Chapter Text
“Shishou, a package.”
Reigen thumped his chair back down to four legs and removed the pencil from his upper lip. A package? He hadn’t ordered anything. And it hadn’t been there when he got in that morning.
Mob brought it over to his desk. The cardboard box wasn’t very big, about the size of a shoebox, and the way Mob was holding it it couldn’t be very heavy either. It didn’t have a shipping label, but “Spirits and Such Consultation Office” was scrawled on the side in marker. There was no return address.
Mob gingerly balanced the package on the tips of his fingers while he waited for Reigen to dig out a pair of scissors. The scissors were dull, with bulky orange handles cracked from age, but they were still sharp enough to slit tape. Mob slid the box onto the desk so Reigen could open it, and hovered while Reigen inspected the contents.
It was a pair of shoes. Shiny red dress shoes made of patent leather, that immediately and completely captured Reigen’s attention. They were frighteningly glossy; he couldn’t drag his eyes away. He reached into the box as if compelled.
“They’re so...” he said. Just as his hand closed around one of the shoes Mob took a step forward.
“Shishou, wait. Those shoes—”
“Tacky, right?” Reigen said, holding one up. “Absolutely horrible. Probably the gaudiest things I’ve ever seen.” He opened his hand to drop it back in the box but the shoe didn’t fall. It was stuck to his palm.
“They’re cursed,” Mob said, tugging the box a bit closer to his side of the desk. He was careful not to touch the other shoe as he reached inside.
“There’s a note.”
“How interesting,” Reigen said, shaking his hand wildly in an attempt to dislodge the shoe. “What does it say?”
“I’ll read it,” Mob said.
“Good idea, good idea. We should hear it straight from the source,” Reigen said, trying to pry off the shoe with a ruler from his desk.
“‘Dear Psychic, these are for you. Someone traded them in at my shop the other day and I’m pretty sure they’re haunted or something. They sneak into my house at night to watch me sleep. I’ve never caught them in the act but in the mornings there are footprints all over the place. Anyway, please take care of them. There’s payment in the box.’
“What a strange person,” Mob said, once he finished reading the note.
“There’s all sorts of people in the world, Mob. And some of them like to leave their garbage on other people’s doorsteps.”
Reigen braced both feet against the shoe to try and yank it off and fell out of his chair.
He didn’t manage to catch himself on the desk as he went down, but he did hook the toe of the shoe on the edge of the box, which went flying. It curved in a high arc, almost straight up, before spinning and spilling the second shoe, a few 100 yen coins, and some tissue paper into the air.
The coins hit the ground and bounced away into the filthy terra incognita behind the radiator. The other shoe smacked him heavily in the face. He almost blinded himself with the aglets of its dark scarlet laces as he rolled to avoid the box. When he didn’t hear anything hit the ground behind him, Reigen peeked over his shoulder and found it hovering a foot above his head, wreathed in a glimmering kaleidoscope of power.
The tissue paper wafted gently back to the desk and settled over some of Reigen’s neglected paperwork.
“Oi, Mob,” Reigen said resentfully from the ground, “why didn’t you catch the shoe, too? Or me?”
“Sorry Shishou,” Mob said evenly, “but like I said, it’s cursed.”
Reigen sighed thoughtfully. It came out as more of a huff.
“Well,” he said, “I guess if even my phenomenal powers can’t resist this curse then I can’t expect anything else.”
He sat up and noticed that the other shoe was now stuck to his face. The laces dangled obnoxiously over his left eye, so he tucked them behind his ear.
“At least they’re clean,” he muttered, bracing his hands to get up. The one with a shoe stuck to it skidded out from under him. He tipped over and his head bounced off the corner of the chair, but the shoe on his face protected him. Handy. But no points for the rescue since the damn thing caused his fall in the first place.
Reigen made it upright and leaned his free hand on the desk, propping the other one with its shoe on his hip and tilting his head so he could see Mob with both eyes unimpeded by footwear. Mob gazed back at him, his face solemn except for the faint sparkle of his eyes.
