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Sometimes, Reigen finds himself back in that place.
In moments caught between sleep and wake, in the midst of dreams and nightmares, and sometimes when he just closes his eyes for too long, he slips back into that railway car. That stuffiness. That inability to breathe. And he forgets that he isn't there anymore, because it smells like leather seats and bad takeout, and it's humid and hot and dry, and he can taste the salt he'd flung around and see lingering flecks of it on the floor like snowflakes.
And then someone would nudge him, or call his name, or, in one case, spill tea on him (Serizawa apologized endlessly and it took everything Reigen had to not thank him), and he was back home. Back in his own reality.
But it never took away those smells. Those sensations. Those feelings. There aren’t many things that scare him, but the thought that he could disappear, and no one would even notice he was gone…
Yeah.
He lost a lot of sleep over that. Blacked out at a lot of bars over that. Screamed into a lot of pillows over that. And all that was before the nightmare hellscape of isolation, train whistles, and screeching metal on metal.
“Reigen? Are we almost ready to leave?”
Reigen is snapped out of an almost-flashback by Serizawa’s voice and lifts his head. It’s been two weeks since they returned home from the resort, but already it seems Serizawa has been taking Reigen’s advice of thinking for himself, stepping up and stepping out in spite of worries and concerns. Except he does look worried and concerned now, and it takes Reigen another second before he realizes that’s his fault.
“Oh, yeah, sure.” Reigen gets to his feet, kicking back the office chair and swinging on his coat. “Sorry. It’s been a while since we’ve been on a field job, huh?”
Serizawa’s features brighten with excitement, and Reigen does his best to make everything seem normal. He’s apparently successful, because then Serizawa is saying, “Yeah, not since the resort!” as he bends down to slip on his shoes. “It’s definitely been some time since we’ve been out on the field—Although, that isn’t to say I haven’t enjoyed working around the office!” He flails his hands to and fro and shakes his head with equal fervor. “I enjoy everything we do, really, whether it’s field work or paperwork, but—”
“Hey, man, I get it.” Reigen straightens up and knocks his fist against Serizawa’s shoulder. “You can lighten up around me, y’know? I’m not gonna get upset with you for dragging paperwork through the dirt. Paperwork freaking sucks.”
Serizawa swallows hard, and while, yes, he has gotten better, some things will just never change. And that’s okay, Reigen doesn’t mind.
“Are you—Are you sure?”
“Definitely.” Reigen withdraws his hand with a grin and starts toward the door. “In this office, we vent about whatever the hell we want to. You’ll get the hang of it in no time.”
He swings around to look over his shoulder. Serizawa has an odd look on his face. Reigen snorts.
“Come on, let’s get going. Nocturnal spirit or not, the sooner we get this over with the sooner we get back.”
He leads the way and Serizawa follows him with a bright, “Yessir!”
We should have gotten a taxi.
That sums up Reigen’s entire thought process as their train comes skidding into the station. The screech of metal as the brakes lock embeds a chill in his bones, and he grinds his teeth against the sensation.
And then his surroundings shift and warp and melt into a grotesque version of reality. Just like it has been.
Serizawa is gone from beside him, and the dimly lit station turns dark red, with maroons peeking through windows and rising up from beneath the floorboards. The shadowy corners are all-encompassing and deep, like black holes. And it’s hot. Stuffy. Murky. The smell of sweat and death is so heavy it could anchor a ship.
“Is this one ours?”
Reigen shakes himself out of it and lengthens his heaving gasp into a sigh. “Yep, that’s the one,” he says, surprised (relieved) by the steadiness of his voice. “Jeez, I hate night trains…”
Serizawa gives him a look before shrugging. Reigen follows him forward.
“There aren’t many passengers this time of night, so we can probably take whatever seats we’d like,” Serizawa says. The doors release with a hiss of air and Reigen is glad for the distance between them; it means Serizawa won’t see him jump out of his skin whenever the godforsaken train makes a sound. “Where did you say the client lived?”
“Uh.”
Stuffy.
Hot.
Sweaty.
