Trio Sonata (A Leap of Faith)

When the dust settled and the windows stopped rattling, Arataka found himself neither dead nor possessed.

“Sweet,” he wheezed.

The old man had collapsed on top of him. He wasn’t actually that old, early forties if Arataka remembered the dossier right, but he looked worse. Maybe possession had aged him, or the wear and stress the spirit had forced on him. At least he was breathing — Arataka would’ve been pissed if all that work had been for nothing — but damn, he was heavy.

Arataka sucked in a breath and kicked free of the deadweight, struggling onto his stomach, and then to his hands and knees. He whined, lungs compressing, never mind mission abort — he clutched his mangled hand to his chest, rocked back onto his heels, and lunged for the counter with his good hand. His legs wobbled, but cooperated; fueled by the dregs of his adrenaline, he hauled himself upright, soaked in sweat and gasping.

“Hoo,” he said out loud, moving to wipe the sweat- and blood-streaked bangs from his forehead. He stopped mid-motion, remembering that hand was fucked up. “Wow. Okay. That … that happened. H-hey!” He raised his voice, though it shook violently through his bravado, and he barely made it above a rasp. “Hey, asshole! You still here?”

The silence rang, interrupted by Arataka’s wheezing breaths and the drip of his blood to the floor.

“Ha,” Arataka said numbly. “I — I win. Take that. Bastard.” He tried to take a deep breath, and gagged on the taste of blood, mildew, aluminum, and rotting, splintered wood.

He started for the door, and immediately tripped over Isari’s forearm. Damn.

“Okay, geezer,” Arataka muttered. He sank to his knees with a whimper and a wince, and heaved one of Isari’s arms over his shoulders. “Two, three, hup — ” Isari groaned as he came around a little, and managed to support his weight. Between the two of them, barely upright, they staggered from the moldering house.

(Something thumped behind a closed door as they passed it. Probably rats, Arataka thought. Really … really big rats. It didn't try to attack them, so Arataka kept them moving.)

As much as Arataka wanted to bolt, screaming, as far from the house as he could, he wasn't strong enough to drag Isari further than the curb, and he didn't want to leave the man alone in the state he was in. The adrenaline surge faded, and in its wake came pain; Arataka pressed his mangled hand to his stomach, grit his teeth, and tried not to cry while Isari roused in bits and pieces from his fugue state.

“Who,” Isari rasped, head hanging almost between his knees, “are you?”

From somewhere, Arataka summoned the bravado to puff his chest and grin. “Me? I'm the most promising psychic of the 21st century!”

He could have cut Isari’s skepticism with a knife.

“Former, I guess … ” Arataka hedged. He laughed. “My old shishou woulda said I’m a kid who can’t resist sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. And I … guess he’d be right. Um. But he’s not my boss anymore and, uh, I’m still that kid, so … ”

“What happened?” Isari didn't sound like he'd meant to cut Arataka off (Arataka had been floundering anyway). He clutched his head between his knees, nails digging into the back of his neck.

Arataka swallowed, and scratched the back of his own neck. “U-um. There's — there's no nice way to say this, is there — uh. Well. For starters. Your, uh, Mrs. Isari, she hired me to investigate you. I'm, uh, I work for a private investigator. So that's why. That's my job.”

“You're twelve.”

“Fourteen!” Arataka cried. Indignation set him back on solid ground. “I mean, technically she hired my boss. I'm just … I do his grunt work, like, like stakeouts, right, because they're boring and awful and they suck.”

Isari nodded in slow-motion. “Jun … hired your boss.”

“Uh-huh. You were … uh, possessed. By an evil spirit, the ghost of a man named Mogami Keiji — he used to be a TV psychic. And, uh, I guess a real psychic.”

“Possessed,” Isari said.

“I know it sounds nuts! But — but my old boss, my teacher, before the PI guy I mean, he was psychic, like really, and he taught me how to, uh — recognize and handle that sort of shit — so I guess you're really lucky that my new boss makes me do his garbage jobs because I dunno anybody else in Spice City who coulda helped you.”

“Possessed,” Isari said again. He took a deep breath and then went on, sentences tripping over each other, “Jun’s going to kill me,” and then, “You're hurt,” and then, “He was going to kill me,” and then, “I almost — he almost — I'm so sorry. Oh god. I'm sorry.”

Arataka swallowed. “Yup. That's … that did happen. You remember that?”

“Like a nightmare.” Isari shuddered. “There was a knife. He was … he was going to kill me. And take you. I'm so … ”

“Hey, hey, it's — it's okay. I exorcised the bastard, like, ninety percent guarantee. Uh. Maybe more like seventy-five. Fifty … ? He won't bother anybody for a while, for sure.” Isari did not look reassured. Arataka was starting to feel woozy; endorphins flooded his system as his body realized death was no longer imminent, and pains that had been suppressed erupted in flares of white light. “L-look, uh … ah dang I don't have his business cards anymore. If you start having trouble again, my old boss, the psychic one, he's really good, like, super smart — his name's Kageyama. Kageyama Ritsu. Call him and he'll help you for sure.”

“Psychic,” Isari said dully. Arataka understood that inflection — the ‘how did my life come to this’ voice of people who had never believed in the supernatural smacking into it for the first time. Isari shot bolt upright, startling Arataka into scrambling to his feet. “Did you say Kageyama?”

“Y-yeah, that's my boss.” Arataka edged backwards, glancing around the street. Blood crawled from the cut on his cheek down over the bob of his throat. “Are you gonna be okay, Mr. Isari? I gotta — ”

“Wait wait wait, kid, kid!” Isari lunged for Arataka’s arm. Arataka skipped out of range with a yelp, and Isari collapsed to his knees in the street. “Wait — what's — what's your name? You're bleeding. My house is a few blocks from here — ”

“No no no no no!” Arataka shook his head as he backed away further. Isari was a cop. He did not want trouble with a cop, his parents would never let him outside again. And anyway he'd been in too many houses with too many strangers already today. “You're bleeding too, Mr. Isari, you should go home — go home and take care of that, and talk to your wife and your daughter, and, and call Mr. Kageyama, and — ”

Isari stumbled to his feet, reaching out a hand. Arataka bolted down the street, blood and adrenaline singing in his ears as he sprinted as fast as his legs would carry him. Isari’s cry echoed down the street after him.

“Hey — wait — wait! What's your name?”

***

In the dark, damp, silent safety of the basement, something nameless uncurled.

He had fled downstairs when he'd heard footsteps — like he'd promised himself, terrified of hurting anyone. He curled up on the grimy mattress, dug his nails into his ribs, and rocked in place. His eyes glazed over, staring through the dull, dusty surface of the dark television screen.

That voice.

He hadn't spoken to his shishou in years. Occasional notes in jittery handwriting taped to the fridge communicated anything necessary. Beyond that, they had nothing to say to each other. The only voices he had heard in years were the calm narrators of nature programs, and the overwrought, stilted caricatures of actors.

But that — that bright, leaping, colorful voice.

He chewed on his fingers. Thoughts ticked over in the silence. Clockwork that had lain dormant and rusting through interminable monotony screeched into creeping motion. A real, breathing, other person implied, not just one person, but whole — communities of people outside. A family. Schoolteachers, which implied classmates, and custodians. People to grow food, and process it, and transport it. Living, material people, not illuminated abstractions behind a glass screen.

A house centipede scurried out of a crevice in the moldering walls and careened across the floor. He noticed it too late; though he flinched away, it collapsed unceremoniously into a pile of chitin. He stared at it. The little deaths had grown monotonous long ago, but his shoulders sank. His breathing, which had spiked in depth and tempo, faded. His clockwork, battered and disused, ground once more towards a halt.

There were people outside, true — as inaccessible to him as the ones behind the screen. He wished he hadn't remembered. It only revived the hurt.

As the numb hibernation of despair settled over him again, something new rose to meet it — a buzzing, vibrant urgency from the thing that lived between his ribs. Unwilling to release their moment of clarity, he dragged himself to their knees, then their feet, shuffling in erratic circles with his hands dug into the knots of their hair. Forgotten energy electrified their spine, lashed their hair against the limits of their soap-bubble barrier. The frayed ends of the matted clumps fluttered to the ground; the blue-pink of his shearing barrier swirled in agitation, scouring grooves into the cement floor as he paced. Go, urged the thing under his skin, seizing its chance. We can't live like this.

His breathing accelerated again, rapid, shallow, and wheezing. His ribs ached at the unprecedented exertion. His knees shook, and his legs ached. He'd only stood for a few minutes.

He could not live like this.

He caught a glimpse of their reflection in the dusty television screen — not much, just a flash of rail-thin shins. Skin stretched like cellophane over the bones of his feet. Just another image in glass — boiling anxiety flared into rage, flared into impulse, and he lashed out with a kick. Weak as he was, his heel only bounced off the smooth surface. Frustration raced through him, forced outward with a sob. His second kick shattered the screen entirely, in a shower of sparks and glass shards.

He stopped, gasping for air, head spinning dizzily, and looked at when he'd done. Pain, belated, lit up from his heel all the way to his knee. Blood dripped from his shredded heel and down the arch of his foot. He touched his fingers to it, then brought them to his mouth. It tasted like copper, electricity, life. Things that bled were alive.

The gaping hole in the television screen stared at him, accusatory and questioning: what now?

No turning back.

With no plan but desperation, he turned and began the laborious limp back up the stairs. He could persist no longer on shadows and reflections. He would make it so that he could leave, or he would die trying.

His shishou was — nowhere.

He closed his eyes mid-step, fanned out his radar as far as it would go, and found nothing. His shishou had been a constant presence since he was ten, since the cold day when he'd first manifested the shredding barrier and been ushered to this rot-filled, long-abandoned house. Sometimes the aura faded, when his shishou left for supplies, but it never vanished completely.

He flexed his hands, dug his ragged nails into his sweat-slick palms; squeezed his eyes shut against his swimming vision and the pounding terror. The thing under his skin urged them forward, against the sweet, alluring call of nothingness. It would be so easy to retreat underground, let his shredded foot heal (or fester and kill him), and stare into the dark without even the small comfort of the television. Everything would turn off and go still, until the machinery of his body wound down into silence at last.

Or —

Or, they could live.

He wanted to try.

They searched the house, and found nothing. The kitchen was empty, the living room, the upstairs, except for the room they were forbidden to enter.

They tested the handle, found it locked as always. A twist of energy blasted the door from its hinges.

They froze.

In the center of the room, in front of the bare springs of a rotted-out mattress, backlit by pink-orange light from outside (outside), a pair of feet hung motionless. Feet attached to legs in dingy slacks. Legs led up to a pale button-down shirt untouched by time — had his shishou ever worn different clothes? His eyes skipped over the bloated face to the rope —

And around the whole apparatus, a swirling surface of razor scales —

Horror crashed through their lungs. Their knees buckled; their chest collapsed, air forced from them in a rattling wheeze until their ribs creaked and burned. Unmoved for — how long? — the corpse hung, undisturbed by the trespass.

One last thought surfaced before whitewater panic swallowed them — how long had Mogami been dead?

Their feet moved with no input from their head.

They ran.

***

Fuck.

All things considered, Arataka was coping pretty well for almost having been killed by his childhood hero’s murder ghost.

(Or, maybe he wasn’t coping, but he’d shoved all the trauma into a heavily-taped box and scrawled “DO NOT OPEN” on it in thick, red Sharpie. Same thing, right?)

Still. Fuck.

“Fuck,” he said out loud. If now wasn’t an okay time to say it, then there wasn’t one. Blood dripped from his injured hand, leaving a trail of near-black droplets to track his wobbling path from the house. It slid from his cheek, too, dripping onto his torn jacket from his chin, a thin trail sliding down his neck to stain his T-shirt. He’d have a nice companion scar to the one he’d gotten with Kageyama. Lucky he’d just have a scar, and not an open neck.

The blood gleamed in the yellow glare of the streetlights. It might have been safer to keep to the shadows, but after what had happened — in that awful, dark house stinking of mildew and death (and, weirdly enough, tomato soup?) — Arataka was firmly set on staying in the brightest light he could.

Then someone burst out of the bushes, and ran him over.

“Fuck!” Arataka snarled, as his abused palms hit the pavement. He barely got the curse out before someone heavy and pointy slammed down on top of him, knocking the wind out of his chest. Not from theirs, though, judging by their panicked scream.