“This is serious, Mob.”
“Yes.”
“We’ve got to solve this right away, there’s no way I can live like this.” He waved the shoe for emphasis.
“Yes.”
“So quit laughing at me and help, rotten kid.”
“Of course, Shishou,” Mob said, reaching for him across the desk.
Reigen jerked back, holding up his free hand as a ward.
“Ah, wait, maybe not like that. Don’t want you to get stuck too, then we’d both be in trouble.”
“Don’t worry, Shishou. The curse is entirely locked onto you now.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Reigen muttered.
“If I can interfere with the shoe’s spiritual energy, I might be able to free you. But there’s a barrier. I can’t do anything without touching it.”
“And it’s safe for you?”
“I think so, Shishou.”
“Geez. You think, you might, maybe maybe maybe. Curses are tricky stuff, Mob, you can’t just go rushing in.”
“I know, Shishou. Please, let me try.”
Reigen considered the boy in front of him, so much taller than when they first met. Mob was shining with earnest care and the desire to help. Reigen sighed in defeat and leaned back in so Mob could reach his face.
“Thank you, Shishou.”
“Yeah yeah, get on with it already. And if this backfires, I’ll say I told you so.”
Mob raised a hand to the shoe and his eyelids drooped a bit as he concentrated on an inner world Reigen was barred from. Nothing happened, and continued to not happen for a little while, before Mob straightened out of his trance and returned his arm to his side.
“Well?” Reigen asked.
Mob tugged at his hair and shrugged.
Reigen stared at him, eyes narrow, then sighed for a third time.
“So. I guess this is my life now. Forced to live out the rest of my days covered in ugly shoes. An ignoble end for the greatest psychic of the twenty-first century. Bested by brogues. Overpowered by oxfords. Languishing under these loathsome loafers.”
Reigen was actually starting to get into his alliterative list of ailments—defeated by dress shoes, ha, another one—, but Mob seemed to want to say something.
“Maybe if we both pull?” Mob suggested.
“It’s worth a shot, I guess,” Reigen said.
They tried the shoe on his hand first, but it was slippery, the leather warm from Reigen’s sweaty grasp. Mob’s fingers slid right off and they both stumbled back a few steps. Reigen almost went through the window. He elected to move their operation out from the corner of the room and over to by the couch, where at least if he fell over again he would have a soft landing.
Next, Mob pulled at the shoe on his face. It wasn’t any more effective, but Mob had a much better grip. When the stretch turned painful, Reigen reached up, intending to adjust or remove Mob’s hands. As he did, he brushed the shoe and a sudden lack of resistance let Mob ram both shoe and Reigen’s arm down in a violently unexpected movement.
Reigen’s hand struck the internal frame of the couch so hard the cushions hopped. A muffled clang echoed around the room.
“G— Good muscles,” Reigen wheezed as he slowly collapsed over his newly injured hand, and then, “Hhhhh-”
The whiplash had staggered them both, but though Reigen sagged onto the couch Mob was still on his feet. The kid blinked a few times in shock at the abrupt shift. Still, he recovered before Reigen did and trotted off. How callous.
Mob crouched down across the room, in front of the office’s minifridge, then rose with full hands. Ah. He was thoughtfully fetching his master an ice pack. What a good student.
Reigen had uncurled a little on the couch when Mob got back. Though the throbbing of his knuckles made him hiss, the feel of a shoe in each hand felt like victory.
“Shishou. Are you okay?” Mob asked, coming at him with the ice pack and a doleful air.
He began to dress Reigen’s hand as best he could around the shoe, but Reigen stopped him.
“Wait a second, I figured something out,” he said. He held his good hand palm down and let the second shoe rest on the back of it. When he lifted his bad hand away the shoe stayed where he put it, and he tipped the hand sandwich back and forth, showing it off.
