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phantomrose96 · 7 years

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A Breach of Trust: Chapter 14

(Act 1: Chapter 1-9 )

(Act 2: Chapter 10 || Chapter 11 || Chapter 12 || Chapter 13 || Chapter 14 || Chapter 15 || Chapter 15.5 || Chapter 16 || Chapter 17 || Chapter 18)

(Act 3 Chapter 19+)

Ritsu woke to the alarm he had set half an hour early. It set out a steady, blipping whine, which jarred him awake to a room scarcely lit. He shut off the alarm and lied still a moment, noiseless except for his breath. He stared at the ceiling, shrouded in the same dark gray as the clouds outside, which were cast with only the faint predawn light. The world buzzed with the faint hum of street lights. A few cars passed through the road, their beams cutting swaths through the low-hanging fog. Isolated, in quick trills, bird song carried through the air.

Ritsu got out of bed, got dressed, and grabbed his bag. He did this more from memory than sight, as the world was still bleak outside, and his room was even darker. He rounded the stairs, bag slung at his shoulder. Carpet passed to tile beneath his feet, and he bypassed the foyer in favor of the kitchen, where he found both his parents sitting at the table. They did not notice him, not at first. A wordless silence hovered, punctuated by the faint scrape of fork against plate, the clack of glass to table, the gurgle of the coffee maker filling. Mr. Kageyama cleared his throat once. Ritsu did not notice he held his breath.

Mrs. Kageyama finally looked up.

“Ritsu, you’re awake early,” she remarked. Her face was bathed only in the light of the lamp hanging above the kitchen table, a warm, soft light that gave the illusion of erasing the lines which had etched themselves permanently beneath her eyes. She offered a small smile in greeting that did not touch her eyes. “You don’t leave for school for another half hour.”

Ritsu’s right hand tightened on the bag strap. The bleeding stream of magenta from his wrist had ebbed to nothing overnight. It felt healed now, in the dim predawn. He doubted his parents would be able to see it anyway, even if it were still flowing freely.

“I’m joining student council,” Ritsu said, and he said it simply, although his heart pounded in his throat.

He watched his mother’s face stiffen, watched as her lips curled in discomfort, whiter and thinner now on her milky face. His father’s chewing had stopped.

“Maybe next year, Ritsu. Now’s not a good time,” she said, cautiously flat, each syllable well-enunciated. “We talked about this. You don’t want to take on too much now.”

“I’m willing to take on plenty,” Ritsu answered. His words felt like broken glass in his mouth, taboo almost. And not because they would anger his mother—they wouldn’t—but because he was disagreeing. And disagreeing meant he was inviting in that specific topic of conversation—the trump card he could never win against, his brother. “I haven’t been allowed to do enough. It’s not fair.”

“Isn’t the council already chosen, Ritsu?” his dad asked, and Ritsu heard the same careful lilt in his father’s tone, distinctly uncomfortable.

“No one ran for treasurer. It’s open. Kamuro asked me himself if I’d take it.” Ritsu’s eyes shifted between his parents, then they settled on his mom. “President Kamuro. You know his mother.”

“I do…” Mrs. Kageyama said. “I know from her that student council meetings are held at strange hours—“

“One hour in the morning before school, one hour after school. Sometimes longer near school events.”

“There wouldn’t be anyone supervising you, would there?” Mrs. Kageyama asked.

“No.”

“It would be dark in the morning when you leave for school,” Mr. Kageyama added. The gurgling of the coffee pot had stopped. Its light flickered on, a tiny speck of red against the dim kitchen, and the windows nearly black. “It might even be dark when you come home, once it’s winter.”

Silence set in around them like an oppressive cloud, thick and filling Ritsu’s lungs. He stood off to the side, more in shadow, less touched by the hanging kitchen lamp. His parents, blanched under the soft light, stared back at him. They didn’t touch their plates, and Ritsu did not let go of the strap on his bag.

“Sorry, Ritsu, but it’s a no,” his mother answered.

He had expected it, but it still stung. It always stung. And his first instinct was to numb himself to it, concede, forget, move on…

“Why not?” he asked, his teeth scarcely parted.

“We told you,” his father answered.

“Because there won’t be any supervision at council meetings? Because I’ll be walking home in the dark?”

“Yes.”

“Well Niisan wasn’t kidnapped in the dark.”

His words were broken glass, and they cut something in his parents, and they cut something in him too that, once pierced, spilled out of him: “He was taken in the middle of the day, somewhere in this town, and no one saw, and no one saved him. He was taken and not a single person noticed. Not us. Not anyone. It was sunny that day, and no one...saw.”

Ritsu steadied his breath. His parents sat as silent captives. “The middle of the afternoon on a sunny day—if that isn’t safe, then nowhere is, nothing ever is. That’s not right. That can’t be right.” It was a betrayal, Ritsu knew, to say it out loud. Of course it was dangerous—his brother could never have been taken in a world any less dangerous than that. But he had to. His eyes flickered once more between both parents, afraid how he might hurt them, but too resolute to stop.

“Ritsu…”

“I can’t keep being the version of Niisan that you remembered to protect in time.” He looked to his parents, and then he looked away, before he lost his nerve. “I’m not him.”

He took a step back. He tensed his hand on his bag and turned toward the door, where his shoes sat, where the outside lay.

“I’m joining student council,” he said, and he pretended it was an easy thing to say, a simple statement on a steady breath of air. Resolute and certain and unquestionable. He breathed through the guilt and pretended he hadn’t caught the look on his mother’s face—that thing raw and torn open. Or his dad, closed off and weak like he dad almost never looked.