It wasn’t really a scream, Arataka thought, as his ears rang and he struggled to refill his lungs. More of a frantic, despairing wail.

It decayed rapidly into a rising-falling keen, pitch and volume fluctuating like a police siren. Arataka’s worse arm collapsed as he managed to get his hands under him, and he bit back a hiss. Fighting through the soreness (skinned palms, elbows, knees; countless bruises, bleeding cheek and hand, fingers sliced near to the bone, growing headache, nerves raw from conducting energy his body had never been designed to), he managed, after a couple of staggering false starts, to haul himself to his feet.

“God dammit,” he spat, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “Watch where you’re going, ass — ”

He stopped.

The sound went on, and on, and on, almost fading into background noise — it had stopped sounding human a while ago. But it was coming from … coming from …

In the half-light, Arataka took a minute to process what he saw as a person. His accidental assailant crumpled on the ground in the faint, glaring light of Arataka’s phone screen, their head almost totally hidden among spidery limbs and a wildly knotted mass of black hair. They twitched convulsively, pounding the side of their head against the sidewalk.

“Uh … hey,” Arataka said. He could barely hear himself under the stranger’s screaming. “Whoa. Hey. Are you okay?”

The strange adult didn’t react. Arataka took a half-step back — he did not want to deal with this. For one thing, he had dealt with far too many weird, violent grownups today, and he did not want to deal with another one. He wanted to go home, tape up his bleeding hand and face, make excuses to his parents, and get an appointment for a tetanus shot.

But … this person didn’t seem violent. They seemed really, really scared.

Arataka swallowed.

“Hey,” he said, raising his voice. He edged closer, reaching out for their shoulder. “Hey! Are you hurt?”

His fingers brushed the skin of the stranger’s shoulder through the torn sleeve of their shirt. They spasmed, one long arm knocking Arataka’s hand away as they flipped onto their back with a panicked scream. “NO!”

They froze, wide-eyed, staring at Arataka; then at their arm, the long, frayed sleeve riding up along a painfully bony wrist; then at Arataka again.

“Um,” Arataka said uncertainly. “S-sir? Do you … need help?”

“Nn,” the man, Arataka thought he might be a man, stammered. His eyes flickered from his hands to Arataka’s face, birdlike in the yellow light. “Ah — y-yuh — ”

“Are you sick? Should I call a doctor?”

“No!” The man flung himself backwards in an awkward crabwalk before collapsing in on himself, arms shielding his face. Blood flecked the ground behind him — he was bleeding, too, one heel a gory, ribboned mess. Arataka flipped his phone shut, raising his hands slowly.

“Whoa, whoa, hey, mister,” he said. “I-it’s okay. You seem like you’re not doing too good, you know? I just wanna help.”

One eye peered out from behind the man’s thin arms and matted hair, shining under the streetlamp. He was crying, Arataka realized, his stomach wrenching. Tears had streaked a clean line down the man’s dirty face. It was hard to tell, given the circumstances, but he didn’t look very old — about Kageyama’s age, if Arataka guessed, though he hadn’t thought about his old boss in a while.

Anger bubbled up hot in Arataka’s gut. “Hey. Did someone hurt you?”

The man shook his head. His eyes stayed fixed on Arataka’s hands — no, on Arataka’s left hand, the one that had caught the knife, the one with blood streaking down his palm and wrist. “I,” he said, stammering, too careful with the word. His voice creaked, like a hinge in an abandoned house. “I, I, I — ?” He pointed to Arataka’s injured hand, stick-insect finger shaking violently.

It took a moment for Arataka to piece together what he was asking. “Nah,” he said, shaking his head, “that was my own dumbass decision. Got in a fight. You didn’t hurt me.” His mouth quirked, and he snorted. “Just scared the crap outta me. What’re you doing mowing down middle schoolers at … ?” Arataka pulled out his phone again, checking the time. It wasn’t as late as he’d thought. Adrenaline, it turned out, played hell with the passage of time. “At, like, eleven-thirty at night?”

The man went very quiet, curling in on himself. Arataka swallowed. This was very, very wrong.

“Can you … can you stand?”

The man didn’t respond.

“Hey, mister,” Arataka said, stepping forward to flick one of the man’s bony knees. The man lunged backwards again, then stared at Arataka’s outstretched hand, frozen.

“Y …” he said. “Y — you … ”

“There we go, new word! That’s good. Look, d’you — do you have a home? Someplace safe to go? I’m worried about you, mister.”

The man flinched, arms flying to cover his face. For a few beats, he rocked in place, but the fit passed quickly, and he looked up at Arataka again, wide-eyed. “Y-you. I. You’re. S-ss — safe?”

“I dunno about that,” Arataka drawled. He backpedaled quickly when the man flinched again. “That was a full sentence, good job! And I don’t think you could hurt me if you tried. You look like a stiff breeze would take you out.” He offered his uninjured hand. “Hey, mister, what’s your name?”

The man stared at Arataka’s hand for a long minute before he reached back, shaking nigh uncontrollably, and slipped his fingers into Arataka’s. It didn’t take much effort at all to pull him to his feet, even though he was a grown man and Arataka was fourteen. He wasn’t as tall as Arataka had thought, either, his height an illusion created by how unbearably thin he was.

“What’s your name?” Arataka repeated.

The man raised his other hand, pulling back one tangled chunk of the curtain hanging over his face. He trembled like the leaf his hand felt like, cold and liable to break if Arataka gripped too hard. His eyes fixed on their joined hands as though he didn’t dare look away, the stare of a drowning man to a flung rope barely within reach.

“M,” he said, hoarse. He licked his lips and tried again. “M-muh — Mob.”

“Mob,” Arataka echoed, eyebrows raising. “Sure. You know what, sure. I’m Reigen — Reigen Arataka.” He waited for the man to nod before continuing. “Lemme tell you what we're gonna do, Mister Mob. We're gonna go someplace warm, and then I’ll call … ” Arataka floundered, cursing his helpful streak. He couldn't in good conscience leave 'Mob’ alone, but what was a fourteen-year-old supposed to do for a strange, barely-verbal adult man? “I dunno, the cops, or something … ”

“No!” Mob recoiled, raising his free arm as a shield between him and Arataka; he wasn’t strong enough to pull out of Arataka’s grip. “No, no, no!”

“Okay,” Arataka said, placating. He rubbed his forehead, rolling his eyes. “What d’you want me to do? You need help, and I’m a kid. I can’t do that much. Who can I call? What are you scared of?”

“B — ” Mob stammered. His eyes flickered rapidly — their linked hands, the streetlight, the blood spattering the sidewalk from Arataka’s fingers, the bushes lining the road. He reached out — hesitated — then took a leaf between his thumb and forefinger, stroking the smooth surface gingerly, eyes wide like this was totally new to him. Like he’d never seen a goddamn bush before.

Arataka liked to think of himself as a resilient person. Most of the time, he was. These were desperate times, though, and his desire to go home and tape up his hand and face was quickly morphing into the desire to go home, cry until he fell asleep, and stay that way for about a week.

“T-th-the,” Mob said, quietly. His voice shook much less. “Buh — barrier.”

“Barrier,” Arataka repeated. “Okay, we’re making progress. What barrier?”

Another long pause. Mob stared at the leaf in his hand, fingers moving mechanically. “It hurts people,” he whispered. He looked at Arataka, his expression absolutely flat. “You should be dead.”

What the fuck.

Ritsu’s phone rang at 2:02 AM.

He knew, because the number seared itself onto his retinas when he blearily fumbled it into his hand, nearly knocking it onto the floor in the process. He opened the phone to pick up the call, immediately flipped it shut again, and slammed it back onto his bedside table, burying his face in his pillow with a growl.

Barely thirty seconds later, it rang again. Ritsu pulled his pillow over his head, snarling curses under his breath. The phone rang, and rang, and rang, for a hellish, interminable minute or so before it skipped to voicemail, allowing Ritsu to breathe a sigh of relief.

He got nearly two minutes of reprieve this time, just long enough for his pounding heart to settle, before the phone rang again. He flung the pillow aside, snatched the phone off his bedside table, and flipped it open just long enough to snarl, “Fuck off!” before hanging up. He didn’t even get the chance to lie back down before nearly jumping out of his skin as the phone rang yet again, finally forcing his bleary eyes to register the name on the phone’s indicator.

“Call me in the morning,” he snapped into the receiver, and hung up.

Arataka, predictably, called back before Ritsu had even set down the phone. “Wait wait wait,” he babbled, before Ritsu could either chew him out or hang up, “boss, please, I need your help — ”

“I gave you my number for professional reasons,” Ritsu said through gritted teeth. (Not that that had stopped Arataka from texting him to ramble about his day, or to send him pictures of dogs.) “I’m not your boss anymore.”

He hung up.

Three, two, one … He picked up the call before the first ring, rolling his eyes. “What.”

“Finally,” Arataka groaned. “So you know how I have that PI job? So he’s been sending me out on stakeouts because they’re boring, right, like, you watch nothing happen for hours just to figure out whether or not two coworkers are boning — ”

“Arataka, if you called me at two in the morning to complain about your job — ”

“No, no, listen, I’m getting there — ”

“Get there faster,” Ritsu snapped.

“Okay, so, I got in a knife fight with a murder ghost.”

Ritsu’s blood ran cold. “You what?!”

“I’m fine!” Arataka protested, as if that was any excuse for throwing himself into an exorcism case without backup, as if he hadn’t been unconscionably stupid, as if he wasn’t lucky to be alive, as if he hadn't almost disappeared — Ritsu dragged himself out of his oncoming anxiety attack as Arataka continued. “And now this guy, I dunno where he came from, but he needs help — ”

“Slow down,” Ritsu said, rubbing the bridge of his nose against an oncoming headache. “Murder ghost?”

“Uh, the guy I was tailing turned out to be possessed. I had some, uh, some spare tags, you know — ” Arataka laughed nervously over the paper-thin lie — “from back when, so I brought ‘em with me. So. It’s fine, though.”

It was absolutely not fine. Ritsu did his best to keep breathing. “Arataka, why did you call me?”

“Well — this guy just crashed into me, but he’s freaking out. He's hurt. I … I really think he needs help. So I called you — ”

“Not a doctor? Or the police?”

“He won’t let me.” Arataka went quiet. “That’s the thing. He says he’s psychic.”

Ritsu stared at the phone, mouth half-open on a word that died as it met the air.

“He says,” Arataka went on, suddenly much more uncertain, “he says he’s got a — a barrier that’s supposed to shred anything alive. I think? It’s hard to get anything out of him. But he’s terrified he’ll hurt people.”

“I’ve — I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

“Oh.” Ritsu could hear the crestfallen slump in Arataka’s voice. “I … please, boss. I dunno what to do. Please.”

A pang of guilt twisted in the bottom of Ritsu’s stomach. Arataka sounded scared and exhausted — after running headfirst into a possession case with little preparation, of course he would be. “Where are you? Do you need me to come there, or can you get to my apartment yourself?”

“I can, uh … yeah, I think we gotta walk. I don’t think I can get this guy into a taxi.”

Ritsu sighed heavily, rubbed his eyes, and resisted the urge to ask Arataka to stay on the line. “Alright. Keep me posted. How far away are you?”

“Like … half an hour? Forty-five minutes. I'll be fine, boss.” Arataka laughed, sounding a little giddy and very tense. “I know karate.”

“You're a yellow belt,” Ritsu pointed out, dragging one hand down over an exasperated smile. Sleep deprivation made him soft, apparently. Ugh.

He could almost hear Arataka roll his eyes. “See you, boss. Sorry about all of this.”

“It's alright. I'll … handle it. Just hurry.”

“I'll do my best.”

The call clicked off. Ritsu stared at the glare of his phone screen (2:19 AM, it now read) for a minute before groaning, dragging himself out of bed, and staggering for the kitchen.

He was going to need a lot of coffee.

***

Arataka closed his stinging eyes and buried his face in his good hand, sagging against the hard plastic booth. Kageyama was on it. A grown adult who, despite his capacity to be a petty, spite-fueled, suspicious bastard, was also one of the most resourceful and trustworthy people Arataka knew, was on it. Relief flooded Arataka’s system, pouring into the bottom of a tank running on fumes. Or something. Two in the morning was not a good hour for metaphors.

