Chapter Text
A dusty white Toyota pulled to a stop beside the monolith, idled, then fell silent. Sand grains and the sparse, dry blades of grass rustled in a wide sweep of something not-quite-wind, which found nothing but the skitter of insects and one or two lizards in the crevices of the limestone.
The pickup truck had been jerry-rigged to allow a child to drive, with lifts on the seat and pedals. The driver hit the packed dirt with a grunt and a puff of dust. Shaking his dark bangs out of his eyes, he shaded his face with one hand and squinted into the glare of the sun. The fingers of his other hand twitched at his side. His expression did not change.
“He’s never late,” he murmured.
Neither the lizards, sand or sun had an answer for him. After a moment's pause, scanning the shadow of the monolith for something he could have missed, he pulled a canvas shoulderbag out of the van’s cabin and trotted into the shade. His face unscrunched as his pupils dilated, and he dropped his shielding hand as his eyes adjusted to the dark.
“Ritsu?” he called. A cricket chirped in a crevice, and was quickly pounced on by a lizard. Mob huffed through his nose, a sound that could have been exasperation or worry, and flopped against the cool stone. A drop of sweat crawled down the close-cropped hair at the back of his neck.
The air lay heavy over the ground, immobile, searingly dry, and heavy with the smell of baking limestone and cracked clay. The shadow of the monolith crept a few millimeters across the ground. Mob blinked the sting of salt out of his eyes and furrowed his brow; a faint whine of effort squeezed out of his chest as he raised a hand. With the approximate momentum of a nudged life preserver, the Toyota drifted into the expansive shadow.
Mob slumped when he let it drop, wheezing. The truck’s suspension creaked reproachfully. Mob wiped his face once again on his sleeve, gulped stale, plastic-flavored water out of a bottle, and waited.
In the distance, the town drifted on heat-haze; too far across even the flat desert for sound to carry, and too blurred for movement to be visible. The shadow of the monolith slid across the ground in opposition to the sun. When the glare began to encroach on Mob’s knee, he scooted sideways and back into the heart of the shadow, followed a few moments later by the ponderous mass of the Toyota.
He fished in his bag for a small, precious hidebound journal, and rifled through it until he found the log for the most recent supply run. His finger traced the lines of the hand-drawn calendar; his mouth moved as he matched up numbers in his head. The rock obscured the sun — he leaned out from the border of the shade and recoiled at the glare. While the purple-green sunspots faded, he scooted away from the light again, rubbing his watering eyes.
The days lined up. Mob double- and triple-checked. Numbers were his brother’s forte, while Mob preferred what could be seen and touched, but he wasn't useless with them — Ritsu handled trade, planning, but Mob could at least track the passing of days. They had agreed to meet fourteen days after separating. Fourteen ticks marked the page above the carefully-catalogued list of supplies. The string tied inside his jacket had fourteen knots. Fourteen days ago he and his brother had headed off towards different trading posts, and today they were supposed to meet again.
So where was Ritsu?
“He's never late,” he said out loud. A spider, emerging to investigate the disturbance to its hiding-place, bolted for shelter.
Maybe — he'd miscalculated. Forgotten his routine of marking-days when he woke, or slept through a day. Or forgotten he'd already gone through the ritual once, and marked his page and knotted his string again. His muscle memory was decent, but not infallible. Maybe Ritsu would be here at the appointed time tomorrow, or maybe, having waited a whole day for Mob to turn up, had headed to town for shelter.
Mob got to his feet and brushed himself off. “Ritsu?” he called, and received no reply. He cleared his throat, hardly daring to reach for volume, the sound of his voice alien and dangerous in the empty desert. On a second try, he managed to project his voice. “Ritsu!”
The sound bounced off the stone behind him, and was swallowed by the flat expanse of stony clay. Mob pulled up his hood, shielded his eyes, and began a patient plod around the base of the monolith. Just in case — just in case Ritsu had pulled up to the other side, and missed him, somehow.
