Chapter Text
How do you feel at the end of the day? Just like you've walked over your own grave?
Ghosts by The Jam
“Are you listening? I said, how does it feel now?”
Reigen looked up. “Oh…yeah, it’s fine” He said numbly.
They’d bandaged his leg in the minor injuries clinic, and plastered his face in butterfly strips. They’d asked a few questions in the clinic about how the injuries had been obtained. Reigen had been unable to summon his repository of white lies to animatedly explain away the situation. In fact, he’d barely spoken since they’d left Spirits and Such.
The staff at the clinic had maintained expressions of dawning horror as Serizawa had haltingly explained (and lied) that Reigen had been attacked by an angered assailant who had stabbed him with a pencil—but no, they’d rather not call the police if that was okay.
Now, they sat on a bench overlooking the river. They’d begun walking back to the office, but an unspoken agreement had settled over them and they’d stopped to sit.
Serizawa watched the people passing by, the sky, the river. Reigen watched a school of incorporeal koi floating lazily through the air.
A troupe of kids passed them, waltzing in loose formation. Reigen watched them pass through the koi. One kid turned back to call for his friend, his face eclipsing through the stomach of one of the bloated fish.
Serizawa turned to him, his intention to speak was punctuated by a short gasp. “You’re quiet. Are you still in pain?”
Reigen smiled, because he didn’t know what kind of expression he was meant to make in a situation like this. The smile hurt. The wounds on his face pulled, but the pain dug deeper than his epidermis.
“You should go.” He said. The words fell from Reigen’s lips, and though he’d tried to soften them, they still felt sharp on his tongue.
“What?” Serizawa said, halfway to a breathless laugh. He rubbed his neck, unconsciously, and as his collar shifted Reigen saw the butterfly shaped bruises mottling his skin.
Reigen looked at his hands.
“You should go—while you still can.” Reigen clarified.
“Go where?”
Reigen traced a line across his palm. He’d learned palm reading in a pamphlet which had fallen out of a psychic digest magazine he’d found in a dentist’s waiting room. He touched a line running between his ring finger and the heel of his hand. His heart line. The way it twisted supposedly meant he loved easily. Or maybe, that was just the way his skin had creased over the years. He’d never put much stock in palmistry.
“Arataka.” Serizawa said sharply, impatient. “Go where? What…what do you mean by that?”
Reigen laughed. It sounded like the warble of an alarm, discordant and panicked. “I don’t know!” The words snapped out of him. He was shouting, and he sounded angry, but he wasn’t. “I don’t know where. I don’t know. All I know is, it’s too dangerous for you to stay with me.”
Serizawa’s eyes were wide. His hands clutched at his knees.
“Do you understand?” Reigen asked in desperation, “We tried, okay? And I’m so grateful to everything you did for me, but this—” Reigen leaned over to pull Serizawa’s collar down. The bruises were turning into purple-blue storm clouds, passing across the expanse of Serizawa’s neck. “This can’t happen.”
If he let it go on, how long would it be until Serizawa watched Reigen with the same fear that Sara had watched Makoto? Reigen couldn’t watch his hands hurt Serizawa ever again.
Serizawa was still silent.
“That’s why it’s better if you go.”
“Do you want me to go?”
Reigen met his eyes. “It’s safer if you do.”
“I didn’t ask that,” Serizawa said. His lip curled as he said it, like he’d tasted Reigen’s despair and didn’t like the flavour.
Reigen shrugged.
“Do you want me to go?” Serizawa repeated, slowly this time.
“Shit—no. Of course I don’t.” Reigen almost laughed at himself, at his own contradiction. It was funny, in a way.
“Then I won’t.”
Reigen pressed his palms against the hollows of his eyes. “It’s not that—I can feel it. Just behind my eyes, just beneath my skin, waiting for the next time I lower my guard. And when that happens—”
“It won’t.”
Reigen sighed. “Shut up.” There was no venom in his words, “The point is, it will happen again, and it’d be pretty selfish of you to keep putting yourself in harm’s way if you won’t even try to stop me. I had to watch my own hands try to crush the life out of you, do you know how that feels?”