It was a good hour for nearly-empty all-night breakfast diners. The exhausted clerk had raised eyebrows at the pair of them, but not remarked. Arataka had split off to the bathroom to wash the worst of the blood off his face and hand, and at least shove some paper towels against the gashes. He'd retrieved a set for Mob, too, though the man only fidgeted with the rough paper until Arataka communicated through exhausted charades that he should press them against his sliced foot.

With some calorie-dense and sugar-heavy food settling into his stomach, he felt massively better, though he still needed to cry and-or sleep.

“So that was my boss,” he said, picking up his head and sniffing back the beginnings of tears. Mob looked up from chasing a syrup-ketchup-eggs concoction around his plate with blank curiosity; his gaze was unwavering, vacant, and profoundly unsettling. Arataka swallowed, dry-mouthed. “You know, I told you about him. I'm not … uh, not anything special as a, uh, psychic. He's way stronger than me, and I trust him. If anyone can help you, it's him.”

Mob did not react. Arataka had no idea if he'd even processed the words.

“S-so,” he said, his traitor voice quivering, “please. Let him help.”

Mob blinked owlishly. “B … barrier?”

“Yes. Yeah. Sure. He can help you with the barrier. You — you said something about a shishou, right?” Arataka cringed when the man’s eyes snapped wide. He felt bad, but he needed leverage, and he was getting desperate. “Boss is, like, my shishou. Okay? Only don't tell him I called him that. But he's way cooler and stronger than your, uh, ‘shishou’, whoever he is.”

Mob nodded.

“Okay. So can we go there? Just … nod, or something.”

Mob’s gaze darted sideways, skating along the edge of the table and up to the lights. One spidery hand flattened against the plastic tabletop. Finally, as Arataka’s held breath began to burn, he nodded.

They skipped on the check (after shoveling the leftovers into plastic, because Mob stalled out with a series of broken-engine noises at the prospect of abandoning food). Arataka stole the napkin, too, wrapping it around his bleeding fingers. There wasn't much to do for Mob’s foot that would hold for long against sidewalk. At least he seemed to have a high pain tolerance.

>omw, Arataka texted Kageyama, before shoving his phone back in his pocket. It would be a long walk, and he already felt wobbly, his limbs loose and floaty, his head stuffed with cotton. But he couldn't quit just yet.

Soon, but not yet.

Not yet.

***

The boy — Reigen — the colorful child, the first flesh-and-blood, non-Shishou person Mob had seen in longer than he could remember — chattered as he walked, his free, injured hand flapping like a wild bird. He spoke rapidly and at length, pausing only for breath. Occasionally he cast a glance back at Mob, just long enough for a nod or a vague hum before he launched another tangent.

Mob couldn’t understand what the boy was saying. He was content enough to limp along behind, keeping a fearful eye out for other people … rats, cockroaches … what sort of animals came out, outside, at night? He didn’t remember. It couldn’t hurt to be careful. Pain flared up his spine with the rhythm of walking, hazy and distantly familiar, an experience almost remembered from another life. Every uneven step reminded him that everything was different. He could not return to his shishou's house. He'd destroyed the illuminated shelter of the television, the one thing that made the basement bearable. Nothing would be the same, ever again.

Blood spattered from the boy’s hand with a particularly vigorous gesture. Mob flinched and dug in his heels, or at least the one not torn to ribbons by broken glass. The colorful boy spun back without releasing Mob’s hand and ducked his head to peer up under the curtain of Mob’s hair, his chatter changing key.

“ … ey hey hey, you okay? It’s fine. C’mon … ” He tugged on Mob’s hand, breaking inertia with two quick backward steps before he spun back forwards.

No barrier. The colorful child had done something to the barrier. Mob had felt it crackle and burst when he’d first collided with the child. He’d screamed, recoiling away from the phantom feeling of warm, slimy, shredded meat coating his face and hands and chest and neck. Before the colorful child had touched him, spoken, helped him stand.

Touched him.

Mob stared at their linked hands.

He didn’t remember touch. This must be what it felt like: soft, cool, a little bit electric. There was the boy’s hand, grip firm around Mob’s palm. The barrier had not hurt the colorful child. Bright, indignant, then by turns furious and concerned, the boy’s voice rose, fell, and occasionally cracked with more energy than Shishou’s ever did. That voice had been in the house, where it had chattered in counterpoint to Shishou’s low, amused menace.

The cuts on the colorful boy’s face and hand had not come from the barrier, which didn't so much ‘cut’ people as it did ‘pulp’ them. If he'd been hurt, then, it must have been in the house with Shishou. And since the barrier hadn't hurt the boy …

Mob was well aware that Shishou was not a good person, but as long as he’d limited his mistreatment to Mob, it hadn't mattered. However powerful Shishou was, even his worst rages had never cracked the barrier; somewhere along the line, Mob had gone numb to fear, or empathy, or any response at all to the man’s anger. The thought of Shishou hurting the colorful boy, though — of lashing out with that same rage at someone so bright, and so spirited, and so kind, who almost reminded Mob of the little brother it hurt too much to think of —

That thought lit a fierce, hot coal of anger in Mob’s chest, a feeling he’d forgotten he was capable of.

***

Ritsu paced in his kitchen, a rhythmic pattern of steps so familiar he was surprised he hadn't worn a groove in the floor. Arataka was punctual about texting him every five minutes, noting his progress, but that didn’t stop Ritsu from worrying nearly out of his mind. Spooling out his thoughts in his journal killed about thirty minutes and helped him ease his nerves, but left him with nothing to keep his overtired, overcaffeinated brain from spinning its wheels with frantic energy. Water coiled around his fingers as his hands fluttered, tracing the outlines of vague connections in midair. Most of them he discarded; others were more stubborn.

>sry, Arataka texted him at 2:58. >delay. dude not fast. b there soon

>Take your time, Ritsu texted back. His heart fluttered, insidious anxiety whispering that he couldn’t know for sure that it was Arataka texting him, that some assailant could be stalling to throw Ritsu off the trail. Outlandish, but just enough within the bounds of possibility to keep Ritsu from exorcising the thought completely.

A strange aura brushed the edges of his radar. Ritsu’s globe of water dropped, splattering across the floor, as he startled bolt upright. Arataka, it seemed, really had found an esper — and one hell of an esper, too. Hanazawa had been stronger than Ritsu by an order of magnitude; this esper was at least two orders of magnitude stronger than Hanazawa. And —

Ritsu recoiled, both spiritually and physically, within the safety of his apartment. A heat-haze of — Ritsu could only think of it as poison saturated the aura, venomous and malevolent. He sank back against his kitchen counter as his knees buckled, heart pounding in his throat. That same poison had frightened all but the most arrogant or stupid spirits out of Salt and the neighboring districts for almost a decade and a half. Just what the hell had Arataka gotten himself into? Who — what had he found?

Calm down, Ritsu told himself. He closed his eyes, focusing his energy on retrieving the water from the floor. Stop, think, analyze. Review the data.

The aura was saturated with ill intent, true, but not radiating it; bent and influenced by the thing that had terrorized Spice City’s spirit population, but not evil itself. It condensed as its owner sensed Ritsu’s attention, sparking fearfully, though it was simply too powerful to dodge Ritsu’s radar — still, confirming that the strange esper meant no harm. He smoothed and lowered his own wavelength, remaining wary but at ease. The stranger hummed in a key almost like apology.

Tonight, it seemed, had not been normal for anyone.

He got a clearer sense of the strange aura as the esper, and presumably also Arataka, approached. It felt cracked, as though under crushing pressure. Jagged and uneven in Ritsu’s mind’s eye, it shone like … Ritsu frowned. Like light through a cloud of glass shards, suspended in midair.

Ritsu rubbed his face and scowled at the prickle of overnight stubble along his jaw. He could kill a few minutes by cleaning up. It would distract him from waiting, and he'd feel better about confronting a stranger if he looked somewhat presentable. (Like hell he was changing out of his pajamas, though.)

Which, of course, meant that the doorbell buzzed as he was in the middle of shaving. Ritsu just about jumped out of his skin, letting loose a stream of curses as he narrowly avoided cutting himself. That aura played tricks with perspective — its strength made it feel closer than it was, and Ritsu had overcompensated in the other direction. “One minute,” he called, hurrying to finish. He splashed some cold water on his face, swiped it back into the sink with a wave of his hand, and hurried to the door. A series of texts from Arataka lit up his phone as he did.

>boss
>boss
>hey
>boss plz
>kageyamaaaaaaaa
>its cold :(
>plz

“Calm down,” Ritsu called, rolling his eyes even as he breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m coming, hold on — ”

His attention skated over the esper leaning on Arataka’s shoulders just long enough to determine that — exhausted, emaciated, bedraggled, and barely-upright — the man was no threat at all, as free of ill intent in person as his aura suggested. More important, and consuming Ritsu’s attention, was the blood streaking Arataka’s face and throat, soaking the rag wrapped around his left hand, and the way Arataka himself clung to the esper with his good arm for support.

“Arataka,” Ritsu said, very calmly, “what the hell did you do?”

“Hi, boss,” Arataka said, his voice faintly slurred. He raised his bloody hand in a lazy wave. “C’n we come in? This’s my boss,” he added to the strange esper, who only stared at Ritsu with wide eyes and an unreadable expression. Ritsu tugged on his hair, fighting down the urge to hyperventilate over his former pupil’s devil-may-care attitude towards injury.

“Of — Arataka, get in here right now. Why are you bleeding?”

“Knife fight with a murder ghost, remember? I toldja.” Arataka giggled, sounding faintly delirious. “Is that shock? That might be shock. Hi, boss.”

“Just — get in here and let me get you some bandages. You, too,” he told the strange esper, who seemed reluctant, but didn’t protest when Arataka detached himself and slumped against Ritsu’s arm — heavy, not supporting enough of his own weight, and cold. Ritsu lifted Arataka into his arms with some telekinetic assistance. The strange esper flinched at the display. Arataka protested, flapping one hand lackadaisically.

“‘M fine, boss,” he slurred. “M’gami was a tough fucker, but I’m tougher.”

Ritsu’s blood froze.

Fourteen years.

His head snapped, unbidden, to the strange esper hesitating on his threshold. His mental image of Shigeo was frozen as a nine-year-old’s image of a ten-year-old, but if he allowed for fourteen years of criminal neglect, he could almost see — under the dirt and the emaciation — something in the strange esper’s jawline, in the man’s slack, vacant stare — and that immense, incomparable strength —

Arataka sighed in Ritsu’s arms. His head tilted loosely against Ritsu’s shoulder. Ritsu swallowed, compartmentalization blast doors slamming down. One thing at a time. His (former) pupil was injured. The kid who had sent him dog pictures and text chatter for eight months after being fired was barely conscious. The rest of — this — could wait.

“I'm sorry,” he told the strange esper, retreating to his customer voice. “I need to care for my student. Please come in.”

Sh — the esper had not yet moved when Ritsu turned, carrying Arataka back into the apartment.

Paranoia paid off every now and then: Ritsu’s first-aid kit was well-stocked. By the time he'd pulled out gauze, bandages, scissors, and cleaning supplies, Arataka was slightly more lucid, shivering as he warmed up. (Ritsu had tossed out a thread of telekinesis to crank up the thermostat as he passed. He could deal with a little sweating and some extra on his heating bill to stave off Arataka’s hypothermia.)

“Ow, ow, ow ow ow — hey!”

“Oh, good, you're lucid enough to complain.” Ritsu rolled his eyes, releasing a relieved breath through his nose. “Hold still and let me clean this.”

“It hurts,” Arataka whined. Ritsu fixed him with a look, eyebrows raised.

“I could use telekinesis,” he said. “If I don't clean this properly, you'll be more likely to get an infection.”

Arataka groaned, but held still for Ritsu to clean out and tape up the cut on his face. He recoiled when Ritsu reached for his hand. “Y-you’re, uh, gonna have to do the thing.”

Ritsu nodded, pulling Arataka’s hand towards him and tugging open the fingers. Arataka whined and cringed away, but Ritsu’s gentle telekinesis was stronger. He very carefully did not waver when he saw the extent of the damage to Arataka’s hand — broad gashes across his palm and fingers, the flesh nearly shredded in places. Ritsu swallowed.