Doubt.
“Reigen?”
“Sorry, sorry, spaced out.” He flaps a hand. “Yeah I don’t remember, I’ll double-check the email once we’ve boarded.”
Once we’ve boarded.
Once we’ve boarded.
Once we’ve boarded.
They should have gotten a taxi. They should have gotten a goddamn taxi—
“On second thought, I’ll just go ahead and check right now,” Reigen says, whipping his phone from his pocket. Anything to ground him here in this reality where he belongs. “Go grab some seats for us, will ya?”
Serizawa agrees and departs and Reigen looks down at his phone, suddenly aimless. He knows where the client lives, he knows exactly how to get there; he even knows exactly how long it’ll take to get there by train (an hour. An hour).
But he can’t bring himself to step over the threshold.
In fact, it’s not until the rest of the passengers have boarded and the intercom gives a last-call to meandering passengers that he finally sucks it up and heads inside.
The air is sapped straight from his lungs, around the same time the doors click shut behind him. A blaring whistle tears through stale air; the driver calls out their stops; and then the floor beneath him shifts and rattles and they’re on their way.
Reigen takes his first breath inside the train and immediately wants to throw up.
“Oh, there you are! I was worried you were left behind—n, not that I thought you would, I-I was just worried that maybe you’d lost track of time or couldn’t find the email or—” Serizawa pauses mid-rant, with his shoulders falling and his hands landing in his lap. “I… I’m rambling again, aren’t I? Sorry.”
Reigen sinks down into the seat beside him (sitting, rattling, nodding off, god) and exhales through his nose. “You’re fine, don’t worry. Rambling’s alright too. And there’s merit to overthinking sometimes. You don’t wanna do it all the time for everything, of course, but sometimes overthinking means you come across stuff that a more careless person would’ve missed. So I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”
He stuffs his hands in his coat pockets to keep them from shaking. Serizawa doesn’t notice and sighs in relief.
“You’re right. You’re right.”
“Yes I am.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
There’s nothing else to talk about, and it isn’t long before Serizawa pulls a school book from his shoulder bag (“Y-You don’t mind if I read, do you?” “Nah.” “It isn’t rude, is it?” “Not at all.” “Are you sure you don’t want to tal—” “Serizawa.” “Okay.”) and Reigen, too, is left to his own devices. Which consist of his phone, a stack of business cards, and a pair of earbuds with only one working side.
It gets old quick. The bump and bustle of the train do not.
Reigen does his absolute best to make sure the job drags on for as long as it possibly can. Screw "overstaying your welcome," Karma owes him one. For once he didn't deserve something shitty that happened to him and he isn't going to let it forget.
But the spirit is exorcised just as fast as ever. Serizawa always makes simple work of spirits like that. He may not be as skilled or practiced as Mob, but he's just as powerful. Spirits can't do much more than lament their woes before it's over.
The client does actually offer them a room, since they came out so late and she's so grateful for their help. And Reigen would have jumped on it if not for Serizawa. Serizawa has been anxious ever since getting here and Reigen didn't want to put him in a place where it could get worse. Serizawa has been particularly on edge today too.
So Reigen thanks her but ultimately declines her offer. The taxis aren't running this time of night. The trains are.
They board.
He’s more prepared the second time, has put more thought toward how to cope, what he needs to do differently in order to get from point B back to point A without incident. Distractions seem to be the way to go. Maybe Serizawa would wanna talk this time around or maybe he could ask to read one of his books—Serizawa definitely carries a lot of them.
He's more prepared mentally. So naturally it makes sense for the second time to be worse.
Their train car is empty. It gives Reigen less to think about. It's just him and Serizawa in the emptiness—and then the world twists into falsehood, and the train car is red and dark and it's just him and he’s alone.
Red. Dark. Dimly lit. Mountains on the horizon.
Too many empty chairs. Not enough space. He spent an entire week under one of the benches, curled with his knees to his chest and trying to promise himself that there’s a way out, there is, he just needs to find it.