“Actually…yes. I have a pretty good idea of what losing control feels like.” Serizawa’s voice dropped to his lowest register, “I also understand what it’s like to put your own loved ones in danger, simply by existing next to them. To live with that…fear.”
Reigen chewed his lip. He couldn’t argue that.
Serizawa shook his head, “So, if you’re trying to say goodbye—”
“I’m trying to give you a way out. I’m asking you to take it. I can’t hurt you any longer. What happened today can never happen again.”
“It wasn’t you. None of this is your fault.”
“But I made the deal with the spirit, I told it to use me. I didn’t even think of the danger to you, to Tome, to everyone. I was selfish, again.”
“You did it to save Tome. You had to.”
“No. You said it yourself, I could’ve called you. Or Mob, or Hanazawa, or anyone really. But I didn’t.” Reigen laughed, slow, humourless. “I did it because I wanted to be the hero for once. Because I wanted to be the one to save us. I just wanted to know what that would feel like.”
What was it he’d written in that stupid essay all those years ago? I want to be someone.
Serizawa’s eyes narrowed. “You want so badly for me to believe you’re a terrible person. But, I watched you…hurt yourself, just so the spirit would stop. This,” Serizawa touched his neck, “is nothing to someone like me. But you don’t have my powers. Your body is breakable. So I realised…it’s not just the spirit that I have to worry about. It’s you.”
Reigen didn’t know what to say. He’d hurt Serizawa in more ways than one. He rubbed his eyes until the vision behind his eyelids went white.
“So, thanks for the offer.” Serizawa mumbled, “But I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Not crazy.” Serizawa turned to him, and pulled Reigen’s hands into his own. He was smiling. Reigen wondered if he’d lost it.
His face lit with an ecstatic joy that was only slightly crazed, but entirely pure. His teeth were stained with thirty years of coffee and life, but they dazzled in perfect pearly rows.
“I don’t care.” Serizawa said, his voice tinged with the amber glow of his joy.
Reigen leaned forward, clasping his hands beneath his chin as though in prayer. “What?”
“I don’t care what it takes. I’m going to exorcise the spirit. I’m going to show you that none of this was your fault. I’ll prove to you…that you-you weren’t built to hurt people. And after all that, I’ll treat you to some takoyaki.”
Reigen stared at Serizawa for longer than necessary. The joy, he had to admit, was infectious. Even after everything, he could feel the hollow in his chest grow warm. It warmed him to see Serizawa so determined, so confident in his own ability.
“You’re a real piece of work, Katsuya. You know that?” Reigen poked a finger into his side, beneath his ribs. “A real bastard. Won’t even let me die quietly.”
Serizawa looked smug, “Not going to let you die at all, so hate me if you like. I’m not giving up.” His brows drew together; he looked very serious. “You hear me, evil spirit? Strangle me all you want but you’re not having him.”
“Oh, that’ll show it.” Reigen said sarcastically, but he was laughing, “I can feel it relinquishing control already.”
Serizawa leaned forward, and for a second Reigen thought he was bowing. Instead, Serizawa brushed his lips against the top of Reigen’s head, bracing his hand on the back of Reigen’s neck.
“You’re right,” He mumbled into Reigen’s hair, “I am selfish. And I’m going to continue to stay with you, even if you hate me for it.”
Reigen stared at the ground between them.
“Because I know to be alone would kill us both.” Serizawa whispered the words over his head. Reigen felt the truth of them sink into him.
Serizawa pulled back.
Reigen became aware of someone lingering near the bench, a few paces away. Their footsteps against the gravel has slowed as they approached.
Reigen looked up, ready to berate the stranger for staring.
“Um, Arataka?” The woman’s uncertain voice echoed around Reigen’s head until he correctly identified it.
It had been a few years, but she hadn't aged—or changed at all really.
Her hair was still the same shade of strawberry blonde, her eyes still crinkled at the edges when she smiled, and her eyebrows still arched mischievously; all traits Reigen saw in his own mirage.
“Oh! It is you.” The woman said, touching the fabric shopper bag which dangled by her arm. “I was hoping to bump into you at the office. Um, what did you call it? Spirits and All?”