“I can bandage this,” he said, “but you need to see a doctor.” Arataka whined; Ritsu glared at him. “You want to keep your fingers?”

“‘s it that bad?” Arataka whispered.

“It could be. What happened?”

Arataka shifted nervously on the stool. His gaze wandered to the ceiling; Ritsu’s telekinesis tethered him in place. “The, uh, the guy, he tried to stab me. So I … grabbed it.”

Ritsu rubbed his forehead. “Then you need to see a doctor as soon as possible. And call your parents.”

Arataka nodded. “They think … I'm at a friend's.” He giggled. “I don't have any.”

“Any what?”

“Friends.”

Ritsu sighed. “You need to see a doctor,” he repeated.

“What about the other guy?”

“He'll be fine.” Ritsu set his hands on Arataka’s shoulders. “Right now, your health is my priority.”

Arataka grinned, but fear flickered behind his eyes. “Aw, boss, please … I — I'm tired, a-and my parents are gonna kill me. Can't you just slap a magic sticker on it?”

“That's not how spirit tags work, and you know it,” Ritsu told him, but he'd lost. Arataka could beg, plead, wheedle, and coax with the best of them, but he hated to be seen vulnerable. He'd ask for help if he needed it, but only with confidence that he'd reached his limit. When he had said ‘I'm tired’, his voice had shaken — for a moment, he'd appeared as an exhausted, frightened child. “But … alright.”

Arataka sagged, worrying Ritsu until he looked up with a slack, genuine smile. “Th … thanks. Y-you’re the best.”

“Just don't worry your parents.” Ritsu flipped his arm over and rolled up his sleeve. A bright, blue-pink manifestation of power crystallized above his wrist. He closed his eyes, fanning out his radar. With the strange esper’s aura in his apartment, he'd need a big incentive, especially when healing spirits tended to run on the weaker side.

Speaking of the strange esper — his aura shifted, an anxious breeze twisting the broken glass. Ritsu’s lowering wavelength, a calming frequency he'd calibrated to signal the local benign spirits, seemed to reassure him. But Ritsu couldn't pay much attention to him, because a spirit had taken his invitation, a curling, serpentine form manifesting over Arataka’s head.

“Ah, that's a nice trade,” the spirit said in a melodious voice. She sank to coil around Arataka’s shoulders. “There's pain here, a lot. I can eat it?”

“Go ahead,” Ritsu told her. Arataka glanced around the bathroom blearily, though he should be used to Ritsu talking to what he couldn't see. The spirit slithered down Arataka’s sleeve, paused over his wrist — then struck with blinding speed, sinking fangs into the base of Arataka’s injury. A shiver rippled up Arataka’s spine.

“Aha, that feels weird … ”

The spirit's color shifted from soothing teal to an energetic, pink-tinged yellow as she fed. The red swelling receded, and the edges of the cuts knit, smoothing where they were most ragged. Arataka’s shoulders sank, and color returned to his face; he sighed as his eyes fluttered closed. Ritsu caught him as he slumped forward, and held him up with telekinesis to bandage his remaining cuts.

“‘nk youuu,” Arataka slurred. The spirit, which he could neither see nor hear, hummed affectionately, coiling around his shoulders with a rustle of spectral feathers.

“Thank you,” Ritsu told the spirit more clearly. To Arataka, he added, “She says ‘you're welcome’.”

“Tasty,” the spirit commented. “Marinated in stress. Good and thick.”

Ritsu did not translate that. “Your payment,” he told the spirit, offering his wrist. She investigated the crystal for a moment before snapping it up. A band of deep indigo rippled down her body.

“Ah, generous! Take care, call again.”

Ritsu relaxed as the spirit departed through the ceiling. Healing spirits always unnerved him — there was always the danger of shifting from feeding to relieve pain to creating pain oneself, the desire to help perverted into a snare of ego. They were incomparably useful, though, and all in all, Ritsu preferred dealing with them to the more neutral spirits who often made up his informants.

“Bye, miss snake lady,” Arataka mumbled. Ritsu glanced down in alarm — Arataka should not be seeing spirits — before realizing that his student was asleep, or nearly so. Dreams could open the perception of even non-espers to the supernatural; Arataka certainly needed the rest. He lifted the middle-schooler back into his arms with a grunt, stood (with some telekinetic assistance) … and realized that he did not want to go to the living room.

He did not want to face what he did not know how to. He could not bring himself to hope and be disappointed — not now, not in the face of real evidence instead of convoluted, paper-flimsy theories he knew on some level would bring him nowhere. For fourteen years, his whole adolescence, Kageyama Ritsu had grown up around the hole his brother had left in his life. Now that he finally had a real chance at the only thing he'd ever wanted, he stood frozen.

Arataka rested heavy in his arms, his breathing soft and even. Ritsu took a slow breath of his own — inhale, hold, exhale — and stepped forward. One foot in front of the other. One thing at a time. The strategy had gotten him to twenty-three; it would work a little while longer.

He retrieved a spare pillow and blanket from his room, took another deep breath, steeled himself, and returned to the living room.

To his surprise, it was empty.

One thing at a time. He settled Arataka on the couch, paused for a self-indulgent moment to brush the shaggy bangs out of his former pupil’s eyes, and drew the blanket over his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, then heaved a sigh. That soft smile crept onto his face again; Ritsu didn’t try to suppress it. “I wanted to keep you out of danger, but I guess you find it yourself.”

Then he straightened, drew up his nerve again — Arataka had the right idea, Ritsu was exhausted — and went looking for the man who might be his vanished brother.

The strange esper’s aura lingered near the apartment. He hadn’t gone far — he hadn’t moved at all. He shivered outside the open door to Ritsu’s apartment, thin arms wrapped around his ribs. Blood smeared across the landing — something had shredded the esper's heel as badly as Arataka’s hand. The night wasn’t that cold, but it was well into autumn, and the man was barefoot and nearly skeletal, his clothes ragged. He'd walked all this way? In that state, with that injury?

Ritsu stared, gears dragging in his tired mind. “You can come in,” he said finally, extending his hand. “You're hurt, and it’s cold.”

The strange esper recoiled as if he expected Ritsu to strike him, stumbling on his injury. His dark eyes flickered aside, then down to Ritsu’s hand, then back up to Ritsu’s face, as if drawn there irresistibly. The man’s expression was inscrutable, but something — the thing at the bottom of Ritsu’s soul he hadn't dared allow hope — leapt into the back of Ritsu’s throat with force enough to force the air from his lungs and make his eyes water. Something like Ritsu’s facial structure in the bridge of his nose, in the thin arch of his brows? Hard to tell anything, under the dirt. Had Shigeo taken after their mother, or their father? After fourteen years, how could Ritsu expect to know?

The strange esper looked away, and the effect vanished, leaving Ritsu drained and weak in the knees. Sh — the man’s throat worked, hoarse voice stammering as he shivered. “B — buh — ” The tips of his matted hair twitched in a brief static current, discharging the frustration that flickered across his face. “K-k-k — the — h-he?” The esper raised a shaking finger, pointing inwards.

Ritsu hazarded a guess. “Arataka’s sleeping. He'll be alright." The esper nodded. His angular shoulders sank. “He's a good kid,” Ritsu added, feeling the impulse to defend his student, though against what he didn't know. “I'm proud of him for going so far to help you. Please — come in.” It wasn't a rote courtesy anymore. With his student cared for and asleep, Ritsu pleaded with the thin man.

The esper hesitated again, withdrawing nearly to the railing on the landing, trailing bloody footprints. He startled when the cold metal brushed his back; the motion sent him stumbling into one of Ritsu’s neighbor’s potted plants. He shied away from the plant, his aura churning in fear, then looked back at Ritsu — still standing in the doorway, backlit in yellow light, his hand outstretched.

“There is no barrier,” Ritsu said, softly, softly. “It's alright. I can help you. Come in.”

(Come home, he thought, his throat tight. No. No hope until he was certain.)

Shi — the thin man stared at Ritsu for a long moment. Ritsu’s heart pounded in his mouth as the man glanced from Ritsu’s hand to his face, his trembling worsening by the second. Finally, finally, he stretched his hand back, pausing with his body twisted away, shoulders hunched, eyes screwed tightly shut. Ritsu closed the remaining few inches between them and laced his stronger fingers with the other man's frail, bony ones, struggling against his own internal conflict to radiate calm. A sob wracked the thin man's frame, and his fingers clenched around Ritsu’s as if involuntarily. For a moment, at the frigid chill of his skin, Ritsu thought — but no, a thready, rapid pulse beat inside the other man’s wrist.

They looked up in unison from their fascinated staring at their linked hands: Ritsu’s broader and better-padded, ink-stained and callused from calligraphy; the thin man’s narrow, nearly skeletal, with the clammy, plasticine feel of malnutrition and dehydration. Ritsu tugged the thin man inside — he'd get the bloodstains out of the wooden floor somehow — and closed the door behind them with a wave of his hand. The thin man startled as it thudded shut, eyeing the door and then at Ritsu with wondering curiosity.

“S — ” Ritsu began. His voice gave out, his throat locking around the name. His grip tightened on the thin man’s hand. He gulped and licked his lips, trying to draw some moisture into his mouth; closed his eyes against the feverish pounding of his heart. “Shi — Shigeo?”

The thin man stared.

Ritsu’s heart sank, his blood chilling to cement.

The strained lines of the thin man's face slackened. Slowly — then all at once — like sunlight searing through an early fog — a watery, hesitant smile broke across his face. The prominent lump in his throat bobbed as his mouth opened, working on a sound.

“R-ri — ,” the thin man, Shigeo, stuttered, “Ritsu?”

Arataka had only called him ‘boss’, Ritsu thought, mind racing. He hadn't introduced himself; the sign on the door read only ‘Kageyama’. Unless Ritsu had slipped — but — there wasn't — he couldn't — the odds were too slim, too improbable, and here was his brother. Every instinct in Ritsu’s autonomic nervous system screamed in recognition. He'd spent a lifetime training himself to mistrust instinct, to believe only in tangible evidence; but this was tangible evidence, his brother's hand in his own. His brother, wounded, worn and neglected, but alive, after fourteen years —

Cold, trembling fingers slid along Ritsu’s cheek. He shook himself out of his stupor, sucked in a shivering breath, and, for once in his life, told his calculating side to shut up.

“L-l-l-luh,” Shigeo stammered, his eyebrows furrowed in worry, his eyes wet and shining, “li — little b — brother?”

“Shige,” Ritsu gasped, the name alone a sob (a prayer — a prayer answered), and dragged his brother into a full-body hug. “Shige — !” Shigeo, perhaps predictably, overbalanced with a yelp; the pair of them collapsed in a tangle of limbs, cushioned by Ritsu’s telekinesis. “Brother,” he cried, wrapping his arms around the bars of Shigeo’s ribs, around Shigeo’s protruding shoulder-blades, fingertips digging in for security that he would not have to let go.

One of Shigeo’s spidery hands flattened against the floor, his weight barely anything against Ritsu’s chest. “Ritsu,” he croaked, his voice thick with tears. Carefully, slowly, he threaded his free arm around Ritsu’s back, as if Shigeo was the one at risk of doing harm, and not so bird-boned Ritsu worried about hurting him. “Ritsu, Ritsu … ”

“Brother,” Ritsu repeated. He freed one arm (Shigeo whined, plaintive, panicky) to push himself upright and tug his brother into his lap, to weave one hand into the tangle of hair at the back of his brother’s neck, to fold his other arm around Shigeo’s narrow back. Shigeo’s good leg scrabbled against the wooden floor as he curled up, twining his other arm around Ritsu’s neck. It was not exactly comfortable — Shigeo was angular, bony, and very cold — but he was alive, after fourteen years. Ritsu could not care.

“I, I, I, I,” Shigeo murmured. His cold fingers pet Ritsu’s hair in short, frantic motions, his hand cupping Ritsu’s temple, the back of his head. Ritsu buried his face in Shigeo’s shoulder, closing his eyes as the dam burst on fourteen years’ worth of hot, grieving tears. Shigeo hummed, rocking, taking Ritsu with him in the motion. His aura blazed — his brilliant, shattered, poisoned aura, his aura so much like Ritsu’s but orders of magnitude more powerful; Ritsu poured as much power as he had left into his own clear crystal of passive harmony.