Ritsu was good at pretending. He pretended to think of nothing as he laced his shoes, as he unlocked the front door, as he eased it open and set one foot outside, consumed in the silence that permeated off his parents like a poison.

“Please be safe,” his mother whispered from behind.

Ritsu hesitated, washed with the words. And he pretended he would obey them. “…I will,” he said, and stepped outside, and shut the door behind him, suddenly a world away from his parents in the dismal predawn air.

Wind cut across his face, cold now and brisk. It swept dried leaves across the street, which skittered unseen in the dark, save for the pools of light cast by the streetlamps. Ritsu shivered through it, willing to embrace it, feeling it almost deserved for what he’d inflicted on his parents.

“Wow, cold,” Gimp commended from the right, as if reading Ritsu’s thoughts. He bloomed into sight beneath the next approaching streetlamp. “Guilt-tripping your parents into going along with your lie. That’s got to cause all kinds of trust issues.”

“It’s better they think I’m at student council than with you and the other spirits,” Ritsu answered simply. “They don’t even know about my powers. This would horrify them. I’m protecting them.”

“I’m scary then?” Gimp asked with a smug smile. He dipped out of the light, just glimmering teeth, red eyes. “Or the others? Or just the idea of their son turning into a proper businessman?”

Ritsu said nothing. He tuned out Gimp’s words until he heard nothing more than static in his ears. He’d become too focused, too intent on his plans so that all thought and worry and feeling fell to the wayside, to be dealt with later. He watched buildings approach on the blooming horizon, and planned.

Ritsu would not show up at the student council classroom—not today, and not ever. He had in his mind only the image of the walled-in concrete alley in the back of the school, no doubt mustier, damper, darker this early in the morning. He had plans to show up there every early morning to gather intel from his spirits and pay them, and again in the afternoon, and he could do it now without missing class. The excuse would come to easily now, the lie—he only needed to claim he’d been at student council.

“You name-dropped some guy named Kamuro. You might wanna rope him in to your operations—or at least pay him off—if your parents ever come snooping for confirmation.”

Ritsu nodded, his only form of acknowledgement of Gimp. It would be smart to cover his tracks.

Especially since he and President Kamuro had never even spoken.

…

Bird song is what woke Reigen, and he opened his eyes staring into the dark, pitchy blackness outside the living room window. Not his bedroom, not morning, and all his memories crashed down with alarming disorientation. He jolted up, yelping in surprise, as possessed eyes and butcher knives and raggedy children flashed through his mind—a confused jumble, all at once, here, there, where…was he?

Reigen rubbed his cheek. The arm of the couch had left a shallow red criss-cross pattern on it and, for the tenth or hundredth time, he winced when he realized he was using his bad hand.

Bad hand. Dark outside. Asleep on the couch. Birds? Reigen blinked until his swimming thoughts returned, and the bleak ashy sky registered, and he swiveled his head to take in the rest of his apartment lit by a scattered few hanging lights left on.

His right arm ached near the shoulder, as did his hand, as did his head, but not as bad as before. His mouth was chalky-dry and—why had he been asleep on the couch? …A nap. He’d decided to take a nap after he got back from the doctor. He was going to close his eyes for ten minutes and hope the headache could ease off enough for him to…think. To figure out what to do with--.

“Mob!” he said, jolting stiffer, and he coughed.

“Yes?”

Reigen twisted to face the other end of the couch. The boy was sitting there, curled up, almost lost beneath blankets. The scratchy blue one that lived on the couch was draped around his shoulders, and it seemed he’d dragged the comforter from his room. He’d bundled himself beneath it, and watched Reigen with a bit of muted worry in his eye.

“Is something wrong?” Mob asked. He shuffled beneath his blankets, looking himself over as if he could find the source of the issue within himself.

Reigen slumped, and he rubbed his eyes. “How long have I been asleep?”

“How long…?”

“How long. Hours? Days? What year is it?” Reigen glanced to Mob. Whatever little jab of humor he’d tried had fallen flat. Mob only looked concerned. Reigen realized with a pang in his gut that Mob probably didn’t know what year it was.

So he looked away, looked at the microwave instead. Some of the green diodes had broken, so the time displayed incompletely. He had to stare longer, leaning in, puzzling it out.

“Oh my god it’s 6 am.”

Reigen didn’t do much of anything immediately following his realization. He sat there, twisted around with his good hand braced against the couch. He stared at the clock, counting the hours in his head. It had been noon, just about, when he got back from Dr. Wong’s.

“…Have I been asleep for 18 hours?” Reigen asked, almost breathless. He did the math again. “18 hours?”

“I guess so,” Mob answered, uncertain agreement. He didn’t seem very concerned with double-checking the math.

Reigen untwisted his back. He set his hands to his knees, fingers digging into the creases and folds accidentally pressed into the fabric by sleeping on it for so long. 18 hours asleep. 18 hours without food. 18 hours of stain remover soaking into the blood stains on his suit from the other day. Then he glanced to Mob, his expression almost apologetic.

“…You let me sleep for 18 hours?”

“You seemed tired,” Mob answered. His words were still nervous, spoken as though trying to gauge if he was in trouble. His wide eyes met Reigen, almost unblinkingly, from behind a curtain of hair.