Reigen found his tongue. “Kimi?”
Serizawa made a small noise of confusion. “Who?”
Kimi looked between Serizawa and Reigen, a question passing over her face quickly as she answered it for herself. She stepped closer, but still idled a few paces away from the bench, hesitant to encroach on whatever bubble the two men had created for themselves.
Reigen smiled as wide as his lips could be persuaded without opening his stitches, “Kimi. She’s my sister.”
“So,” Reigen said, “What made you swing by the office?” He kept his voice light as they walked beside the river.
Really, he was wondering what curveball the universe was going to pelt him with next. He was waiting to be taken out by a falling piano, or a fluke lightening strike. Or, and perhaps more likely, a giant floating broccoli.
Instead, Kimi smiled and Reigen saw his sister. He saw her in the garden at their childhood home, chasing him around the koi pond. He saw her crying over exam results at the kitchen table. And then he saw her in front of him, hair frazzled and plastered to her forehead with the humidity. She looked well. He’d missed her.
Kimi’s mischievous resting face turned downright dastardly, and Reigen braced himself. “How long were you planning on keeping your secret, Taka?”
Reigen felt Serizawa’s surprise as he went tense beside him.
“What do you know?” Reigen asked slowly.
Kimi gestured between Reigen and Serizawa, “Mom told me you weren’t seeing anyone!”
Reigen blinked, slow to process, but Serizawa was already blushing.
“Oh. Oh,” Reigen looked at Serizawa for help, but he’d chosen this moment to freeze up. He still had trouble with strangers, especially unexpected strangers, especially unexpectedly busy-bodied strangers who snuck up on couples in parks.
“How long?” Kimi knocked shoulders with Reigen, and he was transported back twenty years, walking home from school. “And don’t try to play it off, I saw you two having a decidedly un-platonic moment when I was waiting for you to notice me.”
Once he’d recovered from the blast of nostalgia, Reigen said, “I don’t know. A day? Give or take a few hours”
Are we even dating? Did we give it a label? Should we give it a label?
Reigen's thoughts scrambled uselessly together into an omelette of mortification.
Kimi’s nose scrunched like she’d eaten something sour, “A day? That’s it?”
Reigen rolled his eyes. Kimi had been hoping for embarrassing stories.
Serizawa chuckled, “Unless you count the two years we were both secretly hoping the other would make the first move. We certainly aren’t…strangers.”
“Oh,” Kimi pushed past Reigen so that she was walking between the two men. She grabbed Serizawa’s arm, “You’re Serizawa, right?”
Serizawa looked like a fish out of water. “Y-yes?”
“I’ve heard so much about you.” Kimi said wickedly.
“Really?”
Reigen sighed, “I told her about you in one of our phone calls, back when I first hired you.”
Kimi raised her eyebrows at Reigen, “And every time after that.” She turned back to Serizawa, “I’d pretty much assumed you two were already dating, the way he spoke about you. I thought Taka didn’t tell Mom since he was scared she wouldn't accept him.”
“I don’t care about that.” Reigen said, though it had indeed been one of his fears. “Anyway, you were telling us why you came here?”
Kimi frowned, “I came to visit my brother—is that a problem?”
“No. I just thought it was strange, considering you’d never dropped by to visit me before in say, the last three or so years.”
She stopped in her tracks. Serizawa and Reigen were forced to stop on a dime, both stumbling slightly with the loss of momentum.
Kimi’s face had turned serious, and for a moment, Reigen inexplicably thought She’s going to tell me Mom’s dying too.
But she didn’t. She said, “Come here.”
And pulled him in for a hug.
Reigen tensed—he wasn’t usually a hugger, and neither was Kimi. But he patted her back and endured the hug anyway.
“You look like shit.” She said in a low voice.
“Hm, congratulations. You have eyes.” Reigen shot back.
“Don’t tell me your new boyfriend beats you—you can tell me if he does. I’ll kill him.”
