Chapter Text
Day after day it reappears. Night after night, my heartbeat shows the fear. Ghosts appear and fade away.
Overkill by Men at Work
In sleep, Reigen visited the hospital again.
In fact, it seemed all regular programming in dreams had been replaced with the hospital, whether he passed out in front of the TV, or made the conscious decision to hit the hay.
When he slept, it felt more like a dream and less like another reality sequestered inside his mind. He was reassured when he woke up that while he hadn’t imagined it, it was nothing more than a dream and therefore no cause for concern. Any other strange happenings were either symptoms of his concussion, or an occupational hazard.
When he went to the hospital in regular dreams, he had little control over his actions. He had no physical form. His mind swam through the corridors with the koi fish, and watched the roiling, stormy sky outside. His hospital gown drifted weightlessly around him. The air smelled like ozone and mildew. In the dream hospital, he never encountered another soul. Through the windows, he could see people outside, going about their lives, but he never got close enough to speak to them. He wondered if they were even real. Perhaps, if he managed to approach them, he’d find that they didn’t have faces, or voices. Maybe they were like background characters in video games, only loading enough to convince the player they were real.
It set his teeth on edge.
And soon, he was gasping awake again. When he woke up, he felt more tired than he had when he’d fallen asleep. He also woke up drenched in sweat, like he’d spent the night running a marathon. He coughed up more of the brackish water that seemed to have made deep roots in his lungs. He wondered when he’d be rid of it. If he’d ever be rid of it.
At the bathroom sink, he brushed his teeth thoroughly, took a few painkillers, and shaved a few stray whiskers from his chin. After that, he ambled out onto his balcony to chain-smoke until he had to leave to open Spirits and Such. He watched the sun and remembered his mortality. He ate an out of date sandwich from a packet.
Tome had taken some convincing that the whole email fiasco had been nothing but a prank. He’d hastily played it off: ‘I was just testing you Tome. Don’t take everything so seriously, I thought young people were supposed to be fun!’ He realised she still didn't fully believe him, but he found he functioned best when people teetered on the edge of disbelief. It was his choice whether to tip them either way, depending on how he played his next hand. Uncertainty was easiest to sway.
In reality, seeing the emails sat in his inbox, still unread, all sent from his personal email account, had truly shaken him. He didn’t remember sending them and he certainly didn’t remember sitting down and writing them. True, the days since his accident with the spirit at Yoshitori’s had been a blur, but not so much that he’d lost time. At least, he didn’t think he had.
He’d almost assumed he’d been hacked, but when he got home and logged in to his personal email, there were drafts, half written and waiting to be sent. He didn’t know the ins and outs of hacking, but he didn’t think that was possible.
Must’ve been drunk, Reigen told himself.
He stubbed his last cigarette out into his overflowing ashtray and straightened out his suit.
He would go to work. He would dazzle clients. He would sell some of those damn books.
And he would be fine.
Reigen pulled his coat over his suit and left his apartment. It may have been late spring, but it was still freezing.
Spirits and Such had been quiet recently, so there was no better time to finally get back into the swing of things. Tome assisted when she could, arriving in the afternoons on weekdays with her college work tucked under an arm, and opening the office on weekends when Reigen couldn’t drag himself out of bed. She seemed to be concerned for him. And he was endlessly grateful for her—though he’d never tell her. She’d demand a pay rise, and Reigen already paid her just below minimum wage. That was way more than Mob had ever gotten.
When he got down to the street for his short amble into the office, he thought perhaps his fellow commuters hadn’t got the weather memo that morning. The people he passed were wearing light trousers, or polo shirts, or long flowing skirts. There were no coats in sight. But Reigen felt as though he could see his own breath, spiralling out in plumes ahead of him as he walked. He shivered and dug his hands into his pockets. He usually ran hot, but lately he’d hardly been able to get warm.
There was a small convenience store a few blocks from Spirits and Such. As he walked, he decided that an instant noodle pot would warm him up. Failing that, he figured they might have some hot drinks on sale.
The door chimed as he entered. The store was busy, as usual. There were quite a few office blocks around the vicinity, so a crowd of people of the same mind as Reigen had stormed in to purchase breakfast. He even spotted a few kids wearing Salt Middle School uniforms.