It’s too hot. It’s too stuffy. Opening the windows makes it worse—he tried more times than he can count. He has bruises from leaping out the windows and crashing into the floor or slamming into the wall. He tried jumping a lot. He was bruised a lot, but never free.
The train was endless.
The train was lifeless.
The train might as well have been a coffin.
The train lurches. Serizawa slams against Reigen’s shoulder and a plethora of apologies comes pouring free. Reigen’s word spins on axis. He can’t breathe.
“S-Sorry! I wasn’t expecting it to—”
“Don’t, it’s—” Reigen sucks in a breath through his teeth. It’s sharp and shallow and feels more knife than air. And it somehow leaves him more breathless than before. “—Fine, it’s fine, don’t worry.”
“Reigen?” His sight is tunneling, spiraling down like a spyglass. He doesn’t know what’s up or down or what’s real and what isn’t. “Reigen, are—are you feeling alright? You got pale all of a sudden.”
Shit, shit, shit—
He stands. The rattling is worse but he can’t stay here, he can’t lose it here, not in front of Serizawa. “I’m fine, sorry, just felt a little lightheaded.” Red, dark, death, coffin, alone, alone, alone, alone, alone— “I’m gonna go to the bathroom, I’ll be right back.”
By the time Serizawa murmurs an uncertain, “O-Oh, sure,” Reigen has already spun around and is making a beeline down the aisle toward the restrooms at the end of the cart. Acid and tears scorch the back of his throat. He tries not to run.
The door slams a little too hard behind him and he’s barely had time to lock himself in one of the stalls before throwing up. Thankfully in the toilet and not all over himself, but he feels just as disgusting and twice as pathetic.
It hurts. He’s been here before and it hurts.
It doesn’t end as quickly as he wants it to, but it does end, and he collapses onto the floor of the stall and puts his head in his hands. There’s no space here. It’s cramped beyond imagining. But it’s somehow less suffocating than the actual train car. More suffocating physically, sure, but less suffocating mentally. And mentally is all he has the energy to care about right now.
With his eyes closed and his body tucked and cramped against the wall of the stall, he tries to breathe against the taste in his throat and the mounting sense of darkness. The trail rattles and shifts underneath him. He tries every coping method he’s picked up, one by one. He counts backwards from twenty. He counts upward by threes. He squeezes his hands.
It’s encompassing. Nothing helps. He wants to throw up again.
Bzz, bzz.
He starts hard enough to smack his knee against the underside of the toilet bowl. With a hiss and gasp as reality is yanked back in front of him, he fumbles for his phone and flips it open. The light of the screen nearly blinds him.
[Serizawa Katsuya] (1:04 AM)
Hey, sorry, are you okay?
You didn’t look okay when you left.
He did it again. Forgot he wasn’t alone. There’s a deep, hurt thing within him that tries shoving a sob up his throat. He barely keeps it from happening.
This is dumb, isn’t it? Serizawa was never this affected by the parallel reality. Actually, no one seemed surprised or concerned or shocked at all. Mob not being bothered, Reigen understands, but if Ritsu and Teruki and Serizawa really didn’t think anything of it—if the parallel universe ordeal really was just one more crazy Spirits and Such job—then he shouldn’t be bothered with it, either, right?
Right?
Acid bubbles and burns in his throat.
The moment he slides back the door and steps into the cart, Serizawa is wide-eyed and on his feet. His expression—concern, doubt and relief twisted and woven together like a braid—is drawn and tight.
Reigen tries to smile as he makes his way over. The world hasn’t stopped spinning, but at least now his stomach is empty. “Hey, Serizawa.”
“Reigen-san, are you alright? You—” Serizawa stops, already wide-eyes going wider. “You look. Disheveled.”
Reigen tries to laugh and takes his seat. “That’s a neat word. Pick it up in your studies?”
“Reigen-san—”
“You can drop the -san, Serizawa, I’m not big on formalities.”
“Reigen.” Serizawa sits beside him and wrings his hands together. “Reigen, are—are you sure you’re okay?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” Reigen lies, and hates how easy it is. How practiced. “I don’t think I’ll be going to that take-out place again, though. Shady as all hell right from the start and it’s only gotten shadier.”