“N-no!” Reigen stammered, pulling out of the hug, “Trust me, once you’ve spoken to him for more than a few minutes, you’ll realise you couldn’t pay him to hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. This is…more of an occupational hazard kind of thing.” Reigen touched his face. The painkillers had taken the edge off, but dull pain was still pain.
“Good. I was worried. Mom said you weren’t doing well.”
Reigen looked over to Serizawa, who was pointedly looking away, no doubt being respectful of what was turning out to be a very personal conversation.
“I have help. I’m not alone.”
Kimi nodded, “Good. I’m glad to hear it.” She leaned past Reigen, so that the conversation opened out to Serizawa again. “Serizawa, would you let me treat you to ramen? I’d love to know more about you.”
Reigen blanched at his own exclusion in this endeavour.
“Oh, thank you very much.” Serizawa said. He met Reigen’s eyes over Kimi, a faint humoured spark in them.
Perhaps treating friends to ramen was a Reigen family trait.
“Okay…” Kimi said as she slurped the last of her udon. “So you met when the head of a terrorist organisation tried to kill my brother…and you saved him?”
Serizawa shrugged, like someone might in response to a question about their job.
The ramen bar was thick with the air of a post-work night, bursting with businessmen and people a little too drunken to navigate the bar stools. Serizawa had to catch a man by the arm before he tipped over his ramen bowl.
Reigen had always felt comforted by nights like these, and since his sister had been present, he barely felt the oppression of the spirit baying in his head. It was almost easy to keep it locked away. He wondered if he’d scared it with the move he’d pulled earlier. Proved that he wasn’t messing around.
He rubbed a hand over his leg, palming the dressing beneath his slacks. The pain echoed in response to his touch.
“Hell of a meet cute.” Kimi said, “And you’re psychic too?”
Reigen pulled himself back into the conversation, “Serizawa is really psychic. Not like me. He could leave a smoking crater where you sat if he wanted, so don’t piss him off.”
Serizawa blustered, “I would never! Why would you say that?” He turned to Kimi, “I wouldn’t use my powers for something like that, I swear.”
Reigen shot Kimi a knowing look, and they shared their first sibling inside joke in a considerable number of years.
See? Reigen’s look said, He wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Kimi’s look shot back, Yeah, no kidding!
Aloud, Kimi said, “I know you wouldn’t. Taka has a strange knack for attracting very powerful people, but he has the sense to keep only the good ones around. And I get the sense you’re one of the good ones.”
Serizawa smiled, “I hope so.”
Reigen placed his spoon down, having managed a few sips of broth before his body reminded him of the day’s events and his appetite quietly slipped away.
“Kimi, you didn’t just come here to treat Katsuya to ramen.” Reigen reminded her. “I already asked you your intentions once.”
Kimi cocked her head, and though she didn’t seem offended, she was clearly disappointed her fun was ending. She didn't like to be serious unless she absolutely had to.
“Okay.” She sighed. “Mom sent me.”
Reigen choked, “What?”
She shrugged uneasily. “I guess she knew you might not respond well if she showed up at your office without warning.”
“Really.” Reigen said, his voice flat. “Well, she’d be correct in her assumption.”
“Don’t be shitty.” Kimi sighed, “She knows you’re struggling. Well, she is too. She just wants her son back.”
“So, what? She sent you as an olive branch?”
Kimi flashed a grin, and once again, he recognised something of himself in that persuasive smile of hers.
“I never cut her off. We still talk.” Reigen pointed out. He had started aimlessly stirring the broth in his bowl around with a chopstick while Serizawa watched him.
“On the phone,” She said, “but you refuse to join us for any other occasion. I’m starting to feel pretty abandoned, you know? I wouldn’t do well as an only child.”
“I came to your wedding, didn’t I?” Reigen said, though he understood his weak argument was being hastily dismantled by his sister, and by the look on Serizawa’s face, he wouldn’t find much support there either.
“Only because I made you come! And you showed up drunk.”
“I was not.”
“You were so drunk. And you spent the whole night talking everyone’s ear off about—” Kimi slowed her roll, and turned to Serizawa with a shit-eating grin on her face, “He wouldn’t stop talking about you. How you’d moved on to some office job, and that he’d be alone forever. It was honestly kind of pathetic, but he wears that pretty well, don’t you think?”