“I mi — ” Ritsu sobbed. “Shige, I m-missed y-you — ” He took a deep, shuddering breath, and swallowed salt. “I-it’s alright, brother. It’s alright. I’ve got you. You’re s-s-safe — ” Ritsu wheezed, his throat constricting — “n-n-now — ”

“Shh,” Shigeo hummed, stroking Ritsu’s hair. That was it for the last surviving scraps of Ritsu’s composure. Fourteen years evaporated: he was nine again, frightened, desperately lonely, and missing the person he loved most, who provided the structure and model for his world. He wound himself around his brother, body and aura and telekinesis, and let his voice spill out in long, heaving, wracking sobs.

A low, childish wail clawed up from the bottom of Shigeo’s ribs, shuddering pressure that could only be released as sound. Shigeo’s grip, which had been so careful, tightened; his hand wound into the folds of Ritsu’s shirt, and his ragged nails dug into Ritsu’s scalp. He pressed his face against the side of Ritsu’s neck as his rocking intensified, his shivering dampened in Ritsu’s body.

The thought waved distantly from the back of Ritsu’s head — after fourteen years, he finally knew his brother’s aura.

“It’s okay,” Ritsu whispered, choking between sobs. He closed his eyes, his fingers curling into his brother’s shoulders. “It’s okay, Shige, it’s okay. N-nobody can hurt you now.”

“R-r-r-ri,” Shigeo rasped, “tsu — Ri-ritsu — Ritsu, I — Ritsu — ” His voice broke, collapsing back into wordless keening that fluctuated along with his sparking, shifting aura. Ritsu leaned back and pulled his brother against his chest, stroking Shigeo’s tangled hair and rocking with him, as if Ritsu’s own tears weren’t still spilling down his face.

“Brother,” Ritsu whispered into Shige’s hair, when he could breathe again. He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply, and cracked a weak, watery smile. “Brother, you smell terrible.”

“Nn,” Shigeo mumbled. He tried to pull away; Ritsu hugged him closer, giggling through his tears.

“No, no, it's okay,” he said, too quickly. An edge of hysteria crept into his voice. “You're alive. I thought — I was afraid — I never stopped looking but after so long — it's been fourteen years. I don't care. You're here. That's all. That's the only thing that matters.”

Shigeo nodded, sinking against Ritsu’s shoulder. Ritsu sighed and ran his thumb down the xylophone of his brother's spine, reluctantly kicking his practical brain back into gear.

“You must be exhausted,” he said. “I know I am. Thank god, tomorrow’s Saturday, I don’t have to work. Let’s … ” He yawned, rubbing the bags under his eyes. The caffeinated buzz in his veins faded, leaving behind deep, hollow emotional and physical exhaustion. He scraped up the dregs of his energy from — hell, from somewhere — and said, firmly, “Let’s clean up, and go to sleep, and tomorrow … tomorrow … ”

Tomorrow, he’d wake up, and Shigeo would be there, and Ritsu had no idea how to progress from that.

“We can deal with tomorrow.”

Saturday, Mob thought, dazed. Tomorrow would be Saturday.

He inspected the idea of time — time measured by weekdays, days having significance, days being different — and did not know what to make of it.

The apartment was very warm.

The apartment, which had the man who looked like Ritsu in it, the man who was Ritsu, was very warm.

Ritsu, Mob’s baby brother, was an esper himself. Ritsu, who had always wanted to be an esper, who had no barrier (yet?), whose presence kept Mob’s safely lowered. Ritsu who was nine, except that he wasn't nine; he was tall, taller than Mob, his hair close-cropped, a trace of stubble on his chin. Time, again. Mob’s hand went to his own jaw absentmindedly, and found the thready hints of his own facial hair. A chill unrelated to the cold crawled down his spine.

How long … ?

Fourteen years, Ritsu (Ritsu!) had said. (Ritsu, who Mob could touch safely! Who was warm! Who Mob could cling to and hold, who dug his fingers into Mob’s hair and held him back!) Fourteen years was more years than Mob had been alive. He had survived in his shishou’s house for longer than he had lived with his family.

Mob quit thinking about that.

He clung to Ritsu’s arm to stand, whimpering as his spine crackled and his knees popped. His bad leg nearly collapsed as he put his weight on it — ah, he’d bleed all over Ritsu’s floor. Ritsu cast him a worried look and wrapped an arm around his back, supporting some of Mob’s weight and, more importantly, preventing Mob from recoiling back out into the night. He pressed his face against Ritsu’s shoulder, closed his eyes, and breathed in his brother’s warmth.

“One foot in front of the other,” Ritsu murmured, helping him limp into — Mob guessed it was a bathroom, though the clean tile and ceramic were far from the mold and mildew of his shishou’s house. Ritsu caught Mob staring at the crimson, splattered footprints; he raised one hand, and waved the blood off the tile and down the sink drain with one hand. Mob flinched at the minor spike of power. The blood washed into the drain when Ritsu turned on the faucet. Nothing bad happened.

Mob mulled that over while Ritsu sorted through the first-aid kit on the countertop, eventually passing him a wet washcloth and a bottle of peroxide. Mob blinked at them before reaching out, awash in memory — the first time he'd cut himself badly, tripped down the stairs and gouged a chunk out of his shin, he'd had to clean and tape it up himself, vision blurred and chest crushed by sudden pain, with his shishou instructing him calmly through the shell of his barrier.

“Shige?” Ritsu asked. Mob shook himself from the screen of his mind's eye and back into the material world — suddenly full of old-new and wonderful things, like clean tile, and warm water, and Ritsu. They knew what to do with peroxide and a cloth. Their body piloted itself through picking out grit and residual glass shards, cleaning up the filthy clotted blood and glued-on scraps of napkin. Fresh blood welled up out of Mob’s cuts as they scraped out the sticky, half-clotted material. He frowned at the growing rusty stains on the washcloth — he didn’t mind his own blood, but he’d just gotten here, and he was already ruining Ritsu’s things ...

He consigned that thought to the quiet static rustling at the back of his head, and looked up, pressing the cloth to his cleaned-out injury. Pain cast an intriguing backdrop in Mob’s head, a sensation to be observed inquisitively, like some sort of strange and unfamiliar beetle. Ritsu continued to shuffle around the bathroom, pausing occasionally to yawn and rub his eyes. Another drop slipped into Mob’s (nearly) limitless capacity for guilt — it was late, Ritsu must want to rest …

Ritsu turned on the bath faucet. The water, like everything else, ran warm; Mob stared, distracted by his own fascination, as Ritsu filled the bath, and steam softened the air. Ritsu mistook his interest, and drew a spinning ball of warm water from the faucet. “Remember this? This used t-to be my f-fav — favorite … ”

Ritsu’s expression crumpled. He buried his face in his hands, shoulders convulsing as he wheezed. Mob froze, silent, one hand half-raised.

“Fourteen years,” Ritsu gasped. “Shige — ” (Shige! Every time Ritsu said the name was a reminder that there was a person before ‘Mob’, that ‘Mob’ had had a life and a family and people who loved him) — “Where did you go? I missed you — ”

As quickly as the fit had begun, it stopped. Ritsu sucked in a deep breath, wiped his eyes, and straightened. Mob’s shoulders rocked, his nails digging into his knees.

“Later,” Ritsu said firmly. He reached behind himself to shut the water off. “Do you want help, or … ?”

Mob stared at the stilling surface of the bath for a long, quiet moment, breath slow and shallow in his cramped lungs, his fascination with the heat gone morbid. He drew his knees up to his chest, curled his arms over his head, hands over his ears, eyes tightly shut. His chest compressed. He could not breathe. A voice sounded, muffled, distant.

When he opened his eyes, he would be in his shishou’s basement. The dark would protect the world from him. The cold would protect Ritsu from him. The quiet and the damp would swallow everything he thought and felt, and time would dissolve, and touch would be forgotten, and he'd lose his own name again. And there would be no more lost fourteen years. And he would not be afraid. And he would not be happy. And he would not be anything at all, except safe.

The world wheeled on its axis. The warmth and the smell of bathwater persisted. Fingertips brushed Mob’s shoulder. He flinched, and they withdrew.

Just warmth wasn't so bad.

In the dark, in the quiet, a lone, lonely sob crawled up Mob’s throat. His frantic rocking slowed. The whirling grey behind his eyes receded.

He breathed.

Aura pressed against his own. Not his shishou’s — calm, safe. Like-his, but not quite — smoother, its broad frequency fluctuations less shivering, less erratic. A fraction of the thick, frigid knot in Mob’s chest loosened. The dense, frantic energy within him, which had been racing toward a breaking point, began to recede.

At times like this, usually, he would think about what Shishou had told him: that his power was dangerous, uncontrollable and violent. The energy would build until it cracked, then rage until it burnt out; then he would sleep, and start the cycle all over again. His shishou was dead, though, and Mob could not think about him, so he remembered what Ritsu (Ritsu! Who he loved and trusted more than anything!) had said just a few minutes ago.

One foot in front of the other.

The energy within him settled and cleared, dissipating into the atmosphere.

One thing at a time.

His hair settled limp and heavy against his shoulders. The dirt in it itched, the grease squirming, stinging. The room was warm, and smelled of soap. He wanted his hair clean. He could get clean.

Mob stretched his hand out towards where he remembered Ritsu had stood. Ritsu’s warm hand clasped Mob’s tightly as he tugged Mob to his feet, steadying him, helping him stand. Mob wobbled, his legs unsteady — his back hurt, his legs, his shoulders and spine, skin, muscles, joints, right down to the bone; even in this room, he still felt cold — and sighed, and let his shoulders sink. Ritsu’s other hand touched his arm, steadying him. A shiver rippled down Mob’s skin, small hairs prickling.

“Shige? Are you — ah, nevermind.”

“Bath,” Mob managed to say, without stuttering at all. He pointed, as if any clarification was necessary.

“Alright. Do you want me to help, or should I go?”

“Nn — !” Panic yanked on Mob’s lungs. He tightened his grip on Ritsu’s hand. “Ss — stay.”

Ritsu nodded, his worry softening. “Alright. Ah … I do need my hand back.”

Mob released him reluctantly. It wasn’t so bad, he guessed, as long as Ritsu was in line of sight. As long as that aura-like-his stayed close and calm.

It was easy and a relief to shed his old, ragged clothes and sink into the bathwater. The heat and light pressure finally, finally began to wear down the cold that had settled into his core. Simple and mechanical to accept the bar of soap Ritsu passed him, to scrub at his skin — deeper than usual, past the top layer of dirt until his nerves felt raw, his skin was pink-brown instead of ashen, and the bathwater had turned grey. Guilt twisted his hollow stomach, but as long as it all went down the drain, it would be alright.

That worked until he got to his hair, and then he had to stop. He didn’t know how to unknot the tangles. If he worked soap into the mass, he had no idea how he would get it out.

He drew his knees up to his chest, caught on that dilemma, until Ritsu shifted in the corner of his eye. “I can get your hair for you … ?”

Mob nodded, relieved. Ritsu rolled up his pants (flannel and soft-looking — Mob’s jeans were soft by wear, but Ritsu’s looked like they had been made to be) and stepped into the bath, perching on the edge. He reached for a bottle of something that Mob’s eyes had skated over. It smelled flowery when he poured it into his hand. Mob frowned, watching curiously.

“Hold still,” Ritsu said, and braced one hand against Mob’s shoulder, and then Mob melted.

Or at least, he may as well have, leaning bonelessly back as Ritsu worked the (shampoo, Mob remembered) into Mob’s scalp, into the thick mass of the rest of his hair. Touch — almost overwhelming, just this side of too much, but safe, kind, Mob trusted — so he closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around his ribs, and shivered, while hot, salty tears finally broke, hidden on his already-wet face.

“Is it okay?” Ritsu asked softly, pausing. “Am I hurting you?”

Mob shook his head.

“Oh, good.” Ritsu continued, and the only sound was the faint splash of the water, and the rustle of his fingers through Mob’s hair, and Mob’s ragged breathing.

Mob drifted off in warm, liquid comfort, so unlike the disquieting static of dissociating in front of the television. The ache leached from his muscles and joints; the cold buried in his bones began to thaw. He was tired.

He was so, so tired.

But Ritsu was here, and he was warm, and relaxed, and for the first time since he could remember, not being tired felt like an attainable prospect.

He roused with a whine when Ritsu nudged his shoulder. “I'm done. I know you're tired, but wouldn't you rather sleep in a bed? … There's just my bed,” Ritsu added, as if he'd only just remembered. Mob nodded, unsure why this was a problem.

Ritsu helped him stand with a crackle of disused joints; they both winced, Mob at the firecrackers of pain, Ritsu at the sound. Mob cringed, self-conscious, at the nearly-black bathwater, but Ritsu rolled up his sleeve and reached in to open the drain without hesitation. The twinge of guilt faded as Mob was distracted by the new texture of his dripping hair — stroking a smooth lock between his fingers, marveling at the lack of catch or tug. Chronic tangles had left slight, erratic waves in the long strands, but Mob couldn’t remember his hair ever having been so smooth.

… maybe he could.

A long, long time ago, barred off by an interminable, timeless wall of dark and dripping void.

Longer ago than he’d lived.

He shook off that thought as Ritsu passed him a towel, thick and pale aura-blue. Mob ran his fingers over it, cocking his head — rough, but soft at the same time! There were all kinds of wonderful things outside Shishou’s house, it turned out, and maybe now he could — he buried his nose in the towel and inhaled deeply, slowing his breathing. The towel smelled like clean things and Ritsu. It smelled safe.

“Shige?”

Mob looked up, pulling the towel around his shoulders. Ritsu ducked his head, his hands twitching — a gesture like Mob made when he was nervous, familiarity lighting a warm spark in Mob’s chest.

“I’m going to — ah — ” Ritsu tugged on his short hair, stifling a yawn. “Your clothes are dirty,” he said, “so … hmm, borrow mine. For tonight. They’ll, uh … ” He cast a dubious eye over Mob’s shorter, much narrower build. “They’ll do. Just — ”

He stepped towards the door. Panic surged through Mob’s chest like drowning in glacial meltwater. His hand snapped out with a cry, stopping just short of catching Ritsu’s wrist. Ritsu stopped, looked from Mob’s hand to his face, and sighed.

“I’ll be right here,” he said patiently. His aura hummed steadily within Mob’s, clear and clean. “Just in the next room. Just for a few seconds, while I grab a shirt and pants for you.” He huffed, smiling despite the bags under his eyes. “I waited fourteen years to see you again. I’m not going anywhere. Dry off, and — there’s tape and gauze on the counter, for your foot — and I’ll be right back.”

That … made sense.

Mob swallowed, nodded, and watched Ritsu’s back until the door closed behind him.

Ritsu’s aura did not vanish (like Shishou’s had) nor explode (like Shishou’s had) nor flare and lash out (like Shishou’s did, sometimes). It glowed, constant and quiet, in the periphery of Mob’s awareness. Mob inhaled — slow — exhaled — slow. Being wet rapidly grew cold, which he did not like. He concentrated on Ritsu’s aura, nearby, like he’d promised, and set about drying himself off.

***

Ritsu looked at his bed, and his brain ground to a halt.

He wanted — he wanted, so badly — to collapse facedown on top of his blankets and sleep for a year. He couldn't — he'd come in here for a reason — why … ?

His eyes fell on his dresser. He stared at it, blinking, his head cloudy.

With that aura pressing in on him, he could hardly forget. He put the pieces together, rubbing his eyes with a yawn. 4:07, the clock glared at him in accusatory red LEDs. Fuck.

Pants, he thought. (Actually, the thought was more like ‘the texture of flannel’ and ‘an impression of square-folded fabric’. Ritsu was very tired.) Pants and a shirt (‘cotton’ and ‘a street-sign silhouette of short sleeves’.) For Shigeo.

Ritsu’s collection of abstracts faltered, then collapsed.

He moved mechanically to the dresser, opened a drawer, fished out a spare pair of pajama pants and a loose, well-worn T-shirt, and stopped, staring at the wall.

A spare shirt and pants for the man in his bathroom to borrow. The man who was his brother Shigeo, fourteen years missing, found and brought to Ritsu’s door by a kid who had no idea what he'd done beyond bring a scared, strange adult to the person he thought best qualified to help. Shigeo, fourteen years missing, whose hair plainly hadn't seen brush or scissors in years, who was so thin Ritsu could count every rib and vertebra, who flinched at every touch and could barely get a word out. Who stared at a towel — a towel — like a new and foreign concept.

Ritsu sat down heavily on his bed and buried his face in his hands.

At some point, he'd have to tell their parents.

Maybe not — right tomorrow. It might be kinder. To wait until Shigeo had recovered a little. Both — both for Shigeo’s sake, and for their parents’ …

His brother. Fourteen years.

With short-term planning temporarily offline, crashed by exhaustion and the presence of a bed, the full force of situation crashed around Ritsu like a tidal wave. His lungs collapsed; he coughed a small breath in, then immediately lost it to a sob. Breathe, he told himself dizzily, and forced one breath in through his nose before buckling forward and digging his hands into his hair.

He'd promised to be right back, but — it wouldn't hurt to give himself a minute or two. These attacks didn't last long, and he couldn't let Shigeo see him like this.

“Ahn … ”

Ritsu lurched to his feet and nearly lost his balance, catching himself on his bed. “S-shige,” he gasped, pasting on a smile as he wiped his eyes. “Ah. S-sorry, I just … ”

Shigeo leaned heavily on the doorframe, his dirty clothes under one arm. A few spots of water trailed his path from the bathroom. He'd had the presence of mind to wrap the towel around his waist, but that wasn't what made Ritsu trail off, words sticking in his throat.

Shigeo’s collarbone jutted from his shoulders; his shoulders angled sharply from his torso; his ribs showed through his painfully flat chest; his skin sank under his ribs, then hung over his narrow hips. Ritsu couldn't make out any scars, though. No scars.

Not, Ritsu thought, swallowing, that that improved much.

“I'm sorry,” Ritsu said again. He sniffed, climbed to his feet, and held out the folded shirt and pants. “I … I'm sorry.”

He wasn't sure what he was saying. He couldn't think of anything else. Shigeo tilted his head owlishly as he dropped his old clothes to the floor and tugged Ritsu’s shirt over his head. It was too large in the shoulders, and hung loose around the collar, but wasn't, otherwise, too bad a fit. He ignored the pants, instead stepping around the end of the bed with a heron’s gait, on his toes, almost graceful. His hand stretched towards Ritsu’s shoulder, then stopped, in the way Ritsu was rapidly growing familiar with.

“I'm sorry,” Ritsu repeated, brushing away Shigeo’s hand. “I'm alright. Just ti … ”

His voice dried up again. He'd been wrong about Shigeo having no scars.

He caught his brother’s hand, unable to look away from what had been hidden first by long sleeves, then murky bathwater. “Shige … ?” he asked, no idea what answer he hoped for. “Did he … ? Did someone … ?”

Shigeo bit his lip, twisted his body away, and shook his head.

Ritsu let out a breath, feeling like he'd been punched. His knees gave out, and he collapsed heavily back onto the bed. Shigeo glanced at him sidelong, cringing … guilty? “Ss,” he rasped. “S-sorry … ”

“I-it’s alright.” Somehow, Ritsu scraped up a last drip of resolve. “It's alright,” he repeated. “You're here now. That's all that matters.”

Shigeo hummed and sat next to Ritsu, wrapping a spidery arm around his shoulders, leaning his forehead against Ritsu’s neck. “‘s alright,” he whispered. “‘s o-okay.”

It wasn't, but Ritsu didn't have the strength to argue. He smiled wearily and drew a lock of damp hair back over his brother's shoulder. “Alright,” he whispered back. “It's been a hell of a day. Let's sleep.”

Memory pinged in the back of his head, calling something to his attention. Ritsu sighed, too tired to do anything but snort fondly.

“But please do put some pants on.”

Mob woke up in a strange place.

Panic flared in his throat. His heart skipped a beat. Where was he?

Morning light, much more than Mob was used to, streamed through the window, filling the room with a bright, natural glow. The past few nights had been cold and damp, the basement settling into winter chill. He had braced for endless hours of shivering, huddled even closer to the TV than usual for the slight, static warmth of electricity, putting on weight not for appetite, but craving the meager heat of microwaved soup.

He wasn’t cold now. He was warm, and dry, and — when he turned his head, blinking in the soft, pink-gold light — his hair was smooth and smelled like flowers. A thick, soft, hole-free comforter was drawn up around his shoulders.

Something else was wrong. Mob’s forehead furrowed. The corner of his mouth twitched as he struggled to work it out.

A square of yellow light illuminated the pale, tan floorboards. When he fought off the weight of the comforter enough to sit up, a small, green cactus sat in the corner of the windowsill. Outside, a few green leaves surrendered to autumn orange; the sky beyond was gold, fading to blue.

Green. Orange. Yellow. Colors normally filtered out and obscured by the barrier, the pink-and-blue film that separated Mob from the world.

Mob’s breath hitched. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes as he remembered.

He stretched out a hand, fingers splayed, as if by reaching he could break the illusion, touch the destructive shield that had caged him longer than he could remember. Nothing happened. No immaterial razors sliced his palm and fingers to ribbons. He had never been able to touch the barrier, anyway — even as he had grown, it had expanded with him — but the range of unfamiliar colors newly available to him was undeniable.

It was gone.

The colorful boy had done something to the barrier. He had — maybe done whatever it was that had made Mob’s shishou die. Mob should, maybe, have been angry about that, or at least aggrieved, but he could only seem to drag up overwhelming relief, and a vague sense of gratitude. He was glad the colorful boy had survived Shishou’s rage. (He was glad that Shishou had not.)

The colorful child had done something to the barrier, and then Mob had followed him here, to the warm, dry, clean, bright apartment that smelled of safety. The apartment that belonged to …

A warm, soft weight registered across his stomach. An arm thrown comfortably over him, protective, grounding, close. The steady beat of Mob's heart registered in his own chest with a life he hadn't felt in years.

Mob looked down.

The threatening tears finally overflowed, spilling down his thin cheeks, dripping from his chin onto the stomach of his borrowed shirt.

“Ritsu,” he breathed.

His hand moved unbidden, then stopped, frozen over his brother's cheek as the bloody memory of shredded meat flashed through his mind’s eye. But Ritsu was already well within the radius of the barrier, and the light streamed yellow through the window. Mob swallowed, sniffed back his tears — not that it helped — rallied his nerves, and rested his hand on his brother's head. His brother's hair was short and soft; shorter than hazy memory suggested, but still prone to stick out at odd angles; not quite the same black as Mob’s — deeper, bluer, where Mob’s was more dark brown — and cared-for in a way Mob’s never had been.

Ritsu. Mob’s baby brother. The one real name that had stuck in his head, beyond even his own — Shigeo, he reminded himself. Kageyama Shigeo. A given and a family name tied him to other real people. He wouldn't forget again. For the sake of ten-year-old Shigeo, cut out of the world like an inconvenient figure from a photograph, he would not allow himself to forget.

Ritsu stirred. Mob snatched his hand back, breath catching. Ritsu rolled onto his back, rubbing his face with a wide yawn. “Wha’sst — ?”

He froze, red-eyed and bleary.

“Shige,” he whispered. Mob nodded.

The early-morning silence hung, weary and light, for a few slow breaths. Then Ritsu yawned again, pressing one hand to the shadow of stubble on his jaw, and fumbled with the other for the — cell phone — on the bedside table. Mob tensed, but the phone did not flip open. Ritsu squinted at the small front screen, then dropped the phone with a noise of disgust.

“Too early,” he complained. Mob cringed.

“Ss — sorry.”

“Ah, no, not you, just … ” Ritsu trailed off into a third yawn. “You okay? Need anything?” Mob shook his head. “Alright. Wake me up if you do. I'm going back to sleep.”

With that, Ritsu rolled onto his side, tugged the comforter high over his shoulder, and closed his eyes.

Mob laced his fingers together over his lap, watching Ritsu’s breathing slow and even out. His brother looked younger, asleep — the dark circles under his eyes softened, the lines of his face and jaw smoother, gentler. Still far from the face hazy in Mob’s memory, round, with sharp eyes and a bright laugh. The sleeping man had broad shoulders, strong brows, a mouth pressed into a firm line even at rest. Mob had no idea how he looked in comparison — when his growth spurt had finally kicked in, he had panicked, broken every mirror in his shishou’s house, hit every other reflective surface until it scuffed and dulled. He'd avoided his reflection until it became second nature.

As if stealing his name wasn't enough, Mob thought, mood souring, Shishou had made him forget his own face.

The flash of anger retreated quickly into fear before settling into quiet, suffocating sadness. There must have been stages between the tousle-haired baby brother in Mob’s memory and the tall, tired, determined man who whispered ‘Shige’ like it hurt him. Mob had missed all that.

Mob had missed a lot of things.

Mob did not want to think about this anymore.

He patted Ritsu’s hair one last time, just because he could, and liked the idea that he could. Then he swung his legs out from under the comforter, testing his weight. His legs — knees — back ached; acid soreness from last night shivered through his overworked muscles. He could follow Ritsu’s example and go back to sleep, but he didn’t want to. His body was exhausted, but his head burned, static electricity sharp behind his eyes. He grit his teeth, rallied his nerves, and rocked forward, catching his weight on his toes. His legs held, his injured one nearly collapsed, but they held.

“Ffffff,” Mob hissed aloud, as pain flared through his lower body. He swallowed the sound and cast an anxious glance at Ritsu, who seemed undisturbed.

If he didn’t keep moving, he’d lose the little progress he’d made. He limped out of the room, as light-footed as he could be while favoring one foot, and into the bathroom, catching his weight on the counter.

He stared into the dry bowl of the sink, breathing hard, supporting half his weight on his arms. His hair slipped forward around his shoulders, shielding him from the mirror, from his reflection. He stood there for a minute, catching his breath and drawing up all the resolve he’d built surviving years in a god-damn basement.

He forced himself to look up.

The man who met his eyes was not him.

Mob forced a breath through his teeth. He should have felt something about that, he thought, but he couldn’t seem to. Maybe he’d exhausted his ability to feel, as well as his body.

The person in the mirror had hollow cheeks, heavily ringed eyes, and sparse, thready, unkempt facial hair that didn't really deserve to be called a ‘beard’. Mob liked that the least — he plucked at the strands with his fingers, huffing through his nose — but doing anything about it would mean …

His eyes flicked downward to the lump in his throat, to the place just under his chin where his pulse beat stubbornly.

Maybe not.

He dragged his eyes back up to the face in the mirror — his face, though he couldn't quite glue the image into place. He poked at his cheeks, chin, jaw, trying to force tactile and visual into alignment. It made him feel nauseous, so after a minute or two of that nonsense, he pushed off the sink and limped out into the living room.

Someone else was there.

Mob reeled back, barely catching himself against the wall, before he pieced together the sandy-haired, blanket-wrapped shape. The colorful boy curled up on his side, face mashed against a couch cushion, loose threads of hair escaping his sloppy braid. A pillow had been shoved onto the ground during some restless fit. A line of drool trailed from the boy’s mouth.

Protect, said the thing that hid between Mob’s skin and muscle. He trusted the thing, even if it terrified him. Its furious, spiteful determination had kept him alive more than once, and he felt inclined to agree with it now.

An armchair, empty, sat catty-corner to the couch, at a good angle to the sliding door onto the balcony. With a relieved hum, Mob picked his way over and collapsed into it, tucking his legs up and wrapping his arms around himself.

Someone — Ritsu? — had cleaned the blood from the boy’s face and taped gauze over his torn cheek. He breathed softly and undisturbed, the blanket rising and falling at gentle, even intervals. Did he go to school? Mob wondered. Did he have friends? Family? Play sports, or study? Someone kind and bright should have friends, if the world was fair, but Mob knew very well that it wasn't.

The sun crept over the horizon; the sky lightened from yellow (yellow!) to cloud-scattered blue. Ritsu’s aura glowed nearby, easing Mob’s flashes of anxiety. Gentle psychic energy saturated the apartment — not quite happy, but restful, at least, and safe.

Mob curled up in the warm, sturdy chair, and alternately watched the sun rise and the colorful child sleep, until exhaustion overtook him, and he drifted off himself.

***

Pounding footsteps startled Arataka out of his third round of lazy weekend napping. He rolled over, whacked his arm on the coffee table, and fell off the couch with a yelp.

“Ow! Damn it shit fuck god fffaaaahhhh — ” Arataka trailed off into a pained whine, curling up around his injured hand. He fought free of the blanket and onto his knees and good hand. “What the — ”

Kageyama braced one hand on the doorframe. The other dug into his — Arataka snorted — really spectacular bedhead. Even after loosening up around Arataka, Kageyama had remained someone who tried to present a cool front to the world; the man scruffy, frazzled, and half-awake wasn't a mental image Arataka would forget about, or let Kageyama forget about, for a good while.

“Arataka,” Kageyama said, breathing hard. “Are you alright? Where's — I mean, have you seen — Shige?”

Arataka shook his head. “Who? Uh, banged my hand, but I'm okay. Who’s — what?”

“Shige,” Kageyama repeated. Arataka frowned. A shape in the armchair unfurled, its presence so unobtrusive Arataka had glanced over it altogether; Arataka startled backwards with another yelp, then a curse as his weight landed on his injured hand. Thin hands emerged from an angular ball, swept back a curtain of dark hair, revealed a sharp-boned face. The guy from last night — Mob? What the hell kind of name — peered over the back of the armchair.

“Ri — Ritsu?”

Kageyama’s shoulders sagged. He tugged on his hair with a hoarse, breathless little laugh. “Sh-shige. I thought maybe I — you weren't — was scared I'd — ah, it was real. Last night was real. That … you're really here.”

Arataka’s frown deepened. His boss and the guy from last night were on first-name terms? What the hell had happened after he'd passed out? Seeing Kageyama disheveled was funny, but his genuine distress both confused and concerned Arataka.

Also, ‘Shige’?

“Hey, uh … ” Both heads snapped around in eerily similar motion, as if the men had forgotten about Arataka altogether. “Uh … anybody mind filling me in?”

Kageyama and Mob/‘Shige’ exchanged a look. Arataka figured it was a given who would field the question, but to his surprise, Mob raised an arm, pointing at Kageyama.

“B-br — brother,” Mob said. In case it wasn't clear, he pointed from himself to Kageyama several times. Arataka blinked, eyebrows raised. He'd been awake for less than five minutes, and he could already feel a headache coming on.

“You don't have a brother,” Arataka said, frowning at Kageyama. “Or is there, like, some sort of prodigal son deal? Why didn't I know you have a brother?”

“I — ” Kageyama dragged one hand down his face. “Am not caffeinated enough for this conversation.”

“I'm not awake enough,” Arataka agreed, “and I'm not sure he's … anything enough.” Mob gave him a look — not an angry look, or am irritable look, or really an anything look; just blank, solemn, and tired. The man was nearly impossible for Arataka to get a read on, but his expression was so serious Arataka hunched his shoulders. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “That was rude.”

“You've known him for, what, three hours, and you can get him to apologize?” Kageyama asked, stepping around the counter to the coffee maker. Mob, or Shige (?) shrugged, looking so nonplussed that Arataka snorted.

“Brother, huh?” Arataka asked, finally climbing back onto the couch to prop his chin on his hands. Mob gave him another look — the man was a master of significant looks — before turning back to watch Kageyama with intent concentration. Given a bath and clean clothes, curled up catlike in the armchair, Mob looked much better than the shaking, delirious nervous wreck he'd been last night.

He didn’t seem any more talkative, though. Cryptic silences must be a family trait.

“So what's the deal?” Arataka asked, undeterred.

“Arataka,” warned Kageyama. Arataka shot up indignantly.

“What? I'm just asking!”

“Don't bother him — ”

“I'm not!” A little bit cowed, Arataka turned back to Mob, scratching the back of his neck. “Am I?” Mob shook his head, tapping his fingers together with a pensive frown. “He says I'm not,” Arataka relayed back to Kageyama, who sighed. Kinda overprotective, Arataka thought, but then again, he didn't have the whole story.

Though he meant to.

“So?” he prompted. Mob returned that unreadable, steady stare to him. Arataka plowed ahead — he wouldn't be shaken that easily. “What's up with you, mister Mob? Or, uh … Shige?”

“Shigeo,” Kageyama supplied.

“Mob,” Mob whispered, barely audible. “Is f-ff — fine.”

“Okay, I'll stick with that. If you're my boss’s brother, how come you crashed into me halfway across town with no shoes? Run away from home? Get mugged? Or just super wasted — ”

“Arataka,” Kageyama snapped.

“Boss,” Arataka fired back. Mob flinched and drew his hair forward over his shoulders like a cloak. Across the counter, Kageyama froze mid-motion. The silence deepened.

“Shishou,” Mob rasped. His hands twisted together; he popped his knuckles one finger at a time, making Kageyama twitch. “The b — barrier. I was — I was — t-t-ten.”

The bottom dropped out of Arataka’s stomach.

“Ten,” he repeated.

“He disappeared,” Kageyama said softly. He hadn't moved, staring into the middle distance. “One evening, he just … didn't come home.”

Arataka swallowed. “How … how old are you now?”

Mob’s numb expression said everything. Kageyama supplied an answer, still in that hushed, distant voice. “He was — is — a year older than me. So he'd be … twenty-four.”

Twenty-four. It was almost impossible for Arataka to get a read on Mob’s age, but twenty-four sounded like it could be on the low end of reasonable. Or the high end. Or anywhere in-between. His mouth bone-dry, Arataka asked, “When — when … ?”

“Cold,” Mob whispered, sounding almost as dazed as Kageyama. He shivered, as if reliving the memory. “It … it was cold.”

“March,” Kageyama supplied. He poured out a scoop of coffee slowly, as if moving through water or thick fog. “March sixth.”

Arataka had been born in October.

“Hey, Mob?” Arataka asked. The numbness in his stomach settled into muffled, manic serenity. Mob remained statue-still, but his eyes flicked up to Arataka, who pressed on with a toothy smile. “I'm gonna murder your shishou.”

Mob’s shoulders twitched. After a moment, Arataka recognized the gesture as a mummified laugh. “Too,” Mob said, mouth twisting around the barest edge of a grim smile, “l-late.”

Kageyama looked up from watching the coffee drip through the grounds. His fingers twitched at his sides. “He's dead?”

Mob nodded.

“Good.” Kageyama’s twitching fingers balled into a fist. They'd had their arguments, as two strong but differing personalities were bound to, but in this, Arataka agreed with his boss wholeheartedly.

Mob didn't seem to have a response to that that Arataka could make out. The rumble of the coffee grinder filled the silence, and the smell of coffee permeated the room.

“Wait,” Arataka said abruptly. “If you're his brother, does that mean you're actually psychic?”

Mob nodded. Kageyama added, “Stronger than any other esper I've known.”

“Stronger than Suzuki?”

“Much.”

A shadow of worry crossed Mob’s face. Arataka swallowed his next question, and changed tacks. “Hey, boss? I'm gonna go call my mom.” Kageyama nodded, and Arataka slipped onto the balcony, phone in hand.

Arataka hadn't lied — he was going to call his mom! He just also really, really needed a minute.

He rested his elbows on the balcony railing, steepled his fingers over his nose, and exhaled a long, thin plume of mist into the cold October morning. Normally, when shit got this weird, he'd text Kageyama and ramble until he'd sorted out the mess in his head, but that wasn't an option now, and Arataka didn't actually have anybody else he could talk to. Sure, there were a couple people he could text about “So what was the homework again?”, but not about this, nothing like “So last night I ran into this homeless guy who said he was psychic, so I figured, you know, he's probably nuts, but he wouldn't let me call a doctor, so I took him to my old boss who’s actually psychic, like, legit, except it turns out the homeless guy is my old boss’s long-lost brother who's, like, strong enough to sink Japan, and he kinda acts like he's been living in a crawlspace for fourteen years and I kinda think he has, but at least it sounds like the guy who kept him there is dead, so there's, like, one plus, I guess?”

Somebody would call the cops on him, and he'd never, ever live it down at school.

“Oh, also all this happened after my PI job almost got me murdered by a guy possessed by a dead evil TV psychic.” Fucking hell, Arataka, nice job getting yourself into this one.

It wouldn't be a problem, he thought, lip curling behind his hands, if he had any friends besides a guy ten years older than him who used to be his boss. As if his life wasn't pathetic enough, it also had to take a swing into the terrifying and surreal.