Mob was the only one waiting. He circled the monolith twice more, just in case, just in case, just in case, and found no one. Only lizards, bugs, Mob, and the now-cool Toyota occupied the landmark.
Mob settled back into the shade when his legs began to burn and the sun ached heavy on his shoulders. Sweat plastered his bangs to his forehead. His nose and mouth stung, raw, when he wiped them on his sleeve, and salt crusted on the soft, bruised skin under his eyes. He’d had enough of salt for this lifetime and the next. His stomach growled, and a hollow feeling made itself known under the arch of his ribs — he hadn’t eaten since setting off for the landmark this morning. Now the monolith’s shadow grew long and blue, and the gentled, orange light no longer blinded him.
Inside his shoulderbag was a smaller linen packet. Unfolded, it held squares of jerky, a small pile of roasted crickets, and a battered lump of dough. Mob chewed on a piece of jerky — tough and leathery, but travel made its own rules about what tasted good — and considered his options.
His fingers fluttered in his lap, and his eyes glazed over as the jerky dried in his mouth. “Ritsu’s never late,” he told himself, even as his leg began to jitter against the ground. “He's never late.”
Ritsu would arrive at the landmark. Mob trusted his brother. Ritsu would find him.
The temperature plunged as the sun touched the horizon, as the sky overhead deepened to blue and the first white flecks of stars emerged from dark velvet. The Toyota ticked as its chassis cooled. The sweat that streaked Mob's face chilled, sucking heat from his skin as it evaporated. The desert’s nocturnal inhabitants emerged from crevices and burrows into the cool safety of the night. Whiskers brushed against Mob’s elbow; he twitched, and the animal fled with a squeak.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, then stretched, groaned, and staggered to his feet. An ache settled between his shoulders and up to the base of his skull. His balance wavered as his blood, pooled from sitting for so long (how long?) rushed for his feet. His cramped legs nearly buckled.
The Toyota’s cabin welcomed him back inside, familiar and comfortably enclosed. He'd slept in the cabin for the past fourteen days; the gearstick had left a lasting bruise on the side of his shin, and the cupholder had pressed a dent into his spine. The ticking behind his eyes eased as he curled up in the driver’s seat, jacket pulled over his legs for a blanket. His brother wouldn't miss their meeting. Ritsu was smart, and strong, and clever; even if he'd been delayed, he would find his way home.
A barrier flickered up around the old truck, its shifting pink-blue film smooth and protective. Reassured by the close security of his parents’ Toyota’s cabin, Mob drifted to sleep.
***
The sky softened to shadowed navy; the sounds outside shifted as the desert turned towards light. Mob yawned and stretched, shaking the blur of sleep from his eyes. His nighttime barrier flickered down, and a dark shape loomed large over the windshield.
Mob blinked, and the figure resolved itself: the landmark monolith. He'd never seen it in this light before.
He slipped out of the Toyota quietly, and paced his first lap of the day around the monolith. “Ritsu?”
No response.
Mob sighed and trotted back to the Toyota to eat. His body warmed as he put food in it. Habit told him it was time to keep moving, and he had shuffled into the driver’s seat and set the engine to rumbling before remembering that he couldn't leave without Ritsu. The key clicked in the ignition. Mob stared at his hands, resting loosely on the wheel as the engine settled back into rest.
He fished in the backseat for his battered binoculars, scrambled out of the cabin, and clambered laboriously to the top of the rock. The sky had already gone pale to the east, and a sliver of orange fire forced Mob to flinch and squint towards the horizon. Even from the top of the landmark, scanning the sand by eye or by binoculars showed nothing — no plume of homebound dust, no welcome beetle-black gleam; nothing at all but sand, scrub, stone, and the distant stir of the town as the faraway people began their daily work.
The heat rose with the sun. The glare above the rock threatened to bake Mob like a scarab in his shell. When looking over the desert gave him nothing but a headache and watering eyes, he retreated into the shade to gulp water, and eat, and dig a small hole — he might as well prepare himself to be here for a few days. The idea churned in his stomach, bitter and dry in the back of his mouth. He might as well get used to that, too.
