Chapter Text
The frosted glass window is dappled with condensation, and water vapor clouds the air. Mob leans his head against the tile wall and pushes his legs out as far as they can go, and his toes meet the far side of the bathtub quickly. He’s getting taller.
He’s the last one in tonight, so he can take his time. Outside the dewy walls of the bathroom his family is quietly preparing for bed. He can hear them shuffling around. His father yawns in the hall while his mother and Ritsu say goodnight to each other. Someone brushes the bathroom door in a warm, wordless goodnight, and he hears them close themselves away not long after.
Tomorrow is Sunday. They’ll all be busy first thing in the morning with their separate lives; Ritsu with the student council, his father with his work, his mother with the shopping—
And I’ll be with shishou, Mob thinks. Reigen had asked ahead of time to see him. He flexes his left hand absently, feeling the empty space between his fingers expand and shrink in time with his heartbeat. The water is warm against his skin.
He closes his eyes and sinks down into the bathtub as far as he can go without submerging his nose. It’s quiet. Other than a dripping faucet, the only sound he hears is his heartbeat, and he counts along while he takes a slow, steady breath. The air around his head is full of familiar scents, chief among which is the shampoo he and Ritsu share. It’s only the most dominant scent because they both use it, as in truth it’s rather plain; just clean smelling tea, something his mother picks out for them when shopping. It isn’t very masculine, but Mob doesn’t mind. He doubts Ritsu has ever given it more than a passing thought himself, but he can pull off anything. His father’s soap, strong and musky, mingles with the vanilla his mother prefers at the bottom of the perfume. They make a good pair; they’re strong and warm and complimentary people. It makes sense to him.
There’s something light and fresh smelling, too, that teases in above it all. His father had treated himself to dessert tonight, and had something clean and citrusy, mouthwateringly tart.
Mob angles his head down and blows onto the surface of the water to watch it ripple. His hands are open and empty on his thighs, and the image of them is lightly distorted by the water so that the edges blur beneath the surface, swirling in the steam.
He stares at the soft length of his penis. Something stirs deep in his stomach when he shifts his legs and watches it move against his upper thigh in the water, but he lets the feeling simmer as he looks. It’s strange in a curious way. The desire to touch himself has been nagging at his thoughts all day for some reason, which isn’t like him. He isn’t sure what’s moved him, what’s changed, or why.
It’s easy enough to ignore it, though. So, Mob chooses instead to stare into the dark and indistinct reflection of his eyes. Who else in Seasoning City is bathing at this hour? How many people are watching the ripples in the water and counting the kinds of shampoo in the air?
Mob takes a short breath of lemon before submerging himself.
His bedroom is dark, just as he left it. With the lights off and the house silent Mob can imagine it’s almost like living alone. They live in a quiet neighborhood, and the sun had set hours ago so the streets are dark and empty. It takes no stretch to imagine he’s the only one on Earth. It’s a lonely feeling, but not altogether unpleasant.
The house is slightly chilly. Most of the water tracking down the back of his neck and dripping from his hair is soaked up by the towel he had rolled onto his shoulders, but his pajama shirt is growing damp. He starts shivering as he makes ready for bed, thinking about tomorrow. Serizawa is less available these days. Although Reigen doesn’t say why, Mob imagines it has much to do with the upcoming trial.
The blanket on his futon is cool to the touch and he folds himself under it quickly. Most of the heat from the bath had been sapped from his skin by the cool air in the room but he gets comfortable soon enough, curling and flexing his toes and rubbing his damp head into the pillow. It’s late. He’s tired. The Body Improvement Club still meets in winter for conditioning, and the muscles in his legs ache. If he wakes up sore tomorrow he’ll have to stretch a little before leaving for the day. Reigen can spot a change in his gait after he sets just one foot in the door. And he’d want to help.
Mob thinks about letting him. The same strange urge he felt in the bath tugs again at his mind, but he ignores it just the same. He rolls over under his covers and presses his warm cheek into his pillow, and finds sleep within moments.
It’s bright outside. Mob squeezes his eyes against the sun and raises a hand to block the worst of it, and startles when Reigen suggests they shake a leg beside him. They’ve been along the canal together countless times before but the press of people on all sides is strange until it isn’t—he’d forgotten about the festival in the park up ahead.
“I didn’t bring anything with me,” Mob says, looking down at his empty hands. He’s wearing a pair of khaki shorts and his dog sweatshirt. The pocket in front is full of fruit, and he pulls out an orange. “Will I need money?”
Reigen takes the orange and tosses it between his hands a few times as he considers the situation. Mob can see his fingernails shine; they’re filed short and kept clean and carefully buffed like usual. Curiously, the pale pink flesh beneath them is the same color as the balloons in the air. After a few more tosses of the orange, Reigen sets his nails to it and pierces the skin. Mob immediately smells citrus.