“Tada. Doublesided,” Reigen said, and offered Mob his injured—free!—hand to wrap in the ice pack.
“Oh. So, it only sticks to your skin?”
“Seems so, eh Mob?”
They lapsed into silence as Mob worked, one pensive, the other pained but pleased. When Mob was done, he didn’t quite relinquish Reigen’s hand, laying it down next to his knee on the couch.
Reigen had been experimenting with the shoes, sliding them like magnets on a fridge over his bits of exposed skin, but looked up when he sensed Mob’s charged attention. Mob's hands were folded tightly in his lap. The sight made him want to frown, but he suppressed the furrow of his brow and put on an affectionate smile instead. It wasn’t hard, even with this afternoon’s fiasco.
“I’m sorry, Shishou.”
“Sorry for what, you didn’t curse me. I don’t know who did but I’m at least pretty sure it wasn’t you. Though I haven’t pissed off any pawnbrokers lately either, as far as I know, so who knows.”
“It’s not that. Earlier, too…” he trailed off.
“What? Earlier?”
“I didn’t catch the shoe.”
“Pff, don’t worry about that. Even the astronomical might of my own spiritual abilities weren’t enough, so of course you couldn’t do anything.”
“...Your eye is swelling.”
“Eh?” Reigen reached up to prod at his eye socket and sure enough it throbbed. It must have been hidden by the shoe before. Maybe seeing it was what prompted this little crisis of faith.
Mob picked up a cold can of soda Reigen hadn’t noticed from the table. He held it up. Reigen looked at his swaddled hands and tried to figure out how he was going to hold it. Maybe if he pinched it against his shoulder? But his neck would get tired. Could he wedge it in the mouth of the shoe?
Mob gently brought it closer, and when Reigen cocked his head Mob pressed it to his eye and held it there. Oh. Of course.
Chilly, hard, and damp, it wasn’t the most soothing thing in the world, but there was only one ice pack so Reigen appreciated the thought. It did help, a little, though the rim was poking him in the eyebrow.
“I’m sorry,” Mob said again, staring down at the iced hand that was slowly leaking meltwater into the couch.
“Listen, Mob. Those were accidents. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I hurt you.”
“Don’t get too full of yourself. You were helping me, because I asked you to. You don’t control the world, Mob, just like everyone else, even if you do have psychic powers. And you’re not in charge of me, either. I’m an adult and I make my own decisions about what risks to take and what cursed objects to touch. And if it doesn’t work out, that’s on me. Every person must deal with the consequences of their own choices and actions; this is called personal responsibility.”
Reigen felt that some of the impact of his speech was lost because of the can, but Mob looked a little less dour once he was done, though most people wouldn’t notice the difference. The art of Mob-reading was one honed by long hours and years in his company, and by now Reigen was pretty good at it.
“I can’t help anyone like this, so how about we close up the office for the day?” he offered, “We can regroup later.” Also, he was tired and sore, and they were out of headache medicine at the office.
“But, your hands,” Mob said.
“Hold on,” Reigen said, and turned away so Mob could only see his back. He tugged the front of his shirt out of his pants. It took him a few tries to get the movement right, but he got the shoes to adhere to the exposed skin of his stomach instead of his hand. The trick was to move only his hand, keeping the new host area still during the transfer. Or maybe it was something about surface area? Reigen left those questions for later as he tucked his shirt back in. He turned back to Mob.
“What do you think? Definitely better, right?”
Mob looked at the untidily tucked shirt, and gave his opinion:
“It looks weird.”
“Hey, it’s not that bad,” Reigen said on reflex. Then he looked down at himself.
Now that he was sitting up, an elbow propped on the back of the couch, his shirt was drawn tight over the shoes. Mob was right, it looked weird. Their bright colour was visible through the thin fabric of his buttondown, and his midsection was all lumpy, from the shoes themselves and also from his rucked up undershirt. The combination resembled a tumour, or a parasite hiding under his clothes.