“He'll be back,” he told himself. The silence in the truck’s cabin sounded skeptical.
Mob wasn't useless at entertaining himself — long periods travelling lent themselves to time-passing strategies — but he was usually on the move. He had missed time alone and stationary since crossing to the Spice desert, but having stumbled into it unwillingly, all he wanted was a familiar voice. He wanted, specifically, his brother's voice. Nothing, not even a puff of air, disturbed the harsh heat. The sun climbed higher in the empty sky. Mob curled up on the driver's seat, wrapped his arms around his legs, dropped his head onto his knees, and dozed off.
He woke when the inside of the truck’s cabin began to bake, sweat slicking his hair to the back of his neck and creeping down his chin. With a whine, he lifted one hand, and shunted the Toyota back into the shade. The cabin door opened with another flick of his fingers, his dormant barrier flickered back up, and he drifted back into his restless napping. This process repeated several times — except as noon approached and the shadow of the landmark vanished, leaving Mob’s only option to kick both doors open and force air through the cabin.
Sleeping through the day left him restless at night, with the temperature dropped and the light less oppressive. The oval moon cast the desert in silver-black shadow; Mob hunted a few crickets and a lizard from the crevices of the rock, then set off in a series of short elliptical forays. Without losing sight of the Toyota, he circled the landmark in long arcs, binoculars slung over the collar of his coat. There was no sign of Ritsu, on the horizon or elsewhere.
Could Ritsu have come up on Mob’s barrier, and taken it as a rejection? But he knew about Mob’s nighttime barriers. But what if it wasn't safe for him to wait out in the sun for Mob to wake? Mob swallowed and continued on his rounds. His tracks overlapped themselves like flower petals across the desert. Returning to the Toyota’s cab as the sky lightened did not provide the relief it should have.
He fished a ball of twine from the backseat, knotted it twice, and replaced the old fourteen-day string with the fresh one. The hidebound journal lived in its usual place in his messenger bag; with a charcoal stick, Mob blocked off the section where he'd marked the days of the trip, and began a new section with two hatch-marks. For a heading, he wrote only, “Ritsu”.
He had the supplies to wait here a while. They had stocked, after all, for two people on the return trip, and Mob was only one. The longer he stayed, the more difference they'd need to make up if — when — Ritsu returned, but for now, best to stay put. He didn't like showing off his powers, but a town always had work for an esper — an exorcism or two at least. Better that than risk Ritsu thinking he'd been abandoned.
***
He slept intermittently through the next day and night, keeping to the shade as best he could. It wasn't that he was tired — after two days stationary, he was restless if anything — but it passed the time. He could only catch so many bugs before the rock ran out; he didn't want to leave it depleted, and making them waste energy for no reason wouldn't help. He counted and recounted the supplies, and tried, then checked and rechecked, the calculations for how long he could stay, until charcoal blackened his fingers and blurred before his eyes, and he felt the Toyota’s tarp-covered cargo bay judging him. Nothing had moved since the last three times he'd checked. Why should a fourth be any different?
— well, except for the spider that lived between the water canisters, but it was alive, so of course it moved. Mob liked the spider. It had ridden from town in the back of the Toyota, and it kept pests out of their food. It had a white spot on its back, and eight eyes that glinted in dim light. Ritsu hated spiders, so Mob hadn't said anything, like if he didn't name the thing Ritsu would never see it.
“Do you know where Ritsu is?” he asked the water canisters. The spider mostly came out at night, but he’d seen it venturing out across the bed of the truck last time he'd looked. Nothing stirred.
He passed the time between naps in short scouting trips, in watching the blank blue sky to guess the weather; in mumbling long, wandering travel-songs to himself and watching the achingly slow wheel of the constellations when they came out. Every so often a fleck of light shot down out of the star-blurred sky. Mob counted them as they fell, and wished, secretly, on each one, though there was no one to keep his wishes secret from.