“Let’s not worry about it,” he says at last, looking out through the crowd. It seems to part around them like water, all headed away from the park. “Come on, it looks fun.” He is self-assured and doesn’t elaborate, and the crowd around him seems inclined to agree, too. Most of the faces swirling around them seem happy. Mob decides it’ll probably be fine.
They’re walking, anyway. He can barely see the waterway to their side from his spot in the sea of people, but the riot of color and sound the festival makes ahead of them is easy enough to follow. Mob can’t ever remember the park being this busy, but Reigen seems unconcerned beside him. He guides them through the worst of it without hardly trying, instinctively and intuitively feeling for the weak points in the deluge of people still steadily flowing past and coming up right every time. He barely looks up from his orange except to pass Mob a section every now and then.
The press of people doesn’t let up even inside the festival grounds. Mob is surprised to discover he doesn’t find it uncomfortable. Even when the crowd stops flowing in one constant direction and just mixes in the grass around them, they’re still standing apart, somehow, inside their own little bubble amidst it all. It’s nice to share it with someone else, to be alone with another in this crush of noise and light. They are two little islands floating wholly untethered from the rest of the world, but their remoteness is no burden. Not when they occasionally connect with one another at the shoulder or side. Even though they have the room to walk with some space between them, they naturally stand close. It’s always been like that.
Mob finds this interesting. More accurately, he finds Reigen interesting. He doesn’t seem bothered at all by the distance they share from the rest of the world; indeed, he might find it freeing. And maybe it is. Nobody pays them much mind as they wander between the dense and winding rows of food carts and craft stands together. Nobody notices them as they duck around banners and squeeze between gaps in the stalls where it smells like gasoline and the shadows converge before they slip out into the light again. Nobody except themselves, that is. Mob sees that Reigen is watching him right back. That he wants to catch his eye, that he likes to nudge him along. Reigen often leans into his space to murmur to him, close so his mouth is tight to his ear in conspiracy, and his smiles are either private or entirely for Mob alone. And he likes it when Mob gives him one back.
Reigen has long finished his orange and licked his thumb clean. The spit shines against his knuckles and Mob stares when he winds his glittering fingers in the long tail of a pink balloon that has floated down to his shoulder. They’re swarming in the air and have formed great, drifting masses of clouds above everything, but now and again a handful will descend and mix with the crowds. They seem particularly drawn to Reigen. Mob finds this perfectly understandable; if he wanted to be caught by anybody, he wanted to be caught by him.
“Want to do anything?” Reigen asks, tipping his head to the side as he pops a fistful of candy into his mouth. Mob has no idea where he’d picked it up at. The balloon bobs above his head, encouraging. When he makes an uncomprehending noise, still looking at his knuckles and how the string slips liquidly between his fingers, Reigen indicates the garish swatch of color the rides and games make at the periphery of the park with a jerk of his chin. His eyebrows are very neat. The balloons above them are largely yellow now to match the color of his hair.
“Oh. I don’t have money,” Mob reminds him. Even the oranges are gone.
Reigen gives a short scoff and a look that’s a cross between fond and exasperated. Mob is very familiar with it. “You’re hopeless, you know?” he says, letting the balloon slip free and return to its kin while reaching forward. He pushes his first two fingers into Mob’s hair, just behind his left ear. “You’re lucky it’s cute.”
This surprises Mob. Many of the balloons above their heads turn pink again, and the sun above them is brighter. Reigen, who hardly ever touches him so deliberately, strokes behind his ear once with both fingers before he pulls his hand back with a flourish and flashes him a coin, neat and shining. Mob watches as he palms it, blows into the ring his thumb and index finger make, and opens his hand to show a banknote crumbled in his palm. It multiplies itself in a rush until Reigen can barely keep a hold on them all. Just when they’re about to start tumbling to the ground he slaps his free hand on top and irons them out flat. At last he reaches forward with that same warm hand to grab one of Mob’s. He smacks the wad of cash down into his palm, and says, “There. I think that should cover it.”
Mob isn’t looking. The pink balloons are pressing closer. He and Reigen are pressing closer, and he can feel the ghost of his fingers in his hair where he had touched him. He had liked the feeling.
A strange, familiar heat is pooling in his stomach. It’s warm like the yellow sun, and pink like the balloons in the sky, but odd. Sticky. Itchy and hot. It makes his throat feel dry. He remembers feeling something close to it before, so it can’t be totally new.
What is new is his wanting to do something about it.
And—before he can even process it, before he has even a moment to think—Reigen kisses him.
His mouth is warm. His hands are warm. His chest is warm against him. He holds Mob’s face between his palms, keeps him still, and kisses him.
The money in Mob's hands flutters away in all his shock.