Seemed tired…

Reigen slumped forward, overcome with some feeling he couldn’t quite discern. He dropped his head into his hands and thought about the words. They were strange, somehow. When was the last time anyone had been concerned that he seemed tired…?

“…Are you okay?” Mob asked, still tentative, as though stepping around broken glass.

Reigen pulled his head out of his hands. He tilted toward Mob and offered a small smile. It was just a bit forced, artificially calm. “Yeah I’m—thanks. I’m fine. Yeah, I was tired. Feeling a lot better now… I just uh—should’ve woken up sooner—left you all alone for—18 hours? Gosh… Wow. Wow…”

Reigen pushed himself standing. His joints popped, all stiff and contorted to the shape of the couch. He explored the ache in his neck, just behind the ear, where he’d been lying against the edge of the couch arm. His left leg prickled as feeling returned. He’d fallen asleep with it folded beneath his body.

And he shivered.

“Right,” Reigen muttered. He moved toward the thermostat on the wall, twiddling with the buttons and overriding the automatic settings, which shut off all heat overnight to save money. He looked to Mob, and felt a spurt of guilt seeing the kid so buried beneath blankets. “I let the heat die on you. Sorry.”

Mob shook his head, and Reigen wasn’t sure how to interpret it. Reigen stared harder, suddenly possessed by the need to process what sat in front of him, the whole uncanny scene: some lost kid, huddled up beneath musty blankets in a cold and dark apartment, pressed into the ratty edges of an old couch Reigen had salvaged from a yard sale for just under 8000 yen. The tv was on, playing quietly through some local newscast.

Reigen cringed a bit as he looked about, taking in, remembering the mess decorating the living room. The ashtray on the table overflowed with cigarette butts, staining the wood around it with sooty acrid residue. Three empty plates were pushed to the table’s edge, scraped of food and left to stagnate for…how many days, Reigen wasn’t sure. Empty beer cans gathered in a herd near them, a few on the floor, leaving sticky coagulated rings around their rim and smelling of staleness, of stagnant fermentation. Newspapers were strewn about randomly, gathered into haphazard piles, and more cigarette butts littered most surfaces. The television was coated in dust, its mess of wires unsalvageably tangled behind it. In the kitchen, when Reigen glanced behind him, dishes and bowls were stacked in the sink, or left to crust over on the far countertops. Two lone clean bowls and three mugs sat in the drying rack, and Reigen had no recollection of putting them there. Reigen sniffed, and caught the faint permeating smell of spoiled food from the fridge.

Finally, his focus fell back on Mob. And he knew this wasn’t the sort of environment to bring a kid back to, to leave him alone in.

“…Sorry,” Reigen started slowly, because he was surprised himself. His normal looked suddenly so different, and it unnerved him. “I’ll clean this up, you know. Sorry…about it…that it’s a mess. I don’t always…normally…live like—I’ll clean it up, don’t worry.”

Mob’s apprehension eased off. The look was replaced entirely with something like confusion. He pulled out of his blanket cocoon, let his eyes rove over the apartment in full inspection. The confusion never left his face.

“It’s so much cleaner than Shishou’s house.”

Instantly, Reigen was forced to picture the closest thing he had in mind—struck by the memory of the putrid rotting smell of the Mogami house, decaying small bodies of rat corpses between the floorboards and the wet stench of mold, dark, damp, humid, fetid, the ceiling dripping into spots and standing water and—

Reigen shut his eyes. He forced the memory out.

“Christ…” he muttered, and tried to think no more on it. The Mogami house was behind him. Instead he focused on Mob—Mob and wherever exactly Mob had come from. Not as bad as the Mogami house, he hoped to god. Reigen took a deep breath to banish the other thoughts still haunting him. “You…18 hours. You’ve gotta be starving. Sorry. I’ll make something. 18 hours. Sorry…”

“Oh,” Mob answered quickly, a bit startled. He stood from the couch and let the blankets drop. “Oh, I ate.”

“You ate?”

“Cereal. I washed the dishes.” Mob pointed, and Reigen followed the line from his finger to the drying rack—bowls neatly stacked alongside mugs. Reigen stepped around the couch and moved toward the sink. He stopped, picked up a bowl and inspected it. It smelled faintly citrusy, like dish soap, and was dry save for a small bead of water that had collected on the part of the rim facing down. His cereal bowl had been washed too, the one he hadn’t had time to eat before rushing out the door. The bowls and mugs alone were washed, partitioned separately from the dishes and bowls piled in the sink that Reigen himself had never washed.

Reigen realized with another pang to his stomach that in all likelihood this Shishou, whoever he was, had forced Mob to become self-sufficient to survive. Getting himself up, getting his own food, washing his own dishes, pulling together enough to survive in whatever conditions he’d been placed in.

“You did a good job,” Reigen remarked through the discomfort in his stomach. He glanced to Mob, and found the boy’s eyebrows had arced a little. Mob seemed to lean forward, contemplating the words.

“…Really?”

It was something almost close to happiness on Mob’s face. The kid with the flighty, hunted eyes. The kid who’d braved years of isolation. The kid who’d been snatched from his family and trained to believe his existence was an unfathomably dangerous thing. The kid who believed it so strongly that he’d sat, unmoving, for two hours purely out of fear of hurting another living person. The kid who’d only just escaped his prison, and yet was fine sitting in lonely silence for 18 hours with only the television for company because Reigen…seemed tired.

The kid who thought Reigen was incredible.

Reigen felt a surge, something close to desperation, to pull that happiness through.

“Heck yeah you did. I left a big mess lying around, and you scrubbed this stuff clean.” He twirled his hands, his voice a candy-coated salesman’s pitch. “You’ve got a talent for this. I’m glad I brought you back here, you know?”

Mob leaned forward more, seemingly on his tiptoes, though he stayed behind the couch. He remained tense, but something hopeful, eager almost, seemed to edge into his eyes. “…You’re glad I’m here?”

“Here and away from your Shishou, yeah I’m very glad.”

“And I’m not a bother…?”

Reigen hesitated for just a moment, only because the sincerity of the question took him off guard. He firmed his footing, and nodded, and looked to the cabinet where he grabbed the last two clean plates stacked inside. “Not in the slightest. You’re absolutely welcome here.”

“Oh.” Mob stepped around the couch. He shuffled closer, small beneath his oversized clothes and long hair. “I’m glad… I thought you were…maybe you were mad.”

“Why would I--?” Reigen stopped. He stared at Mob in silence. Birdsong twittered, muted, between them. It pushed through the closed window. A pinkish wash of sunrise just barely lit the horizon. Reigen lowered the plates to the counter. “…Because Shishou got mad sometimes, didn’t he?”

Slowly, silently, Mob nodded. He kept his eyes averted.

Reigen held his breath. He nodded back, then moved to close the gap between them. He stopped about a foot in front of Mob and knelt down. Tentatively, he hovered his unbandaged hand above Mob’s shoulder. He waited before slowly lowering it and wrapping his fingers around Mob’s shoulder. Mob still flinched, as if receiving a static shock.

“I’m…not Shishou. I wouldn’t do what he does, okay? I wouldn’t be mad at you. And you don’t…need to be afraid of me. I’m not scary. Please just…believe me when I say that. I’m not scary.”

“You’re stronger,” Mob whispered.

“I am, but I use my powers for good.”

“Then…” Mob started. He looked to the floor, then the walls, breathing deep as if mustering the courage. He leaned further into Reigen’s grip, and met his eyes. “Can you help me then, please? Would you be okay teaching me how to suppress the barrier like you do? Please? Please… It would be for good.”

Reigen studied Mob’s eyes, surprised almost to find them so suddenly lively, so bravely passionate. They drilled into him, anxiously waiting for a response. Reigen fumbled to put one together.

“You’re…really set on this, huh?”

Mob gave a few steady nods of his head. Desperation began to wash over his face. “It’s why I can’t go home. It’s why I can’t go anywhere. It’s why I had to live in Shishou’s basement, because I’m too dangerous." He wrung his hands, eyes flitting about. “Please… Please… I miss my little brother. I want to see him. I miss him more than anything. I want to go home.”

Reigen swallowed. He tightened his grip on Mob’s shoulder. “You…are already not dangerous, Mob. Believe me. Please just, tell me your real name so I can take you home.”

Mob pulled away, stiff suddenly, dead to reason. The desperation in his eyes flashed to panic, at some imagined outcome. “I’m not dangerous just to you. Only to you. They’re not like you. I’m dangerous to them.”

Reigen opened his mouth, and he almost tried to argue. In an instant, all drive left him—he’d been through this argument too many times. He knew it would only run in circles, that anything he could argue right now would not be stronger than the years of conditioning Mob had gone through.

The desire struck again to simply stand up, and walk to the phone, and call the police. He imagined putting Mob through that panic, and that it would be worth it—a few minutes maybe of absolute terror before a police officer got close enough to prove to Mob the barrier was a lie. And then Mob would be home, safe, forever, with his family…

Then doubt, cold and hollow, wormed its way into Reigen’s mind. What would he do if a surviving police officer wasn’t enough to convince Mob…? What if Mob were dragged home still believing in his own dangerousness? What if he lived every day in abject terror, convinced, conditioned that the barrier would spring back any moment?

What if he ran off again, back to his dead Shishou’s basement…?

Reigen shuddered at the thought. Instead he gritted his teeth, and he stood, and he kept his hand on Mob’s shoulder as he glanced to the fridge instead.

“…I’ll teach you, okay Mob? I’ll teach you how to get rid of the barrier. Fully. Until it’s gone forever. So it can never ever hurt anyone, anything, ever again.”

Mob swallowed. He stared back, anxious, as if Reigen might revoke the offer. “…Really?”

“Yes. But first…” Reigen let go of Mob’s shoulder. He turned to the pantry, popped it open and pushed around past ramen packets and snacks until he found a loaf of bread in back. He grabbed it, undid the twist-tie, and grimaced at the little white blotches on mold on the end piece. Reigen grabbed a stack 5-pieces thick and dropped them all into the garbage can, until what was left was just the middle pieces, hopefully mold free. He pulled two slices out and handed them to Mob. “First…we’re going to slow down, just a little. I’m tired, remember? So my psychic powers aren’t at their peak. And I’m hungry too. So we’re going to…you’re going to help me make breakfast, first, before any of this training happens, alright? Please.”

Mob studied the slices of bread in wonder. His stare became distant, as though deeply considering Reigen’s words. He nodded then, and Reigen noticed the glossy pricking of tears in the corner of Mob’s eyes. Mob nodded again, more vigorously.

“Can I have some of the bread too…?”

“Toast, Mob, it’s going to be toast. And eggs. And yes. This is breakfast for both of us, and you’re going to help.” Reigen looked the boy over, and the feeling in his chest was almost manic. He was looking at something maybe he could fix.

“We can make eggs?”

Something maybe, for once, he could save.

“They’re easy. I’ll show you how. I’ve got some in the fridge. And afterward I’ll do a grocery run, okay? Restock the food around the house. I’ll buy some clothes too, bathroom supplies. We can cut your hair afterward too—it’s still messy. I don’t think you want it in your face.”

The boy was different. It wasn’t like gathering dirt on a cheating spouse, delivering the news that shattered marriages, fractured lives. It wasn’t chasing missing persons whose trail was long cold, down dead ends, finding nothing. Mob was here, warm, alive, someone Reigen could save if only he could find a way to breach this barrier.

“…Cut?” Mob had fallen behind. He held the two pieces of bread in his left hand, and his right pulled anxiously at a lock of hair. Reigen watched the transformation unfold, trepidation pushing toward fear. Reigen paused. Cutting, shearing, shredding… Those were the words Mob used, weren’t they?

“Or not. Not if you don’t want to.” Reigen kept moving, tentatively, toward the fridge. He popped it open and removed the egg carton from the door, and milk carton as well—now more than half empty. He swallowed, and breathed deep. “Sorry. We’ll find something to keep your hair neat, okay? If you’re going to be my pupil, we’re going to have to get you cleaned up. Control of your psychic powers works best when you’re cared-for, okay? That’s step number one already. It’ll give you better control right off the bat.”

Mob nodded, uncertain at first, and then he nodded more vigorously. He moved to Reigen’s side, bread slices in hand. Reigen stacked up the plates on the counter and put them in the sink. He removed the toaster from the cabinet beneath, chalky and littered with dark crumbs. He grabbed a stove pan next, whichever one bore the least water stains, and he set it on one of the burners.

He took one of the bowls from the drying rack—spotlessly clean, and cleaner probably than any of the kitchenware stacked in Reigen’s cabinets. He turned it upright, and pulled the egg carton closer. He ignored the mess around him and pretended, for a moment, that the environment was right for a kid.

Mob leaned in, curious, observant. Reigen pulled a fork from the drawer.

“We have to whisk the eggs first. Watch closely, Mob. I’ll show you how to make them nice and fluffy.”

…

For the last three years, most of Ritsu’s days passed quickly. He usually spent them half-focused, bored by the pace of the lessons and uninterested in the things around him, in the people, in the effort that would go into interacting with his classmates or teachers. For three years, Ritsu had grown accustomed to his days passing in a practiced haze.

This day was different. This day Ritsu watched the clock. He sat tense at his desk, his heart squeezing with anxiety over the possibilities of what the spirits had uncovered while he was trapped in school. Every flutter of paper caught his attention, because it could be a spirit whisking up the row with news. Every clack of a pencil, every shuffle of feet, because it could be any of them surging forward, churning papers or pencils or clothing in their ghastly wake. Ritsu ticked and twitched at each disturbance. He flushed every time with a second of panic that would ebb away, and leave only a shuddering, prickling shiver running down his spine.

The anxiety, or excitement, or whatever it was put his stomach in knots, so he skipped lunch that day. He waited instead outside in the musky alleyway, ignoring glares from the delinquent gang crouched in the corner whispering among themselves, biting into messy sandwiches and raising their voices only to curse or yell or toss punches. Ritsu tuned them out, he only watched the horizon for any spirit that had maybe come back to report early. He’d told them 3pm when they’d met up that morning, but the anticipation ate him up too much to wait.

No spirit showed up over lunch. So Ritsu went back to class, still silent, still reacting to every whisk and whisper. He paid no attention to the lectures of the day. He only drowned himself in the fantasies of what he could do—what he possibly would do—if Gimp phased back in with news of where his brother was.

3 pm struck, finally, marked by the shrill ring of the bell. Ritsu grabbed his bag, thankful to be released from the unbearable tension in his joints, but his heart only slammed harder at the thought of what awaited him in the alley. All 42 of them together, those writhing predatory things waiting in the alley, waiting for him with news. He might know today. He might know, minutes from then, where Mob has been for three and a half years. In part, Ritsu hated himself for never discovering this option until now. In part, he hated the anxiety it brought suddenly raking through his life.

In any case, the creatures would be looking for payment—and Ritsu convinced himself he would grow out of the lingering terror that struck every time he remembered.

But no, it was worth it. It was vital that he do this. Because if it brought him home… if it brought him home…

“Hey, Kageyama. Can I speak with you a moment?”

Ritsu looked up, startled out of his thoughts by the voice of Mr. Yahiro. His teacher had moved soundlessly away from his desk, and stood now at the front of Ritsu’s row. His thin eyes seemed to investigate Ritsu, his mouth a firm line of indecision, or worry perhaps. Ritsu averted his eyes, because he knew the look—that expression like he was made of fragile glass, set to shatter.

Ritsu yanked the zipper on his bag. He hoisted it over his shoulder, palms slick and stomach clenched. He tried to move past Mr. Yahiro without looking the man in the eyes.

“Sorry, I have to be home soon. My parents are strict about that.”

“A few minutes…Ritsu,” Mr. Yahiro amended. He was too large; his body took up too much space for Ritsu to bypass. Ritsu glanced around, and found a few wandering sets of eyes from his classmates—two girls and one boy, none of whom he knew by name—eavesdropping noticeably. The attention burned Ritsu’s cheeks.

“…What?” he asked, teeth gritted. He glanced to the clock. 3:02. The spirits were waiting.

“Are you feeling better today?” Mr. Yahiro asked. His eyes were doing it again—roving, probing, investigating. Like all the adults determined to find something fragile in Ritsu. Like all the spirits sizing him up as something to consume. “You weren’t well yesterday. You’re pale today, too. You look like you’re…” Mr. Yahiro stopped, and he chewed on his lip a moment. “I uh—yesterday—I didn’t mean to imply you can’t take sick days, if you need them. I wouldn’t want to push you. Should I maybe call your parents and have them pick you up?”

“I’m fine,” Ritsu answered, hand tightening. A crisp wind struck him then, trailing through the door the other students had left open, from outside where others were already headed… 3:03. “I need to go.”

“Are you…certain? I know you’re a hard-worker. If you need some time off, then I—I’m sure you can catch up.” Another once-over with his eyes. It sent a chill down Ritsu’s spine. “You, especially, if you need time off…”

Ritsu’s lip curled. He stood tall, looking past Mr. Yahiro, ready to push past in silence. He stopped when he noticed the dark stain of purple hovering just behind. Three red eyes pressed down to slits, toothy smile gone. Gimp hovered, tense, dour-looking, until it caught Ritsu’s eye and nodded. Gimp dove forward, vanishing into Mr. Yahiro who stiffened for just a second, then loosened.

Silence, a moment, until--

“Never mind…Ritsu. Please, go ahead…”

Mr. Yahiro stepped aside, his eyes a pale milky film, and he—or rather Gimp inside of him—motioned toward the door. Ritsu said nothing as he moved on past. He thought nothing of it until he was in the hall, buried inside his own thoughts in the crowd of bustling people. Chatter assaulted him from all sides—discussion of afternoon and weekend plans that never concerned him. Red leaves swept across the tiled floor, dragged or blown inside.

Ritsu shoved past those kids blocking the hall. He pretended not to notice when Gimp appeared to his left, hovering to keep pace.

“Thought your teacher was never gonna shut up,” Gimp said. Ritsu could hear him perfectly over the bustle of noise, as though Gimp were speaking to a different sense. Gimp remained silent a moment, a twisted tension working through his face. “I needed to get you out of there.”

Ritsu swallowed. The beating of his heart became something erratic, painful in his chest. “What did you find?”

“It’s…important.”

“Did you find him?!” Ritsu ground out. He paid no mind to whether or not anyone heard him, seemingly talking to himself alone, in the hall, which he shoved through at his unbroken pace.

“No… it’s something else. Just—pick up the pace.”

“Why?”

Gimp said nothing. Ritsu let out an aggravated growl, something born more of the unbearable tension twisting inside him than from actual anger. He tried to steady his breathing. Mob hadn’t been found… He needed to breathe, and focus. They’d need another payment today. He swallowed his disappointment and tried his hardest to ease the pounding in his chest. His undershirt was soaked through with sweat.

The door came into view, cracked half-open with a thin trail of reddish leaves pushing inside. Ritsu took only a moment to glance around before he pushed through it, hoping no one had any intention of following, and hoping moreso that the delinquents had no plans to meet out here this afternoon. He scanned the edge of the building where the gang usually gathered, and found it empty. It sent a different thrum of panic through him, somehow, understanding once more he was alone.

Stagnant, moist air assaulted his lungs, stirred up by an exhaust vent that bled into the alleyway from the school cafeteria. The mustiness was almost sickening, something that clung to exposed skin and invaded Ritsu’s throat. He breathed through it. He told himself he would get used to it.

He looked up, so that he could the space where the mass of hungry spirits had met him the day before, and had met him this morning with even higher expectations. He expected the same mass to be lingering. He readied the pooling energy beneath his palm so that he could extract it, feed it, keep the payment going.

He stopped, jarred, to see that no such horde met him. What he was only the concrete outlines of a dozen spirits hovering close together and confined in a single small space above the alleyway. They writhed in agitated bursts, yanking and twisting and exuding an energy Ritsu immediately recognized as distress. Yet with all their yanking and pulling, they seemed to go nowhere, like flies trapped in a spider web, twisting themselves tighter the more they struggled.

Ritsu tried to still his own heart as he watched them, and he failed. The energy was something all-consuming, a feeling he could drown in. It was infectious, this panic that bled off the few spirits gathered in the alley. It turned the sun above to a haze, washed the fringes of grass from the soccer field high above into a blurry, slashing mess of color. The feeling was potent enough to pull Ritsu away from his physical senses.

The writhing mass became clearer, their faces twisted in abject horror. They struggled and pulled and somehow remained exactly in place.

“What’s happened to them…? Where are the others?” Ritsu asked, and his throat had turned to ash in the meantime. He swallowed, wide accusatory eyes to Gimp. “Why are there only twelve here? Where are the others? I told them to meet me here!”

Gimp put its hands up. Its usual slimy smile didn’t touch its face. “Five of them are gone. Gone-gone. You know.” Gimp sliced a thin, clawed hand across where his throat would lie. “Exorcised.”

“How?”

“About five minutes ago. Then 25 ran off—made it out while they could. And these 12 got trapped. Can’t you see? Try using your eyes.”

Ritsu looked between Gimp and the writhing spirits. He focused harder, the ache building behind his eyes again, and made out the wispy tendrils like chains that rooted the spirits to the concrete below. The throbbing in his head worsened. Apprehension twisted his stomach, forced sweat through his palms. His hands clenched and unclenched.

“What’s happening…?” Ritsu whispered. His eyes darted about. He felt too infected by the leaking, panicked aura to do much else to prepare. He twisted then to Gimp. “What’s happening, Gimp?”

It wasn’t Gimp who answered.

“Ah, just a bit of disciplinary action.”

It was a new voice that spoke, one that startled Ritsu. It didn’t have the airy, cold echo of a spirit voice. It was grounded. It was real. It came from behind Ritsu, and he spun.

“There’s no need to panic. If you understood spirits which—ah, clearly you don’t—you would know this is the only way to keep them in line. If they don’t fear you, then you have no power over them.”

Ritsu said nothing at first—he couldn’t think of much to say through the fluttering apprehension inside him. He calmed, just a little bit, when his eyes swung around and locked on the outline of a person—not a spirit, not a monster, just a person. Someone half-cast in shadow, standing with one hand against his hip, cocked to the side. It was someone roughly Ritsu’s age, at a glance, meddling.

“What do you mean?” Ritsu asked, his voice a forced calm. He made his breath steady, even though the effort pushed black spots into his vision. He’d come in too tense. He needed to deal with this calmly, send the boy off, piece his horde back together however he could. That was most important. Far more important than the stranger standing across from him in the shadows, even a stranger that somehow could see the spirits too.

“I mean that you have no power over them,” and the boy said it with something of a smile. He took a step forward, and another, seeming to delight in the thrums of terror that leapt off the chained spirits. Ritsu attempted to ignore it. “These spirits. They’ve been mocking you behind your back. I don’t blame them. I’d mock you too.”

Ritsu looked behind him, pretending for a moment to stare past the chained remnants of his horde. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I came out here to smoke in private. I don’t know what you mean by spirits.”

“I heard you talking with Gimcrack.” The boy pointed a finger at Gimp, who froze instantly under the vice, some wire-thin psychic tendril that wrapped around Gimp’s body and threatened to cut him through. “Oh, and I certainly heard it spill its guts about you. I was almost worried, isn’t that funny? You’d undercut my prices so much I feared you might be stronger. Luckily, you’re just an idiot.”

“For the last time, I don’t—“

“Play dumb with me again and I’ll exorcise your entire horde.” The boy tightened his hold on Gimp, who whimpered in response. “I’m being wonderfully civil with you right now, and you’re disrespecting me. I don’t like it.”

Ritsu breathed, and he weighed his options. “…What do you want?”

“My spirits back. An apology. And for you to never encroach on my territory again.” The boy closed the gap between them, face coming out of shadow. He wore an outfit Ritsu only vaguely recognized as belonging to one of the rival schools—a purple blazer, green striped tie, and gray patterned pants. His hair was artificially blond, intentionally unkempt, lengthy enough to fall just past his jaw. Bangs covered his forehead, just above confident and self-assured eyes, piercing blue. His smile was that of someone who’d already won, bright in the sun that washed over his body.

He thrust a hand out, palm open to Ritsu. “My name is Teruki Hanazawa. I’m the esper who’s better than you.”

Ritsu stared at the offered hand. He fought the instinct to step back. “The spirits didn’t say anyone owned them.” He paused, and weighed his options. “And who says you’re stronger than I am?”

Teruki laughed, heartily, so that he buckled at the waist and dropped his offered hand. Both hands ended up on his knees as his whole body rocked with the laughter. Ritsu’s face burned, and Teruki stood back up.

“You can’t even conceal your aura. You’re not more powerful than me.”

Ritsu breathed in deep again, so that the hot swampy air filled his lungs. The sun beat down harsh against his back, though he knew elsewhere it was cold. Ritsu forced himself to ignore the writhing chained spirits. “You said I’m under-cutting your prices. It’s because I have more energy built up than you. Back off, before I use it on you.”

Ritsu earned only the same reaction—a laugh, a single snort, that pushed a smirk to Teruki’s face. “Ah, don’t try to win me over with humor. It won’t work. It’ll only shorten your lifespan.” His hand lashed out, and snagged Ritsu’s wrist. Ritsu attempted to jerk it away, but Teruki’s grasp was iron-tight. “And speaking of shortened lifespans—“ He twisted Ritsu’s wrist, until it was palm up. The torque strained his skin, and the tension bled out small wisps of magenta aura. Ritsu winced, feeling a tear not at all unlike a wound reopening. “You do not have more energy than me. You’ve just been a careless idiot with the amount you give away. To think you and I are the same breed when you’re so,” Teruki’s eyes inspected Ritsu, probing, judging, again, “…beneath me.”

“Back off!” Ritsu snarled, and he yanked his arm away. He squared his feet, arms tensed, regarding Teruki with open hostility. “I’m not—don’t look at me like that. I’m not weak. I’m fine giving off this much energy—I have plenty!”

“You have a week, at best, at this rate.” Teruki stepped around Ritsu. He moved to the spirits and circled them. They pulled and yanked, attempting desperately to stay out of Teruki’s reach. He lunged for one—a bluff—and it yowled.

“Crass, crude, malicious, despicable things…” Teruki said. He clicked his tongue. “You should thank me—they would have gladly left you for dead. Now I will take these back with me. And you will go home. And if I ever catch you stealing from me again—“ he turned to Ritsu, and flashed a smile, “—I’ll annihilate you.”

Ritsu shook his head—slow, methodical. “You can’t take them,” he ground out.

“I can’t?” Teruki mocked.

“I need them,” Ritsu answered, and he hated how pathetic his words sounded.

“You don’t.”

“I do!”

“Why? Are you that eager to die?” Teruki asked.

“I need them to find my brother.”

Silence fell between them, one punctuated only with the occasional rasp or howl of the chained spirits. Gimp floated cautiously behind them all, staring on as if judging which side to join. Teruki quirked an eyebrow.

“Oh, is this the ‘strongest esper alive’ Gimcrack mentioned?”

Ritsu’s face burned. He felt lashed by the mockery.

“He is…strong,” Ritsu answered, teeth clenched. He reeled his anger in. “It’s not a joke. He’s an esper stronger than you. He was kidnapped, three and a half years ago, and I’m using the spirits to get him back.”

“These pathetic things?” Teruki asked, motioning to the chained amalgam behind him. Teruki reached out, snagged a chain. The caught spirit howled and yelped and thrashed as Teruki dragged it closer. Then Teruki grabbed it then by the tail, and he clawed his fingers through its body in a single vicious swipe. The spirit let out one last keening yowl before tearing into streaks of smoke. “Ha! They haven’t been searching for your brother. You’ve given them no incentive to follow your orders.” Teruki took the next chain. The yellow revenant attached shrieked louder, having just witnessed its companion die. Teruki yanked it to eye-level and stroked it beneath the chin. It whimpered in response. “You’ve given them no reason to fear you.”

“…They’ve been searching,” Ritsu answered, pitifully.

“They’ve done no such thing. They’ve taken advantage of you.” Teruki released the whimpering spirit, and he turned to face Ritsu, hip cocked again. “And like an idiot, you let them. I don’t waste my time on idiots.”

Ritsu stood, immobile, watching with paranoia as all his efforts broke down before his eyes. He couldn’t let this stranger destroy everything. He couldn’t let the intimidation drown him. He was stronger… He had to be.

Yet his legs still trembled. And fear still twisted his stomach. And he still cowered at the idea of getting hurt.

He’d never been in a fight.

“Then don’t waste your time here,” Ritsu answered.

Teruki stared back, saying nothing at first.

“Excuse me?”

Ritsu swallowed once, until he found his voice.

“You said I’m an idiot, and you don’t waste your time on idiots—fine—so leave. You can’t take these spirits back. They chose to follow me, and I need them. I’m not scared of you because you can act tough.”

Teruki turned, a snapping motion, to face Ritsu, and he delighted in the flinch he earned from Ritsu. He stepped forward, closing the gap until mere inches separated their faces, so that Ritsu could smell his breath—hot and predatory—on his face. Ritsu resisted the urge to lean away.

“No, you’re scared of me because I am tough. These spirits are mine. I’m taking them, or I’m breaking you. That’s it.”

Ritsu’s heart pounded in his ears. It sent a throbbing line of pain through his head, but he did not dare let it show.

“Then break me.”

Teruki stared back, expression unchanged. Ritsu swallowed.

“Repeat that.”

“I said ‘Then break me.’” Ritsu took one step back, and he summoned a glowing mass of magenta energy in his palm. It curled around his skin in tendrils, cold and dense and powerful. He felt powerful. He was powerful. Teruki had proven nothing beside the fact that he could exorcise a few spirits, and that was something Ritsu could do. “But you won’t. I’ll destroy you first. You haven’t convinced me that you’re more powerful. You don’t feel powerful at all. I’m the only one with any detectable aura. I’m calling your bluff.”

“…My aura?” Teruki asked, one eyebrow quirked. He swung a hand out, grabbed Ritsu’s outstretched palm as though it were an offered handshake. “This aura?”

Then his hand tensed.

A shock like lighting exploded through Ritsu’s hand. Fire flooded him instantly, filled his lungs and smothered his heart and tore through his head like razor teeth through flesh. Ritsu let out one single unhindered scream before Teruki released him, and Ritsu dropped to his knees.

“You have five seconds to back down,” Teruki said. He set his hands to his hips, his face a stony mask of absolute severity. “Five seconds.”

Ritsu breathed in gasps. His whole body trembled, torn up by the shock of Teruki’s aura which had sliced him so entirely through. His stomach twisted. The spasms broke up his breathing, and Ritsu was lucky he’d skipped lunch for the day.

He understood from every throbbing ache in his body that he needed to surrender. He knew it without a shadow of a doubt.

But he knew it wasn’t his body that mattered—not his health or his well-being—he’d decided already that those came second to the chance at finding his brother. Whatever aches and pains came to his body he could endure, if it meant finally escaping, finally going back, finally having him back, back to normal, back to everything that was.

Surrender meant giving up his only chance at fixing everything.

Ritsu braced his palms against the sticky wet asphalt. He pushed until he got one quivering foot beneath him, then the other, and forced himself upright though the world spun around him. The shock wore off slowly—his breathing returned, his balance, the trembling ebbed slowly out of his limbs.

Ritsu met Teruki’s eyes, and he twisted up his gravel-stained hands.

“No… I won’t.” Ritsu summoned a flash of violet aura into each palm, larger, brighter, more aggressive than before. And they whipped about violently enough to conceal the tremble in his knees. “So then let’s do this.”

(Chapter 15)

#A Breach of Trust #Mob Psycho 100 #ITS 8300 FREAKING WORDS #WHYD I LET THIS HAPPEN #I KNOW WHY ITS BECAUSE I NEEDED TO INCLUDE THE LAST SCENE #I NEEDED IT #-hucks this into the internet- TAKE IT MAN HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIKAI AND WHATEVER

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