The bustle of the shop felt normal, which felt safe. He browsed through an isle of refrigerated food; sandwiches with thick white bread, onigiri, pre-packaged cuts of fish, and bread-crumbed meat.
“You know what Jun said?” A girl in a Salt uniform was laughing with her friend as she walked around Reigen.
“What?” Her friend replied, sounding much less enthusiastic than the first girl.
“She said she was going to confess to class president Asa. After school.”
Both friends burst out into tittering laughter. They sounded like a pair of exotic birds, and the sound went straight through Reigen’s head. He picked up a sandwich and turned it to read the ingredients. Salmon, spinach, egg. He put it back, making a face.
“Is she serious?” One of the girls chuckled.
Reigen moved away, pulling a packet of instant ramen from one of the shelves as he went. Leaving the girls behind, he dodged a pair of businessmen considering the snack selection and snagged a packet of peach candy. For Tome. He remembered her saying it was one of her favourites.
He dumped his shopping onto the front counter for the shop assistant to ring him up.
The man at the counter wore a bright blue apron and looked friendly enough, though he regarded Reigen with apprehension.
“Hey, can I also get a pack of those?” Reigen gestured to the cigarette stand behind the counter.
The man nodded, scanning them through. Behind his head, Reigen could see the CCTV screens. Three of them, each aimed at different parts of the store. He didn’t realise he was staring until the shop assistant tapped the register, where his total was displayed. The man looked a little exasperated, and Reigen was sure he’d been trying to get his attention for a while.
Reigen dug into his wallet for a couple of notes and passed them over, then went back to the CCTV screens. There was something…off…about them. The surface of the screens rippled. The people walking around the store looked like they were swirls of oil in water. He rubbed his eyes.
Reigen glanced back to the counter and collected his items, shoving them in various pockets. He placed the pack of cigarettes in his breast pocket, next to his lighter. He took the receipt and thanked the shop assistant, turning to go.
The man held his hand up, asking Reigen to wait. He gestured at the counter. “Wake up.”
Reigen paused, his smile frozen on his lips. “Sorry, what did you just say?”
The man’s face flickered into confusion, “I said, don’t forget your change, sir.” He gestured at the pile of coins on the counter.
“Ah,” Reigen laughed it off, sweeping the coins off the counter and into his coat pocket, “Thank you very much.”
The shop assistant watched him closely as he left.
The doors chimed again.
“Hey, Reigen?”
Reigen tore his eyes away from the window. He’d been watching the blossoms float past from his desk. End of the season again. It came around faster every year.
There he went again, acting all wistful. Perhaps it came with age.
“You told Serizawa that you’d let us know if you needed help, right?”
Reigen frowned at her. She sounded suspicious.
“Yes, I did. Well, I said when I needed help.” He steepled his fingers over his laptop keyboard. “I’d let you know.”
“You really worried him, you know?”
“I know, he told me that too.” Reigen leaned back in his chair, which rolled back until it hit the wall behind him. He let his head rest on the cool windowpane.
Tome’s fingers twitched over the calculator she’d been using to run through Reigen’s accounts.
Reigen sighed, “Are you going to tell me we’re losing money?”
Tome looked down, then back up at him. “No. Actually, we’ve done better this quarter than we have the past financial year. I’ve actually been learning about KPI’s in class, and—”
Reigen grimaced and flapped his hands at her, “Don’t use that fancy talk with me.”
“Okay.” Tome’s eyebrow arched, “Money is good, pay me more.”
Reigen laughed, the biggest belly laugh he could muster with what little energy he had. “You’re hilarious.”
“Alright—just, listen.” She became serious once more. “I’m just saying, I think you might need a break. From work, I mean. Why not take a nice vacation? You could, uh I don’t know, visit family or something? Do you have family? Uh, go to the beach? An onsen?”
Reigen tried to imagine himself lounging on a beach, or relaxing at an onsen. He didn’t even grace the idea of spending a break visiting his family with a spare thought. A holiday? He’d only ever gone to those sorts of places on a job. “But I’ve never taken a break.”
Tome shrugged, “Maybe that’s the problem? You’re at your limit.”