So, not as subtle as he’d hoped. Oh well. Reigen shrugged off his suit jacket and stood up, folding it over his arm. He held the draped cloth in front of him as a shield, and tilted his head at Mob in question. Mob tilted his own head in inspection, and then raised a hand and tilted that too in a ‘so-so’ gesture.
It would have to do. It was summer; maybe Reigen could pass for being overwarm instead of the victim of cursed footwear.
“Do you mind coming in tomorrow?” he asked Mob, setting down the jacket and removing the ice pack. Tomorrow was the weekend, and though Reigen was already extremely done with the shoes he didn’t want to discourage Mob if he had plans.
“Tomorrow is fine, Shishou,” Mob said, taking the lukewarm ice pack and the can of off-brand soda to put back in the fridge.
Reigen gathered his things so they could go, and Mob picked up his unopened bag from where it sat near the door. They left the box and the note. When they were ready, Reigen locked up the office and they went their separate ways.
The next morning, Reigen woke up to find the shoes had migrated in the night.
When he’d eventually fallen asleep, after much tossing and turning to accommodate the shoes in his bed, one had been in the small of his back, and the other on the outside of his shoulder.
Now they were both a good way down his thighs, one halfway onto his knee and stretching out his sweatpants. Which meant they had somehow navigated under an elastic waistband while he was unconscious. A worrying development.
Reigen hiked up his cuffs and plucked them off. They didn’t look any different from the day before. Still shiny, still unscuffed. The laces still had glitter in the weave, and sparkled as Reigen relocated the shoes to his bare back.
When he’d gotten home yesterday, he’d experimented and started a list of the curse’s rules. The shoes would stick to any area of skin at least a few inches wide. Any part of the shoe would stick except the laces, including the inside of the tongue. The laces could be unlaced, but not removed from the last set of eyelets, and they would relace if he looked away. The shoes resisted damage from knives, scissors, needles, rocks, water, fire, salt, sweat, talismans, incense, tea, cursing, walls, the floor, the counter, and his bare hands.
He put a question mark next to his newest entry: Shoes move at night. They want to be worn? After a moment of reflection, he added another word. Creepy.
While he was testing the shoes, he’d also tried out different ways to carry them. Last night he’d preferred to have the shoes rest over his kidneys, under his shirt, but now he wanted them as far away from his feet as possible.
The best he came up with was to have them ride like backpack straps high on his shoulder blades. The toes peeked jauntily over his shoulders, but they didn’t impede his movement or get in the way, and they were easy to reach in a pinch.
Since he didn’t plan to take any clients today, he dressed for convenience instead of respectability. He gathered and fastened the straps of a loose tank top behind his neck so they draped down his spine. The gaping back left plenty of room for his passengers, but it was a bit indecent, so Reigen dug out an old Hawaiian shirt. It was a touch too big, but it had been a gift. Lucky for him, the slightly stiff garment hid the shape of the shoes so he could go out in public. He left it unbuttoned; the extra slack would help his camouflage.
The result was kind of beachy, but what the hell, it was the weekend. He put on shorts.
Mob wasn’t there when he got to the office, so Reigen put his iced coffee down on the coffee table and booted up his laptop.
With practice, dealing with the shoes was getting easier. Reigen sat sideways on the couch so the arm could support his back without crushing them, and looked up ‘curse red shoes’. Mostly the results were fairy tales, but there was one horror movie that looked sort of interesting. Reigen watched the trailer. He was still freaked out when Mob showed up.
Startled by the door, Reigen twisted around and the laptop slid off his lap. He lunged awkwardly to catch it.
When he looked up again he found not just Mob but Ritsu in the doorway. Then Mob and his brother came in, revealing Hanazawa behind them.
“Uh, Mob,” Reigen said, “I thought you didn’t have plans today.”
“No, I did. So I brought Ritsu and Teru-kun with me.”