Serizawa studies him. Reigen gives him a side-eye.
“Are you sure?” Serizawa asks.
“Positive,” Reigen says, bumping their shoulders together. “Which means you can stop worrying now, big guy. I’d tell you if something was wrong.”
“Would you?”
There's something new in Serizawa's tone. Something icy. Reigen’s heart skips a beat. “What?”
The train passes under a tunnel. Darkness fills every inch of the train from seat to ceiling, and it’s like a switch is flipped. Things go from being decently okay, decently passable, to pounding heartbeats, chained lungs and straining vocal chords.
His hands move to clutch his chest, his throat, his face. His fingernails bite. The darkness shoves itself down his throat and replaces the air in his lungs.
“Reigen— Reigen!”
He comes to on the floor, back pressed into the wall of the rattling train and Serizawa kneeling close, but not too close. His eyes aren’t wide, but instead scared and haunted and fearful. And that’s a lot worse.
Reigen chokes on something in his throat. “S-Serizawa, I—” He can’t bring himself to say anything else along that line, and he chokes again and curls his knees into his chest, ducking his head into them. He wants to hide. He wants to jump out the window. He wants off. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”
“Reigen.” Serizawa’s voice is soft and hesitant. “Reigen… it's okay."
"No it's not," Reigen heaves. He feels hysteric, like there's helium in his chest, but void and darkness everywhere else. He gags on the acid in the back of his throat and digs his forehead into his knees. His hands dig into his chest and it hurts but he can't unwind himself. "It's not okay, it's not okay—"
"And I'm promising you that it is." Serizawa takes him by the shoulders, gentle but firm. "Just—Breathe. Okay? You don't need to move, you don't need to say anything, you don't need to save anyone or see anyone or go anywhere. Please, just—breathe. I promise it's okay."
Breathing hasn’t been easy for a long time, but Reigen somehow manages to suck in a breath. The lightheadedness is replaced by an incessant, deeply-imbedded pounding in his temples, but he can breathe. He does breathe. Serizawa sits back, slides his hands from Reigen’s shoulders to his forearms. Reigen digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, folding in on himself.
“I-I’m pathetic.”
Serizawa breathes in sharply. “You aren’t pathetic.”
“This is stupid.” Talking wastes air he doesn’t have but he can’t stop himself. “It was just a stupid train it shouldn’t be—I shouldn’t be acting like this, it’s just me, why is it just me—”
“You’re the only one who was trapped for that long.”
“It wasn’t real,” Reigen snaps, and wishes he could fold himself up small enough to pass through the floorboards and into nothing. “I was barely there more than a few hours, it wasn’t even a big deal— the time that passed in there wasn’t even real, dammit.” A sob tries to break free and he buries his face in his hands to stifle it. “D-Dammit.”
Serizawa squeezes his forearms and Reigen does sob this time, dry and unproductively. He can’t help it anymore. He can’t do anything anymore.
“Reigen. Can you—Can you look at me? Please.”
He really doesn’t want to, but Serizawa touches his face and Reigen’s head comes up without his full consent. Serizawa meets his eyes, close but not intimidatingly close, and he leaves his hand on his chin.
“How long were you in there?”
Reigen bites the inside of his cheeks. Hard. “Maybe—Maybe four hou—”
“No, I mean. How long were you there?”
Reigen blinks against the tears in his eyes, but there’s really no point in it. There are tears all over him by now. “I…”
He looks down at his lap, at the floor. Somehow he can see tally marks there, glaring and deep and only somewhat darker than the world around them, like stripes of void. He swallows down the next bit of hysteria and brings a hand to his face, wiping it.
“I lost count at—at thirty one.”
It says a lot more than he wants to say. The shadow that passes over Serizawa’s eyes is deep and penetrating and Reigen feels like he’d been stabbed in the gut.
The train gives a sudden lurch and Reigen jumps hard. Serizawa’s hands close around his shoulders again and the distance between them lessens. Serizawa’s breath harmonizes with the roaring blood and pounding pulse in Reigen’s ears and, soon, drowns it out.