Reigen laughed, “When I’m at my limit, you’ll know. This business won’t run itself, and anyway, I love this place! What, am I just meant to leave it to the dogs while I’m gone? The amount of times this office has blown up, or burnt down, I can’t take my eyes off it for more than a few hours.” He huffed, “The insurance company won’t cover another accident.”
“Okay, let me put it this way. You’ve done nothing for the past hour other than stare at the damn cherry blossoms out the window.”
Reigen shrugged. “Can’t miss the fleeting beauty. You know, people travel from all around the world to witness this spectacle.” He gestured to the window.
“What about the emails? You know, the ones you sent to yourself? You didn’t think I really believed your shitty cover story.”
“Language, Tome.”
“I keep coming in to find the office is closed, and you’re completely absent. When I do catch you in here, you stare into space and talk to yourself.” Her voice was raised. She really looked angry, though Reigen didn’t know why. He didn’t need to be lectured by a college student. “Ever since that evil spirit roughed you up at Yoshitori’s house, you’ve been completely spaced out.”
“Yeah? Well, a concussion will do that to you.” Reigen pointed out. For some reason, his tongue felt heavy in his mouth. He felt drunk.
“This is what I’m talking about! You totally just slurred your words right there.” Tome pointed at him accusingly.
“I did not.” Reigen said.
“Your commitment to a bald-faced lie is impressive, but I literally just heard you.”
He shrugged.
Reigen knew she was telling the truth. He had lost time over the past week, and it had all started since he’d been attacked by that evil spirit. But he was still seeing clients, still turning up to work, and he’d been taking meds to keep the pain at bay. He didn't need a break, or to spend time away from work. He needed to get back into the swing of things. Back to normal.
As soon as the damn concussion and weird dreams had cleared up, it would be fine. But wasn’t a week a little long to ignore all the strange symptoms he’d been experiencing? Were hallucinations and vivid dreams the norm for mild head trauma?
He sat back in his chair and ran his fingers up the length of his nose and came to a rest at the space between his eyebrows where yet another headache had blossomed. It had come on when Tome had started yelling at him.
“Reigen, will you listen to me? For once?” Tome called, bored with being ignored.
Reigen groaned, “Only if you stop shouting. My head is killing me.”
“I’m not shouting.” Tome shouted.
Reigen squeezed his eyes shut. The overhead light was suddenly so bright it was like torture. His father used to get awful migraines, where he had to draw all the curtains and lay in a dark room until it passed. Sometimes it took days. Reigen felt like laying in a black hole wouldn’t be dark enough.
He scrabbled through his desk drawers for a few moments, watched by a bewildered Tome. He’d run out of painkillers. Or he’d forgotten them. He couldn’t keep track of himself.
Reigen squinted at Tome, “Hey, is the room spinning for you too?”
Tome’s eyes went wide, “What?”
Much like it had in Yoshitori’s garden, Reigen’s vision clouded up like a thick fog had rolled in. What little he could see was gradually eaten away into darkness. The room suddenly felt very cold.
“I don’t know…I don’t feel…” Reigen croaked. He lost whatever words he was trying to say into the opening abyss in his head.
Reigen tried to get to his feet. Something at his core told him he needed to be standing for whatever came next. To fight an invisible assailant. Or to run. His legs felt like jelly.
“Reigen, are you—“
Reigen took one last look at the cherry blossoms outside. They truly were beautiful, especially bathed in that deep orange glow from the afternoon sun. He really had to take more pictures.
Then he was falling.
“Woah, hey!” Tome’s chair clattered to the floor.
The floor swiped up from beneath him and caught him, neat as a ball in a net. His shoulders cracked against the side of his desk. When he opened his eyes again he was laying down, looking up at the ceiling. Listening to the buzzing lights above him. The sounds of the cafe above, the squeaking chairs, and the alarms echoing in the city below.
And Tome’s voice, calling his name.
Reigen woke up in the other place. The hospital room.
He heard the crack of the deer scarer, and shot upright in bed. His head swirled and echoed the pain he’d felt when he’d fallen in front of Tome. He looked around. The heart rate monitor bleeped slowly, taunting. Tome wasn’t here.
He unhooked himself methodically from the monitoring equipment and turned it off at the plug. He left his IV line trailing across his bed, certain that there was not a soul in this hospital aside from Reigen himself.
“Okay, here again.” He mumbled. “What now?”
He touched his head. It hurt much less than it had in…the real world? He wasn’t sure. When he’d dreamt of this place a few nights before, it had definitely been just that. A dream. But now that he was here again? It felt so real.
He swung himself out of bed and kept momentum out of the door. He didn’t stop at the nurse station, and kept walking until he met another set of doors. He shivered. He searched for a moment, until he found a coat swung over the back of a chair in one of the hospital rooms. He pulled it on. It appeared to be a woman’s parka coat, but it was large enough to fit him. Not that he was the world’s largest man. Serizawa would have some trouble squeezing into it. The thought bizarrely made his stomach flutter.
He left the hospital. He didn't know why he hadn’t before, but he supposed he’d been distracted by the foreign environment.
He had been right about being alone in here. In his journey to find the exit, he didn’t find a single occupied room. No nurses, no doctors, no patients. Just empty rooms, empty corridors, empty beds.
The double doors opposite the reception were not locked. Reigen pushed into the outside world with ease. For some reason, he felt the need to brace himself, as if he’d reach the other side of the doors and find a vacuous void, a cloud of nothing. His bare feet stumbled out onto asphalt. He caught the scent of the city. He’d emerged onto a dingy back-alley. It was still deathly silent, but it felt more alive than inside the hospital.
The sky still roiled ominously above him, on the edge of a storm. It felt like it was watching him.
“Okay.” He said, “Okay, next order of business.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face, a sort of factory reset he hoped would keep him awake long enough in here to get to the bottom of this. Keep me awake in here? Aren’t I asleep?
He urged himself to move on—arguing semantics with himself wouldn’t get him anywhere fast. He walked until he was out of the alley and reached a wider road. He passed people, who glanced at him, then quickly away. They pulled up their coat collars to hide their mouths as they twisted in confusion, or disgust. They seemed real enough. He heard a few mutters.
“Did you see him?” They said, “Is he wearing anything under that? It’s too cold to be walking around without shoes.”
Reigen pulled the coat tighter around him. He hadn’t really considered that the people outside would pay him much mind. He was dreaming after all.
After a few blocks of stumbling in bare feet, he recognised a sign. It was the convenience store he’d visited that morning in the real world. Except, the words on the sign had bled together and dripped down the front of the shop. In fact, every piece of text had not been spared from the melting treatment. From the ice-cream display, to the adverts for cigarettes, the opening hours and the alcohol licence, all the words had become completely illegible.
He turned away, before the stabbing pain in his eyes became too much.
You know… He found himself thinking, that store is only a few blocks away from Spirits and Such.
He turned on his heel and followed a very familiar path. Past the houses with plum trees leaning over their walls. Weaving through the bridge over the river. The walk was a little more treacherous than usual, with no shoes or pants on. He received increasingly alarmed glares from passersby. Reigen did look a little like he’d freshly escaped from a mental institution. He felt a little like it too.
A few minutes later, and he was looking up at Spirits and Such. From the outside, the building looked exactly the same, apart from the sign. Much like the convenience store, the letters on the sign were dripping black onto the street below. He caught a whiff of mildew.
“Time to go to work.” He smiled. He felt like even if the world ended, his old office would be the last thing standing, like a cockroach. He patted the door as he opened it, like he was greeting a friend. As stupid as he looked, it brought him a small comfort to know Spirits and Such would always be waiting for him.
He took the stairs up to the next floor, tracing the marks on the steps where his own shoes had worn them down. Well, his shoes, along with everyone else in the building.
When he reached the door into the office, his hand went to his pocket where he usually kept his keys—of course, there were no keys there now. There wasn’t even a pocket. He was still wearing a hospital gown, and some poor woman’s coat. He worried that she’d miss it. Serizawa would have scolded him and made him return it.
He tested the handle. The door swung open on well oiled hinges, the smoothest it had opened in many years. He’d never really bothered to maintain the office, which meant the door often stuck and needed a strong arm to persuade it to open again.
He walked in.
“Sorry about that Tome, I just had the strangest…dream.” Reigen stopped in the centre of the room.
“Are you here…for an appointment…sir?” A woman’s voice asked hesitantly.
Three women stared at him with obvious confusion. Two of the women sat in leather chairs beneath mirrors mounted against the wall, where his posters and notice board normally hung. One woman had her hair in foils, and the other had been clean shaven. The third woman, standing where Reigen’s desk was meant to be, had her hands on her hips. Reigen’s desk had been replaced with some kind of strange contraption, a porcelain bowl stuck to the top of a chair. It had a shower head. It looked almost like a strange chair-sink chimera.
“We only cut women’s hair.” She said accusingly. She wore a half apron, loosely strung into her belt loops. A pair of scissors hung out of her back pocket.
“Ah, of course.” Reigen said, as though he’d expected her to say this. Truth be told, it had taken him an embarrassing amount of time to realise the room he’d stepped into wasn’t Spirits and Such, but a hairdressing salon.
The woman squinted at him. “Although…your roots could do with a bleaching.”
Reigen touched the top of his head self-consciously. They hadn’t grown out that much, had they?
“I’m actually looking for my office. It’s, uh. I must’ve gotten the wrong floor.”
The woman with her hair in foils tutted, “Looks confused, poor dear. Where did you come from?”
Reigen flushed, “I’m not confused. I’m just—“
The hairdresser, stood next to the sink-chair contraption, smiled reassuringly. “What’s your business called? I know all of the units in this building. Maybe I can help you find where you’re meant to be?”
Reigen returned her smile, grateful to finally find someone willing to help. He was finding himself confused more and more lately, but he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten the correct floor. The walk was so familiar to him, he could do it in his sleep—or, not-sleep, or whatever this strange world was. Was he still asleep?
Through the window, he saw a trailing orange fin float past. The other occupants of the room didn’t seem to notice it.
“That would be really helpful.” Reigen said, “You see, I’m actually an infinitely powerful psychic who happens to work in this building. I am Reigen Arataka! Please rely on me for any spiritual problems, I can share some price lists with you. My business is called Spirits and Such—uh, wait, I’ve got a business card.” He slapped his hip, where his suit pocket usually sat, and came up blank. Still wearing the hospital gown.
The hairdresser’s eyes had grown wider and wider in small increments. Her smile remained, but had lost its sparkle. “Miss Ikimaru? Could you please fetch me the phone?”
“Wait, I’m not—“ Reigen protested, but it died on his tongue.
The woman with her hair in foils leapt up and grabbed a phone from its cradle in the wall. Funny. There was a mark in the wall of his office, right where the phone cradle had been drilled into the wall. He’d covered it with a poster. Something dawned on him. Just a feeling, not enough for him to apply proper logic, but enough to throw him off guard.
“Hello?” The hairdresser was speaking hurriedly into the phone, “I’ve got a very strange man in my salon…No, he’s very confused. He’s wearing a hospital gown. I think he’s escaped from somewhere.”
Reigen ignored the blasphemy and looked back to the chair-sink contraption. The shower head resting on the sink was dripping water, slowly. Drip, drip drip. Right where his desk was meant to be.
He took a few steps closer.
The hairdresser covered the phone receiver with a cupped hand, “Hey! Stop there, guy!” She went straight back to speaking into the phone, “He said he’s a psychic, what kind of hospital do you think he escaped from?”
The water from the shower head continued to drip to the floor. The shape of the chair on the floor would surely make a strange impression with enough water damage. A shape that would look very similar to the water stain beneath Reigen’s desk. He backed away. The slowly dawning realisation had ground to a halt and given way to confusion. What the hell does this mean?
“I want someone to come here, and take him away. I don’t want him to hurt himself, or…you know.” The hairdresser continued to ramble on to whoever would listen on the other end of the phone, presumably the police.
Reigen backed up until he hit the door.
“Listen, I’m sorry. I’ve clearly made a mistake.” Reigen said, “It’s not what it looks like. I mean, I’m completely sane.”
The foil-hair woman chuckled, world weary, “Yeah, that’s what my old gramps said, right before he went and murdered my great grandma.”