***
Five days in — five tally-marks in the journal, five knots in the string tied into Mob’s jacket — he moved an empty water canister, and found the spider dead on its back. Its legs curled into an inch-high pyramid, a black snarl of lines and angles. Recognition punched Mob in the gut, and he crouched, staring at the tiny corpse, until he couldn't breathe in the boiling tarp-covered truck bed, and the handles of the water canister burned his fingers.
He refilled his water bottle from a fresh canister, then counted the number remaining: three. Enough for him to get home, and no further. He could make up the difference in town if he gave Ritsu just a couple more days — but if he didn't leave now, he never would.
His power carried the spider to a crevice of the monolith. The lizards, or other bugs, or whatever else lived in the rock could have it. Mob whispered a quiet ‘thank you’ to it before brushing a small mound of sand over it. His spine popped when he straightened, his shoulders and back sore from just over three weeks of cabin sleeping.
Ritsu, he chipped into the rock, in an uncomfortable but necessary display of power. It wasn’t the best medium. His lines were crooked, his grammar choppy. He carved as deeply as he could, and hoped Ritsu would find the message.
Waited for you. Going home. Come find me. Be safe.
After a pause for thought, he added a numeral five next to the message.
Then he climbed back into the Toyota, for once in the proper position in the driver’s seat, shifted the truck into gear, and rumbled towards town.
***
“Have you seen my brother?” he asked anyone who would listen. “He has hair like mine, but spiky, like — ” If his audience hadn't wandered off by then, he flicked his hand at his temple. “His name is Ritsu. I was here with him three weeks ago. Have you seen — ?”
Blank faces, silence, shaken heads, pity. Plenty of people disappeared into the wastes. Plenty of people looked for them, against all odds. Ritsu was smart, though, and strong, and brave; he wouldn't vanish like that. (A smart, strong, brave person could still get unlucky, whispered a voice in the back of Mob’s head. He ignored it.)
One woman caught his attention, waving. "Kid?"
Mob turned around, head inclined. His bangs swept into his eyes, forcing him to blink and blow them back. He should let his hair grow out, pull it back. "Yes? Do you know anything?"
The older woman — wasteland-weathered, her face heavily lined, graying hair thin and wispy — sighed. "Take it from me, kid — your brother's dead. Best accept that and move on."
Her eyes were dark, and brown, and sad. Mob's were black, and swallowed light. The woman blinked and turned away. She raised a hand to her mouth, then pressed it to her eyes. Her shoulders slumped. Mob watched the proceedings motionless and silent.
"What's his name," the woman said, defeated.
"Ritsu," Mob said. "Kageyama Ritsu. If you see him, tell him to go east." He pointed, as if that would help, towards the sun as it climbed towards noonday height.
"I'll keep an eye out."
"Thank you." Mob inclined his head, and tried to think kindly of her. He didn't know if he could do blessings or curses, but if he could, he wanted to play it safe.
The Toyota rolled out of town as the afternoon faded into dusk. Fresh streaks of eyeblack darkened Mob’s cheeks. The aged engine hummed, happy to fulfil its purpose once more. Mob’s fingers twitched against the wheel. Travel didn't soothe his nerves like it usually did. Something had happened to Ritsu, and Mob didn't know where he was, or how to help him, or if he was even — or Mob had done something to make Ritsu want to stay away. Desert rolling under his wheels couldn't ease his fears or fill the empty passenger’s seat. The rattle of worn shock absorbers over uneven terrain couldn't harmonize a two-part travel song. Dust and clay couldn't drive for him when his vision blurred in exhaustion.
Nothing for it but to keep moving.