“And what were you going to do today?”
“Buy clothes. Teru-kun wanted to take me.”
Reigen flashed back to all the truly horrendous clothes Mob and Hanazawa had come up with over the years. In a rare moment of rapport he made eye contact with Ritsu, who nodded slowly.
“I’m the chaperone,” Ritsu said.
“So,” Hanazawa said, a hand on his hip, “is this going to take long?”
“I don’t know,” Reigen said, reaching over his shoulder to grab a shoe, “You tell me.”
Hanazawa appraised the shoe.
“Well, it’s stylish, but I think they’re too big for me,” he said, looking over the rims of his sunglasses, “Why were you keeping it in your shirt?”
Reigen opened his hand and and flapped it around in answer. The shoe remained stuck to his palm.
“Hmm,” Hanazawa said, shifting all his weight to one foot. His thumb came up to his lip in contemplation.
Mob clasped his hands in front of him as they waited. Ritsu lurked behind his brother, failing to suppress a smirk. Reigen pulled one leg up on the couch and left the shoe on his calf so he could dig out his cellphone.
They had silently voted Hanazawa ‘most likely to figure this shit out’. He had a singular talent for retaining and assimilating a diverse variety of psychic techniques, which might help him recognize the curse. The others let him think.
Reigen checked to see if he had any texts from Serizawa in the meantime, but there was nothing. Which made sense, since Serizawa was on a nature retreat with some of his friends. It was also a kind of reunion for him since they were all former classmates from his school. Reigen hoped he was having fun. If all went well, the shoes would be gone when he got back. Maybe they could laugh about it.
Hanazawa hummed a little and took off his heinous sunglasses to get a better look at the shoe. Reigen stretched his leg onto the coffee table helpfully, his foot hanging off the edge.
Ritsu stepped forward too. His face was neutral now that Mob could see him, but his lips still twitched when he looked at Reigen.
“Where’s the other one?” Ritsu asked.
Reigen fetched it and held it out.
Ritsu put his hand up to touch, but stopped himself, glancing back at Mob.
“We think it’s fine,” Reigen said, “Mob touched them yesterday and nothing happened, so knock yourself out.”
“Did you know nothing would happen when you let Nii-san touch these?” Ritsu asked suspiciously.
Reigen made eye contact with Mob when he said, “It was his idea. He knew what he was doing.”
“It’s true, Ritsu,” Mob said with a nod, “I decided myself.”
Ritsu accepted the answer and turned back to start tugging on the shoe. Reigen tensed his arm so Ritsu would have some leverage. Hanazawa was crouched by the table, inspecting the other shoe from an inch away. He held up a finger, almost touching it, and Reigen imagined a spark leapt between them.
Neither of them made any progress using finesse, so they both took turns trying to zap the shoes off. Reigen started to sweat when Ritsu tried to use excessive force, but Mob stepped in. That kid… Yeesh. Hanazawa was thankfully more restrained.
After a few minutes they gave up on brute force too. Reigen’s hair stood up with static, but he remained plastered with shoes.
An interesting fact about psychics is that they’re always grounded, electrically anyway, when they haven’t been using their powers. Reigen beckoned Mob over and poked him with his unoccupied hand until his hair went down.
He looked up at the semicircle of teenagers surrounding him and wondered if he should be concerned. Three—two and a half if he was being petty, but he’d leave that to Ritsu—very powerful psychics were stumped.
“I think it’s time for the last resort,” he said.
“I understand,” Hanazawa replied, and gestured with his hand. Something flew over from the tiny kitchen area and another motion stilled it to hover in midair. It was a knife.
“Ah! What the hell, put that down!” Reigen said, clutching his shod hand protectively to his chest. He drew back his leg for good measure as Mob stepped protectively in front of him to back him up.
“Teru-kun, I don’t think that’s what he meant.”
“Really, that’s a little much,” Ritsu said, crossing his hypocritical arms.