A voice on the intercom calls out the first stop. Not their stop—a stop several tens of minutes before their own. Reigen clenches his teeth and fights the urge to cling.
“We’re getting off.”
Reigen blinks up into Serizawa’s face. He’s looking at the door.
“What?”
“We’re getting off the train, right now.”
Reigen’s wits return to him, one by one. “But—Serizawa, this isn’t our stop—”
“It is now. Come on, we’ll miss it.”
Serizawa tries pulling him to his feet. Reigen’s fingers clamp around his wrists and pull in the opposite direction. “No, Serizawa, I—you have to get home tonight, don’t do this for me, I—”
“Reigen.” Serizawa’s knees thud gently against the floor, and it drowns out the hiss of the doors swinging open. “You told me to start thinking for myself, right? To start making my own decisions? This is one of them. Come on.”
Serizawa pulls him again, and this time it’s all Reigen can do to gather himself and go with him out the doors. Serizawa doesn’t let go of his arm, and Reigen doesn’t ask him to.
Reigen feels like he was underwater for too long, and that sort of endless dread of suffocation follows him out the threshold of the train and behind Serizawa. He knows Serizawa tells him where they’re going once (or twice—maybe even three times), but he can’t pay attention close enough to actually retain the information. Everything’s noise and imagery. Nothing means anything.
About halfway there, Reigen figures out they’re going to a hotel. For one night, Serizawa says. They’ll take a taxi back home. Serizawa asks if that’s okay—and Reigen says yes, because it’s the only word he remembers how to say.
Serizawa tugs him down unfamiliar sidewalks in an unfamiliar city, and Reigen tries to catch his breath. It’s at least somewhat easier to breathe outside the stuffy train car, and the sharp chill of the air keeps him from slipping down under. As does Serizawa’s fingers around his wrist.
When they finally make it to a hotel, there’s a horrifying moment where Reigen can’t find his wallet and about a thousand possibilities flutter into his brain like molten butterflies come to place a brand in his skull. (It’s actually closer to about two possibilities, but it certainly feels like a thousand.) But, no, he has his wallet—he’d just put it in the wrong pocket. Freaked out over nothing.
Again.
But the hotel owner is kind and helpful and takes his hysteria as exhaustion (which he is, he is exhausted but that isn’t the problem) and she takes their budget into account and offers them a single-futon room for one night. They have other rooms available but this is the only one Reigen can afford right now and he isn’t about to make Serizawa pay for it, even though he said he’d be more than willing to split the bill.
So one futon it is. Neither of them care.
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Reigen says as they make their way down the hall and toward the elevator. He tries to keep his voice from shaking but doesn’t do a very good job of it. “I’m the reason we’re here in the first place, I don’t mind.”
“No, I can,” Serizawa argues, shaking his head. “It’ll be fine for one night, I really think you need to sleep as well as you can.”
“I’ll sleep better knowing you aren’t on the floor.”
Serizawa unlocks the door of their room and heads inside without saying anything else. Reigen follows him. It’s about as small and cramped as he expected, but still a breath of fresh air compared to the train car.
In the end, Serizawa determines the futon is big enough for them to each take half, and it’s the easiest way to settle things so Reigen doesn’t argue further. They don’t have toothbrushes or pajamas or anything like that, so it’s really just a matter of kicking their shoes off, deciding how much of their clothes they want to sleep in (which ends up being everything sans their jackets and ties) and finally settling down.
For a hotel room futon, it isn’t half bad, but getting comfortable is another story. Reigen curls in on himself loosely, facing outward with his back to Serizawa. Serizawa shifts, then stills.
Then silence.
Reigen doesn’t move, not even to get comfortable. He feels like someone cemented his bones, sealed his joints. His chest is still full and tight. Reality won’t stay as it should. He draws a shuddering breath and tucks his hands close against his chest.
“... S-Serizawa?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
He wishes Serizawa wouldn’t do this. Wouldn’t be so kind. