for the pen he kept on hand. He handed it to the clients with ease; it was unaffected by the bizarre intense gravity that seemed localized to the desk. Reigen began to form an idea of the answer to this mystery.

His thoughts blanked as he heard a thump. Mob's hand was clawing at his pant leg again, and then another thump. The scratch of pen on paper paused, as the clients glanced at him, but they let the disquieting noise slide, though their expressions made it clear they would not a third time. Reigen glanced down as furtively as humanly possible, and saw Mob's pants were undone, tugged low on his hips, Ritsu was touching him without a hint of restraint or responsibility, just luxuriating in his writhing and his precum and poor Mob was doing everything he could not to make a single sound, but his head had banged against his claustrophobic surroundings. It was the least his fault of the three of them, and the bump itself couldn't have felt rewarding for his head, and it was unfair, but it was Mob who was going to ruin them if he wasn't restrained. Helped, is the word Reigen would use.

Reigen's hand lowered and found the crown of Mob's head. He enjoyed for a moment the downy silk of his hair. Then his fingers spread, gripping his student’s hair and holding his head utterly still. Mob's head jerked, but Reigen's grip was pitiless, too desperate, too fearful of higher consequences to be very gentle with Mob's sensitive scalp. It wasn't his fault, but Mob couldn't even be allowed the small mercy of movement. He couldn't make a noise, he couldn't do anything, and the touching would not stop. Reigen didn't even think that he himself could endure it.

"I'm finished," Said the woman, placing the pen on the table with vague distaste. Luckily she seemed to be trying to touch the form or the desk as little as possible, as if worried about sanitation. The clients got to their feet, averse to lingering in the office, though undoubtedly feeling less than a phantasmal fraction of the urgency that Reigen did. They stood like awkward statues for a moment, staring at Reigen as if they were about to say something, and Reigen was suddenly terrified they were going to demand he walk them out. Right now his composed act could only be convincingly maintained from the waist up. But they turned, and without a parting word or glance, made their haughty exit. The clack of heels faded down the hallway.

Reigen released Mob's hair, pushed his chair back and finally drank in the full picture. Ritsu's hand was clamped over Mob's mouth, and Ritsu's mouth was close to his ear, whispering something inaudibly as he jerked Mob. Mob's hand was fisted so tightly in the back of Ritsu's shirt that his knuckles were white, his arm trembling. Mob's leg lashed out little helpless kicks against the floor, his breathing through his nose growing more wild and audible, a little wet-sounding with Mob on the brink of tears, and it was evident it would become difficult for him to breath that way soon. Ritsu released Mob's mouth, and a thick line of drool connected his palm to Mob's lips. Mob's cries were loud and desperate, so fast and breathy he was in danger of hyperventilating. Ritsu buried his hand in Mob's hair, and buried his face in Mob's neck, and smothered Mob's loud cry into his shoulder as he came, beet-faced with eyes screwed shut.

The tension slowly slid out of Mob's body, and left him a ragdoll on the floor, utterly exhausted. Still cradling Mob into his shoulder with one hand, Ritsu stared into Reigen over his head. His eyes were black, world-devouring void.

"Don't. Ever," Ritsu panted. "Touch him. Again."

Reigen couldn't help but think they made such a pretty picture.