“Do you have any other ideas?” Hanazawa asked with a raised eyebrow, way too matter-of-fact.
“I meant putting them on!” Reigen said, incredulous. “Now drop the knife!”
Hanazawa considered that for a moment, and then with a flick of his fingers the knife was back in its drawer.
“You should have said so,” he said, unconcerned with his faux pas. He sat on the couch and crossed his legs, as if he hadn’t just menaced a man with a flaying or worse. Reigen casually slid all the way to the end of the couch.
“I messed around with the shoes last night, but nothing I tried affected them,” Reigen began.
“Like what?” Ritsu asked.
Reigen slid the shoe up his arm so he could dig out his list and hand it over.
“Lots of stuff. And they’re shoes, right? So trying them on is probably our best bet, but they’re enough trouble now and I’m not even wearing them. And what happens when they get what they want? What if they eat my feet?”
“What did you think tea was going to do? Was it blessed?” Ritsu asked.
“No, I spilled it because it was too hot. Almost every story I’ve found about magic shoes ends really badly for the person wearing them. Nine out of ten, at least. There’s only one that isn’t a tragedy, and I’m not much of a Cinderella.”
“The shoes move?” Hanazawa asked, nose crinkled as he stood to read the list with Ritsu.
“I think they’re like snails. I mean, they don’t leave a trail,” he gestured at their high finish, smooth and pristine as ever, “but if you give them enough time, they can crawl around.”
He shuddered and relocated the shoe from his leg to its place on his back.
“There’s all these bloody fairy tales and horror stories about shoes, and they all say putting them on just makes things worse. What if it kills me? There’s a story like that, this little girl puts on some shoes she got from her stepmother and just keels right over. It’s not reassuring.”
“So you didn’t try them on?” Mob asked, leaning over Ritsu’s shoulder to read the list.
“No,” Reigen said, “I didn’t even put my hands in them in case they bit off my fingers.”
All three of them were clustered around the list now. Well, maybe they’d find something he hadn’t.
“Does cursing a curse even work?” Ritsu asked.
“I don’t know, it depends. But it certainly sounds… recursive,” Hanazawa said, and was rewarded by one of Mob’s teeny smiles.
“Why did he think that would work?” Ritsu asked, “He can’t even uncurse things normally, if anything that would make it worse.”
“Ah, no, Ritsu. I think Shishou meant swearing. Like ‘damn’,” Mob said.
“Just damn?” Hanazawa asked.
“Fuck,” Mob said, staring at him. Hanazawa grinned.
Ritsu glared at Hanazawa. He crumpled the list in his hand and held it up to Reigen.
“Useless,” he pronounced.
“Oi, Mob’s brother, that’s a little harsh,” Reigen said.
“He’s right though, Reigen-san, there’s nothing here that’ll help us beat this curse,” Hanazawa said.
“Well, what about the note, then?’ Reigen asked.
“What note?” Hanazawa replied.
“The note! The note that came with the shoes. It’s probably still with the box; over there, on my desk,” Reigen said, pointing.
Three hands came up, but Reigen couldn’t tell which of them levitated the discarded packaging over to the coffee table.
“You didn’t think to mention this before?” Ritsu asked peevishly.
“In case you didn’t notice, you all kind of took me by surprise! Mob knew about it, isn’t that good enough?” Reigen said, “Besides, I don’t think it’ll be very helpful. There’s a thousand pawn shops and second-hand stores around here because the rent is so cheap, and no way of telling which one we’re looking for.”
“Well, for starters, it’s upscale,” Hanazawa said, hip cocked, “For this neighbourhood, anyway. There’s tissue paper, that didn’t seem odd to you?”
“Shoes always have— hmm. Alright, fair point,” Reigen said, “So we’re looking for an upscale pawn shop. Anything else, super sleuth?”
“This box says ‘Healthy Seasoning Convenience Store’,” Ritsu cut in.
“What? Where?” Reigen asked.