***
A trip that should have taken a day of driving took four nights. Mob lacked Ritsu’s confidence behind the wheel, and preferred to take the rough, informal roads with caution; more so without his brother's mechanical expertise if something went wrong. Without a second driver, he had to stop to sleep. The useless, anxious spinning of emotional gears left Mob wearier and faster-fatigued than usual. Stress disoriented him, turning even the familiar trade road into a treacherous, meandering path. His supplies stretched, barely, until he approached the familiar signpost and sparse, yellow grasses of Urbancho, but he was dizzy with heat and thirst when he rolled into town. Ritsu would have accounted for the difference. Mob had assumed Ritsu would be with him.
The sun blazed overhead as the Toyota crept through town. Mob drove one-handed, squinting through the eye-watering glare. He could only block out so much of the blinding light as it reflected off Urbancho’s soaring concrete walls, tin roofs, and pale earth. Twice someone waved at the Toyota in greeting before fleeing back into the shade, but other than that, everyone had hidden from the scorching midday. Empty, Urbancho could have been a ghost town.
Unease twined vinelike through Mob’s chest, smothering as effectively as the heat. It worsened — thick stems constraining his ribs, leaves in his lungs and throat — as he pulled to a stop in front of his grandmother’s green bottle-glass house. Light gleamed off the yellow earth and the dry stalks of grass, caught in the deep green of the house’s walls. A breeze rustled through the eaves, plucking at Mob’s hair and chilling the sweat on the back of his neck.
The sun struck him full-force when he hopped out of the cab of the vehicle. He staggered, yanked his hood over his head, and dashed into the dim, relatively cool shelter of the house’s threshold.
“I’m home,” he gasped, toeing off his worn-out tennis shoes. His lungs felt raw, scorched by even brief direct exposure to ceramic-dry, kiln-hot air. Normalizing his breathing meant that he hadn’t yet begun to worry when his grandmother darted into the room and grabbed his shoulders, looking him over for injury before she’d even said his name. Mob stiffened, frozen — grandma Tome was not a tall woman, but Mob hadn’t yet caught his growth spurt, and under her piercing black eyes, the Toyota’s emptiness still hollow in his chest, he felt infinitesimal.
“You’re eight days late,” his grandmother said, swatting him lightly on the temple. “What happened? Are you alright?”
Mob nodded. His tongue stuck to the floor of his mouth. His lungs filled with nothing. In the house’s cooler air, his skin boiled, and his core froze solid.
“Well, you’re here now. Welcome home.” His grandmother sighed and ruffled his hair. Mob whined, but let her drag him into a friendly headlock when he tried to duck away. She was a thickset woman, stocky and solid, and when Mob wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his nose into her side, she laced her hands over his shoulders and frowned.
“Where’s Ritsu?”
Mob’s voice locked. He shook his head, helpless, beginning to shiver — he was home now, in the place that should be safe, and nothing was better. Ritsu was still gone.
“Shigeo,” his grandmother said, his home-name, his family-name, “did something happen to your brother?”
Mob shook his head again. When he opened his mouth, he squeaked, like a rusted brake or a mouse under an owl’s talons. Air hissed from his throat, useless as a punctured tire. He couldn’t even confess his failure. “Sorry,” he croaked finally. His grandmother smelled like dust, ground glass, pressed flowers. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I — I d-don’t — I’m sorry — I’m sorry.”
His grandmother shushed him and rubbed his back. He could feel her worry, tight in her chest. He couldn’t fix it. He couldn’t speak. There was nothing he could say to make it better.
Grandma Tome shuffled him to a chair, made him sit down, pried him off long enough to retrieve a bowl of water — fresh and cold from the ground, not metallic or plasticky and lukewarm. “D-don’t know. I don’t know,” he managed, when his throat was less dry. His fingers knotted in his lap, thumbnail dug into the tendons of his opposite hand, knuckles cracking in sequence. His grandmother’s arm rested over his back, and when Mob choked again, she pulled him into her shoulder.
“It’s not your fault,” grandma Tome told him. Mob swallowed his treacherous, threatening tears. He knew it was true, but what did it matter? As Ritsu’s big brother, there was only one option.
“I’ll find him,” he promised. “I’ll find him, and I’ll bring him home.”