Reigen grinned reassuringly, “I’m leaving now.” He fled back out into the stairwell and took each step two at a time. The faster he could get away from the imposter building, the better. His feet beat against the ground and asphalt bit into his soles.
He wasn’t sure where he was running this time. He considered going back to the hospital and trying to go back to sleep until he was sure this was the real world, and the other place was a dream. Instead, his feet took him out to where all the streets fed into one, where the buildings retreated back and made space for a clearing. In the clearing was the park he passed every day, walking between his apartment and Spirits and Such.
As always, it was almost empty, just an expanse of neatly trimmed grass, and a playground with a few articles of play equipment. A swing-set, a climbing frame, and a slide. The same combo could be found in tiny parks like this all over the city, but only this one was familiar to Reigen. He slowed to a stop as his feet met grass. Softer than asphalt, that was for sure.
He was alone. Well, not quite.
The playground was occupied by two kids. A boy and a girl. They were short, without much basis for comparison, Reigen didn’t know how old they were. Six, maybe?
They looked a little young to be out without a parent anyway, but that didn’t matter, because one of them was making a small dog float at least three or four metres in the air.
“You’re amazing!” The girl cheered.
The boy made the dog float higher. Psychic powers. Just like…
The kid turned around.
“Mob?” Reigen asked, his breath leaving him, fogging the air around him.
The kid looked up at him. His bowl cut gave him away. Reigen had a pretty nasty trim in high school, but Mob’s cut took the cake. But this Mob wasn’t the Mob he knew. This was Mob, before they’d met. Which meant, this was Mob before he’d accidentally hurt his brother with his uncontrolled powers.
This Mob, young Mob, looked at him with open fear. His eyes were wide and starry. “Who are you?”
Reigen opened his mouth, then stopped. How was he meant to answer that question? To young Mob, Reigen wasn’t his master. At least not yet. He was a perfect stranger.
“I’m…” He looked up at the dog, “Hey that’s a pretty neat trick.”
Young Mob grinned. Since he’d accepted his powers, Mob had been much more expressive, but the unrelenting joy on the boy’s face was unlike anything Reigen had ever seen from him before.
“Tsubomi thinks so too!” Young Mob said.
The girl, clearly Tsubomi now that Reigen thought about it, nodded vigourously. “He can do other stuff, too. He can lift super big stuff, and make stuff come alive. It’s really cool.”
“That is super cool.” Reigen assured her. “Hey, uh, is it really you?”
Young Mob and Tsubomi blinked in unison, watching him with wide eyes.
“Who are you talking about?” Young Mob asked.
Reigen shook his head, “See, I know you. In the real world. So what is this?” He looked around, “Some weird trick?”
“What’s wrong, mister?” Tsubomi asked.
Reigen stumbled back. He looked up at the stormy sky and directed his questions there. He had the strange sense that it was watching him. “What do you want? What is this? You’re just taunting me with the people I know, but not like this! Am I awake?” He looked back to the kids, “This can’t be real.” He murmured. But it felt real.
“You’re scaring me.” Young Mob said. The little dog had been lowered to the ground, and was dashing across the park back to it’s owner on the opposite street. He watched the owner of the dog hesitate in their walk when they spotted Reigen.
“I’m sorry, buddy.” Reigen said. He shut his eyes, hard. He was feeling woozy again.
“Hey, are you okay mister?” Young Tsubomi asked.
“Not really, no.” Reigen said, and his legs crumpled from beneath him.
I’m getting real sick of passing out, he thought, staring up at the stormy sky.
He heard a roll of thunder, like a laugh. The sky looked down at him with clinical detachment. Reigen watched back, even as his eyes were weighed shut by sleep. That sky was observing him, he was sure of it.
A leaf, moving as if it was caught in the current of a lazy stream, floated past his face.
But he was falling asleep again, legs shaking and the soporific feeling that rushed through his bloodstream. The fish were there, somewhere. He couldn’t see much anymore, his vision tunnelling, but he could feel them floating around him in the same way he could tell if someone was staring at the back of his head.
Before he closed his eyes, young Tsubomi’s face appeared over him. Her eyes were filling with sparkling tears.
“Wake up!” She cried.