Reigen touched his cheek to confirm that, yes, all the blood had rushed to the surface. He closed his eyes and let his embarrassment roll down his back like an uncomfortable bead of sweat.
“R-really?” Serizawa asked. Reigen could hear the smile in his voice. “I had no idea it had upset you so much, Arataka.”
Reigen groaned, “Yeah, well it’s not the sort of thing I would talk to you about.”
Serizawa tapped his lip, “If I’d have known it hurt you so much, then—”
“What, are you saying if I’d run after you and confessed my feelings like a lovesick teenager, you would have stayed?”
Serizawa thought for a moment, then said, “Yes. Probably. If I’d known you felt the same way.”
Reigen felt like sinking from the bar stool and curling up on the floor.
Kimi’s laugh echoed between them both. She slapped the bar like the shoulder of an old friend, “You’re an idiot, brother!”
“Alright, alright. I get it.” Reigen murmured, but he caught Serizawa’s eyes across the bar and smiled. Serizawa was laughing too, his eyes were bright and alive. When he noticed Reigen looking at him, he faltered. He smiled that familiar gentle smile, the one he seemed to save for Reigen’s eyes.
He really wanted to kiss him.
He wondered, if they had been alone, would he? Even in the busy bar, with everyone around them? He probably would have.
Why had he told him to go? Oh, that’s right, because Reigen’s own body had become a weapon against Serizawa, slowly ticking down until the next incident. But now, all that felt so far away.
Beneath the bar, where no one could see, he held Serizawa’s hand.
“So, what do you think?” Kimi said, once she’d finished laughing.
“What about?”
“Coming back every once in a while. Coming home.” Kimi said. She looked down, “Once I have this kid, I’d want them to be able to meet their uncle.”
Serizawa’s hand squeezed Reigen’s, “You’re pregnant?” He exclaimed.
Kimi nodded, smiling faintly, “Guess so. I always kind of hoped Taka would have kids first, so I’d have a little preparation.”
Serizawa snorted, “He’s already got at least five kids.”
Reigen rolled his eyes, “Don’t listen to him. Mom told me—I’m happy for you. And of course, I’d love to visit you.”
“I heard a ‘but’ in there, Taka.” Kimi said sagely.
“My relationship with Mom is complicated. You can’t fix that.”
Kimi frowned, “I thought once Dad died, we’d all band together. But we didn’t. Then, you left.”
“You shouldn’t have to wait for someone to die to knit together a family. Don’t put it all on me.” Reigen warned, though he kept his words soft. He had no capacity for arguments right now. “There was a reason I stopped visiting. I’m not asking you to understand it, I’m just asking you to respect it.”
“I know, but…” Kimi shook her head, “I know you guys fell out. You and Dad never got along, and Mom could be…abrasive. I just hoped we could be a family again.”
“She hurt him.” This was Serizawa, speaking up. His voice was clipped, stern. “She hurt him, enough that he’s scared to come back home…He shouldn’t need another reason.”
Kimi had grown silent. She rolled her glass of water between her palms.
Reigen placed a hand on Kimi’s arm. “I can’t promise that I’ll make it a regular thing, but I’ll visit soon, okay?”
Kimi looked up, “That would be good. I miss you, Taka. And you seem…the way you look reminds me of Dad. How he was, when…I just don’t want to lose you too.”
Reigen swallowed the lump in his throat. He hadn't anticipated this, and he didn’t care if it was a guilt trip. He’d missed her, too. She knew how to make him laugh.
“You’re so dramatic,” He chuckled. “You shouldn’t worry about things like that.” He brightened up, “Especially with a tiny Kimi on the way!”
Kimi patted her stomach, “Let’s hope they take after their father. He has better hair.”
Reigen laughed, forcing Kimi’s last depressing comment from his head. Serizawa had grown silent, and was chewing his lip, staring into space.
Reigen watched him for a moment, absorbing Kimi’s chatter, the buzz of the bar.
“Hey, you okay?”
Serizawa jumped. “I’m okay.”
“You wanna get some air? I’m gonna go for a smoke, you’re welcome to come with.” Reigen said earnestly.
Serizawa looked around, inexplicably, then nodded. “That would be good.”
Reigen told Kimi they’d be a moment, then led Serizawa through the bar, weaving through the crowd. The interior of the bar was hot, even to Reigen with his constant bone-chill. By the time they’d reached the door, Serizawa had loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar. Sweat shone against his bruised neck.
Reigen pushed outside, pulling his pack of smokes from his pocket as he did. He leant against the wall and tapped out a cigarette. Serizawa stood in the doorway where Reigen had left him, watching carefully.
“What’s wrong?” Reigen said around the cigarette hanging from his teeth. He lit up and exhaled smoke.
“I think we should do it tonight.”
Reigen coughed, almost dropping his smoke. “What?”
“The spirit.” Serizawa said slowly, “I think we should try again to exorcise it tonight. I have an idea.”
“Oh. Right.” Reigen nodded, pretending he hadn’t been so easily derailed five seconds perviously. “What did you have in mind?”
Serizawa closed the door to the bar gently behind him, and joined Reigen in standing against the wall. He watched the smoke spiral between them. “You said there’s another me in the dream, right?”
Reigen nodded. He offered his cigarette to Serizawa, who waved it off.
“I thought…If I can’t exorcise it from out here, maybe he can, from inside?”
“That’s your plan?”
Serizawa shot him a look, offended.
“Uh, we can definitely try it.” Reigen said quickly, “I’m just not sure how easily he’ll, you know, leave the house.”
“I give you permission to drag him out of there if you have to.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“I think it will. All this time, the spirit has been retreating deeper when I try to exorcise it. But if I try exorcising it from out here, while the other me tries from within the dream, that means—”
“It’ll have nowhere to run.” Reigen chuckled, “That’s actually not a bad plan.”
Serizawa’s hand found Reigen’s again, and he laced his fingers through. “I told you. I’m going to save you.”
Reigen lifted their hands, entwined, and pressed a kiss to Serizawa’s knuckles. “I believe you.”
“We should go back inside, before your sister thinks you’ve abandoned the entire family.”
Reigen raised an eyebrow, “Thin ice, Katsuya. Come on.”
They headed back inside, and found Kimi sat at the bar, polishing off the bowl of ramen that Reigen had barely touched.
“You better be paying for that, too.” Reigen said as they approached.
Kimi pushed the bowl away. “I barely touched it.”
Reigen took his seat beside her.
“You stink of smoke.” Kimi said, “You got that particular habit from Mom.”
Reigen nodded—it was true that a childhood of running out to buy cigarettes for his mother had invariably led to an addiction of his very own. It could have been a worse vice, he supposed. Still, sometimes he wished he’d inherited a more useful talent. As it stood, the only things he thanked his mother for was his intolerance for alcohol and straight teeth. Both had saved him money.
“I’m sorry I came here under false pretences.” Kimi was pulling out a few notes from her purse and tossing them on the bar. “But I’m glad I got to meet you, Serizawa. It’s good to know my brother has someone holding him back by the collar before he tosses himself into danger.”
Reigen sighed, and Serizawa’s grin widened.
“It was nice to meet you too.” Serizawa said, all poise and decorum.
Both siblings were charmed.
Kimi turned to Reigen.“Will I see you at home sometime, Taka?”
“Sure.” Reigen said. He got up and hugged her, since it felt wrong to just let her leave and apparently they’d become huggers in their old age.
“And Serizawa, you’re welcome to come too! I’ll bring the husband, we can double date—maybe that’ll make it run a little smoother.”
As they hugged, Kimi murmured in his ear, “I’m worried about you. Tell me you’re okay.”
Reigen felt his heart sink lower than ever. “I’m okay.” He said.
“Okay then.” She said. She pulled back and the careless smile was back, as though it had never been dislodged.
She threw her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll see you soon, huh Serizawa?”
Serizawa laughed, “Of course!”
Reigen nodded, “Sure.”
They watched her leave.
“Can we get a drink?” Reigen asked.