Reigen moves his mouth against his slowly. Carefully. Without any urgency at all, as if he knows Mob will need time to think. He plants fresh kisses like flowers against the pink furrow of his stunned mouth patiently. At first they’re closed-lip rosebuds, tight and sweet and tender against the seam of his lips. Then, when Mob has had time to process, and he moves to reciprocate, to turn his face into the sun, Reigen’s closed-mouth kisses unfurl, his tongue slides out and into Mob’s mouth, and he is stunned anew.
They’re exactly the kinds of kisses Mob imagines he might like; wet with tongue and slow like honey. Reigen takes his time and makes low, satisfied noises over his own tongue as he works. He tastes like orange—tart and sticky—and his tongue is deliberate and unhurried, like he himself has been all day. It’s like he could do this forever, and very well might. It’s like his time with Mob is something to savor.
The balloons look fuller when Reigen finally pulls back.
“Oh,” he says. He draws one of his hands away from Mob’s face to touch his own mouth. He laughs. His smile doesn’t fade. “Sorry, Mob. Can’t help it.”
Mob touches his mouth, too. He’s warm—no, he’s hot, standing in the sun and surrounded by people, his face burning and his stomach tight. The heat in his gut—the slippery, strange heat, that he remembers feeling in the bath and considering in his sheets—is burning through him and over his skin. He knows he is hot to the touch. He knows his face is flaming. He knows it isn’t nearly satisfied. In fact, he knows he would like more. And almost as soon as he realizes this, Reigen’s hands take him by the face again. It’s almost like he can’t help himself. Mob gasps around his tongue and melts against his front.
It’s gratifying, getting what he wants. It feels good. Viscerally indulgent—and Reigen seems to agree. With his hands at the back of Mob’s head this time he tips his face from side to side while he works, while he feeds him his tongue, and after a minute he turns his head further to kiss his jaw. He does everything without urgency, like he doesn’t care who might be watching. Still the crowd pays them no mind, even as he licks up his neck and kisses his ear. It lights Mob up from the inside out—it’s the first thing that makes him truly shake. But this is supposed to be a secret for some reason, so he clamps his hand around his mouth and holds back his next gasp. He can’t quite determine why.
“Too much?” Reigen asks, sly and handsome. His breath is warm against the cooling spit on his throat, and he’s already eyeing it like he wants another taste. His palms are warm against his cheeks, and Mob has felt this touch before. He’s so warm he might melt. “Don’t lie. You like it.”
Mob is surprised to find that he does. He makes a low noise when he recognizes this and it seems to encourage Reigen to push into him more closely. He puts his hands on Reigen’s elbows just to feel like he won’t topple backwards and automatically takes a hold of his clothes, of the slippery cool fabric of his suit jacket—but it would be nice to touch his arms, the bare skin under his sleeves, and as Reigen fills his mouth with his tongue again his suit jacket wicks away and leaves him in his dress shirt, the sleeves wrinkled and pushed up his forearms.
Mob slides his fingers under the cuffs and feels his skin. The hair along Reigen’s arms stands on end under his touch, and when he curls his fingers against his skin and pulls his nails down as he tries to hold on, Reigen groans against him.
He likes it, too. It’s dizzying. Mob—Mob might be hard.
The minute he realizes this Reigen breaks the kiss again, though he doesn’t let go of his face. Mob squirms under his attention as he tries not to look down between them at the sight he’s sure he’s making, but he can’t make himself pull away completely. He likes Reigen’s hands where they are. Likes feeling like he can’t totally back away when everything under his skin is so alight with electricity. He’s still several inches shorter than him, so he can see the way Reigen has to straighten up as he steps back. He blushes a little, and tries to stand taller. There isn’t enough air in his chest. He’s sure Reigen knows what’s happened. Everything is moving so quickly. Even the balloons in the air.
“You’re cute tonight,” Reigen tells him. “I haven’t dreamed about taking you on a date in a long time.” He says this as he rubs his index finger behind his ear again. Petting him. Making his shorts tighter. When Mob shies away from the feeling he corrects him with some light pressure from his thumb on his jaw.
There are several strange things about Reigen’s words that Mob doesn’t have the headspace to parse. Mostly they serve to make his already knotted stomach hotter, but one sentiment is more pressing than the rest.
“This is your dream?” Mob asks. He’s looking down and away from Reigen’s intense eyes to see if he can’t find his thumb. His mouth is watering—it might feel good if Reigen were to—
“Wait—isn’t it?” Reigen says, sliding his thumb up his jaw and towards his mouth. His eyebrows draw together.
Mob makes a noise as he slips it inside. Before either of them can say anything else, Reigen kisses him around the intrusion of his thumb, the balloons surrounding them burst at the seams, and the scene washes away.
Mob rolls over in his sleep with a shiver.