Ritsu flipped up the flaps in the bottom of the box. Their undersides were printed with thick black words and a cheery little logo of a lobster man. It was bisected, but it did indeed say convenience store.
“A clue,” Mob said, “Good job, Ritsu.”
“Do you know it?” Hanazawa asked.
“Yes. Shishou and I avoid it when we’re walking because he’s afraid of their mascot.”
“Wh- Hey! I’m not afraid, they’re just really pushy about attracting customers over there. If I wanted someone to force feed me and ask about money, I’d visit my mother. That realistic lobster costume has nothing to do with it,” Reigen said. It was a lie. The half man half shellfish mascot disturbed him deeply.
“I think it’s a crab, actually,” Hanazawa said, squinting at the little illustration, “Look, no antennae.”
“Oh, you’re right,” Mob said.
“How sad,” Ritsu said, with a disappointed shake of his head, “A grown man that can’t tell the difference between a lobster and a crab. I wonder if he can even cook for himself.”
No respect. Reigen got up and walked away from the sassy children to throw out his empty coffee cup.
As he dropped it into the garbage, he noticed a blobby pile of something green on the floor by his right foot. It twisted, and one of Dimple’s eyes phased through the floor, then a corner of his mouth.
“Hey, Reigen!” Dimple hissed, “What are all those brats doing here? I want to talk to Shigeo.”
“What are you doing?” Reigen asked, “He’s right over there, tell him yourself.”
Dimple’s visible eye darted evasively. “It’s private,” he hissed.
“Ha!” Reigen laughed. The sound was loud; it attracted the kids’ attention. The jig was up. Dimple rose into the air with a glare, and a disembodied finger flicked Reigen’s forehead.
“Ouch,” Reigen said flatly, rubbing the spot with his middle finger. He lowered his hand when the kids tromped over.
“Oh, Dimple,” Mob said, “Are you here to help?”
“Haa? Help with what?” Dimple asked.
“Shishou has been cursed,” Mob said.
Dimple’s face slid around until he was looking at Reigen again.
“Oh really?” he asked, smiling broadly. Eat shit, Dimple.
“And what seems to be the problem with our dear Reigen-san?”
Mob filled him in while Ritsu stood nearby. Hanazawa took a few steps back to stand near Reigen, arms crossed. They leaned against the wall companionably. It had been a while since they’d seen each other. Reigen used the opportunity to ask something he’d always sort of wondered about.
“So, what do you use to dye your hair?”
Hanazawa scoffed. “What do you?”
Reigen shut up.
Mob had finished bringing Dimple up to speed, anyway. The spirit lazily rolled through the air from the force of his laughter at Reigen’s misfortune. He was even wheezing a little, which didn’t make sense since he didn’t have lungs. Dimple was probably putting it on just to mock him. Tch.
Reigen’s revenge would be vicariously achieved. Mob reached out and snagged Dimple by his trail, and reeled him in until the spirit was between his hands. His bangs shadowed his eyes as he looked down at his catch.
“Dimple,” he said darkly, “This is serious. Shishou has been cursed. We need to help him.”
“Right. Got it,” Dimple said with a confident and determined face. He held out a thumbs up. Mob let him go.
Dimple floated high, looking down at them from above their heads.
“I’ll help, Shigeo, but not for free. How about you owe me one, and we’ll square it later, okay? One-on-one,” he said. Daringly opportunistic once out of reach, but Reigen wasn’t worried. Mob could handle himself.
Mob just stared at him and turned to the door.
“Let’s go,” he said, mild again, “It’s not far to the convenience store.”
Reigen looked at Hanazawa, who shrugged and pushed off from the wall. He glanced over at Ritsu and Dimple; they were already moving. He put the shoe on his forearm back on his back with its fellow and joined the herd.
Obediently, they followed, and the whole procession made its way out of the office and into the world: one man, one spirit, three kids, and five pairs of shoes.