Below, with the clock on Arataka’s phone ticking slowly towards eleven, the streets were mostly empty, most people having already left for the day, or decided to stay in and sleep. Arataka had participated in that weekend routine for years without thinking about it, while for years — since he was ten! — on a morning like this, Mob would have been … Arataka didn't know. Not part of that lazy, lonely, free hum of early teenage life, that was certain.

The cold stung as it soaked through his torn uniform, disrupting Arataka’s foray into philosophy. Arataka sighed, and watched the plume of mist spiral away into the sun as he wished, not for the first time, that Kageyama hadn't warned him off smoking. (He didn't really regret it, but — it would have given him something to do with his hands, something to put in his mouth, something to distract him from his trainwreck of a life.)

Arataka groaned aloud, sagged against the railing, flipped open his phone, and dialed.

“Hey — mom?”

***

He stayed on the balcony, watching his breath mist and evaporate, until Kageyama (wait, wasn't Mob technically also Kageyama? Well, Mob was also just Mob) tapped on the glass and held up a full pot of coffee. Arataka felt his expression light up with only a little shame, and ducked back inside.

“So mom says I can hang out until afternoon, as long as I get my homework done,” he reported, leaning forward over the counter and kicking his feet up off the ground while Kageyama poured the coffee.

“Which means you're going to ask me for help,” Kageyama said, with the long-suffering sigh of someone who should have expected this. Arataka grinned his best winning grin.

“I just like the company,” he said, feigning mild affront. “ … but you will, right?”

“I'm not even your boss anymore.”

“Come on, I'm garbage at math, and you're, like, super smart! Unless that salaryman job ate your brain,” he said slyly. Mob made an alarmed noise; Arataka added quickly, “Figure of speech.”

Kageyama scowled. Arataka hurriedly smoothed the sharp edges out of his grin when he looked up. Got him. “One of these days, I'll design a tag that'll put you on mute whenever you try to talk me into something.”

“I'll text you.”

“I'll turn my phone off.”

“I'll paper your entire apartment in sticky notes. So, yes, you'll help me?”

Kageyama slid a mug of coffee across the counter with a disgusted sigh. “Fine.” He paused, then did a double-take as Arataka wrapped his fingers around the mug. “I'm not sure I should have given you that.”

“Too late,” Arataka sing-songed. “You got sugar? Milk — ?”

“Nn — !”

Mob shot bolt upright in the armchair, his knuckles paling on the back, his eyes wider than they'd been since last night. Arataka froze mid-word.

“Right,” Kageyama murmured, going all shocked and distant again. “He liked … you like … ”

Arataka was about to tell him to come down from Neptune when Kageyama shook himself, hands flying through a series of gestures. A cupboard opened itself, and a glass tipped into Kageyama’s hand; across the kitchen, the refrigerator did the same, though he retrieved the milk and poured the glass himself. Arataka flattened himself against the counter and did his best to avoid Kageyama’s brisk movements and any other flying objects.

Kageyama hated using telekinesis as a shortcut; he'd insisted as much to Arataka repeatedly. Nobody in this situation was acting normal — Arataka could hardly expect them to — but Kageyama lapsed in and out of a desperate, frantically faked normalcy that Arataka found deeply worrying. Yeah, he was gonna use Kageyama for homework help, but he'd also asked to stay because he wanted to keep an eye on his boss.

… not that he had a plan, beyond aggressively being himself and hoping that kept Kageyama somewhere in the vicinity of planet Earth.

Watching Mob accept the glass of milk — delicately, his hands trembling slightly, like he was being handed a holy relic and not a cup of protein cow juice — Arataka revised his thought. He wanted to keep an eye on Kageyama, and he wanted to stay with Mob for a while, too. Codependency knotted around the two men like plastic around a sea creature; Arataka already liked Mob, and Kageyama was his friend. He didn't want to see either of them strangled by it.

… he was so out of his depth. He so did not need to be, in fact, he needed to not be interfering with the lives and trauma of two grown-ass men. But, what the hell, Arataka was too social for his own good.

It wasn't like he had anyone better to hang out with.

***

Ritsu rarely slept well. Memories, old wounds, salient insecurities, and a brain with no gears between ‘frantic’ and ‘off’ all combined into a cocktail of insomnia and a vivid, rarely-remembered REM phase. Sleep was dark, exhausted, and difficult to interrupt, and Ritsu rarely woke feeling as rested as the time he’d slept should have allowed.

Even running on fumes of fumes, Ritsu had hardly slept at all.

Too much had happened too fast. The world he'd finally settled back into had once again been torn open. Overwhelmed and reeling, his exhaustion warped into a feverish, nervous terror, the kind of mood that made Ritsu want to pace or stick his head in the freezer. Stale adrenaline still buzzed in his veins; the gears in his head slipped and spun wildly between thoughts.

He really had mistaken last night for an anxious nightmare — lurched in and out of uneasy sleep, risen more than once to pace up and down the apartment’s cramped hall. He'd found comfort only when he gave in to impulse, draped his arm over Shigeo’s ribs, and pressed his nose into Shigeo’s hair. They were too old for it, probably, but Shigeo made a noise like a sleepy cat and shifted back against Ritsu’s chest, so — so just for tonight, it would be okay.

He'd drifted off in moments after that, like flipping off a switch, and woken up alone. Could you blame him for panicking?

Even now, watching tears spill down Shigeo’s face as he sipped at the glass of milk, it didn't feel real. Fourteen years — Ritsu’s world had come unstuck at the seams. It was almost easier to believe the strange man in his armchair was a spirit or an impostor, a con, rather than the grown version of a brother whose childish face Ritsu barely remembered. His stomach lurched, his head clouded, thoughts fuzzing and slippery — ah.

“I'll be right back,” he told Shigeo, who shook his head. “Just around the corner, in the — oh — okay.” Shigeo unfolded from the chair and slid over the arm in stick-legged spidery motion, padding across the floor to push his face into Ritsu’s shoulder.

“Ritsu,” he said. His fingers wound, cold, into the folds of Ritsu’s sleep shirt.

“I'm not going anywhere interesting,” Ritsu said. Then again, he understood the separation anxiety better than he cared to admit. He sighed, patted Shigeo’s hair, and shot Arataka a look — not a glare, just raised eyebrows and direct enough eye contact to make Arataka duck and mumble into his coffee. Coffee in Ritsu’s hand, milk in Shigeo’s, they shuffled an awkward two-step into the bathroom.

Ritsu slung an arm around his brother's shoulders, sacrificing dexterity for contact while he wrangled the pill case one-handed. “Medication,” he explained, to Shigeo’s questioning sound. “Ah — anxiety. I don't … ” His throat locked up at the prospect of explaining the details of his mental health to someone who was in so many ways a stranger. A stranger might have been easier to explain to, actually, than the big brother so suddenly crashed back into his life. “It’s okay. I manage it. I'm fine,” he finished in a rush. As an excuse to stop talking, he tossed the pills into his mouth and washed them down with a swallow of coffee.

The placebo effect kicked in before the actual medication, steadying Ritsu’s nerves and settling him more firmly in the real. He smiled at Shigeo and nuzzled his brother’s temple; Shigeo hummed and leaned into his shoulder.

“That's taken care of. Let's get back — Arataka gets up to mischief if he gets bored, and I like my curtains intact and not on fire.” The corner of Ritsu’s mouth quirked, and Shigeo huffed in quiet, surprised amusement. Ritsu wound his hand into Shigeo’s hair — it wasn't proper, probably, to be so tactile, but Shigeo didn't seem to mind, and contact helped Ritsu trust that his brother was real.

Arataka had to get home, and probably to a doctor; Ritsu would have work on Monday, which meant leaving Shigeo alone; he'd have to talk to their parents, and he did not want to — Shou's face appeared in Ritsu’s mind's eye non sequitur, a habitual feature of worry. It all seemed more manageable, more orderly in his head.

A couple rounds of counted breaths later, Ritsu felt ready to face the world again.

***

Mob curled up against Ritsu’s side, pleasantly warmed by the fact that he could. He pressed his nose into Ritsu’s shoulder, tucked his fingers into Ritsu’s elbow, and watched out of the corner of one eye as Ritsu and the colorful — Arataka fussed over some incomprehensible worksheet. If he closed his eyes, he could feel the thrum of Ritsu’s voice as he explained yet again something Mob didn't understand and neither, from the sound of it, did Arataka. If he relaxed and tuned his breathing to Ritsu’s, the colors and the voices remained a comfortable backdrop. One degree at a time, the shivering static in Mob’s chest ticked towards quiet.

This …

This was nice.

“Hey-y-y, Mister Mob.” Arataka dragged the vowel out into a complainant, sing-song whine. “Do you understand this? Because I, like, really don’t.”

Mob shook himself and lifted his head, roused out of his easy doze. A few strands of hair stuck to his mouth; he sputtered and wiped them off, as well as the smudge of spit. Ah — he'd drooled on Ritsu’s shoulder … he patted the dark spot, to no avail.

“What? Ah, don't worry about it.” Ritsu’s mouth curved. The smile didn't reach his eyes, but it was meant to be reassuring, so Mob was reassured. Nerves assuaged, he craned his neck, peering at the incomprehensible lines of printed and pencil-scrawled symbols. Beyond recognizing the numerals, he had no idea what to do with them — they swam on the page like strange fish or curse calligraphy, making Mob’s eyes water and his head ache. After a few minutes of puzzling, Ritsu patted his shoulder. “It's alright, brother. Don't push yourself.”

Mob furrowed his brows at Ritsu in a flare of contrariness, even more determined to make something out of the problems and haphazardly-shown work. He'd push himself if he damn well pleased.

Stubbornness, unfortunately, did not make him any better at math. He tapped one symbol on the paper, and carefully enunciated, “Four.” He gestured apologetically at Arataka. “School.”

Arataka hummed. “Oh, yeah, I guess you wouldn't’a … You never got this far, huh? And I bet you're rusty, if you haven't been in school in years.”

Mob huffed, memory ruffling a flicker of amusement. “Not … math good. Then. Either.”

Arataka laughed, bright and loud and startling. “Me either! That’s two of us, hey — ” He rounded on Ritsu with a broad gesture and the kind of sparkle Mob was rapidly learning to be wary of. “Hey, boss, what if you tutor both of us?”

“What?” said Ritsu.

“Anh?” Mob asked, straightening in alarm.

"Your bro’ has a lot to catch up on, and I gotta keep up, and I think maybe it'll help if we go back to, y’know … y’know, basics, ‘cause like, I don't get this at all … ” Arataka swayed back and forth, leaning forward over his crossed ankles.

Ritsu’s fingers twitched against his knees. “Shige? Are you okay with this?”

Mob watched Ritsu’s hands, worriedly animate, dark lines of ink under the nails. He looked down at his own, thin fingers still curled into the soft of Ritsu’s elbow. He glanced at Arataka, flipping a pencil around his index finger, and down at the page with its incomprehensible parade of numerals. Buzzing anxiety settled once again into the back of his head. He opened his mouth, then stayed that way, rigid as an automaton with a slipped cog.

“We can always try another time,” Ritsu offered. “You've been through a lot. It's alright if you need to rest.”

He had missed so much. The determination of a few moments ago evaporated. Mob closed his mouth and nodded, his throat working uselessly.

Arataka took the refusal in stride. “Okay! Excuse for me to come back. Hey, can I braid your hair? It’s getting kinda messy and I wanna do something with my hands.”

Mob swallowed, the anxious buzz slowing in tempo another few ticks, and nodded again.

“Hell yeah,” Arataka said without vehemence. Mob turned so Arataka could sit behind him and weave his fingers through his hair. It meant letting go of Ritsu, but he could still rest his knees against Ritsu’s leg and his forehead against Ritsu’s shoulder, so it was okay. “Okay, boss? You wanna go over the parentheses thing again?”

Mob closed his eyes as Ritsu talked and Arataka braided, sometimes pinching his progress in one hand to gesture extravagantly with the other as he chattered. If he didn't have to listen to the words, it was comfortable, like the background hum of television chatter but so much warmer. Arataka’s hands moved deftly through his hair. Ritsu’s voice and pulse thrummed steadily under his forehead.

Quiet, but warm.

Mob was so — so — tired.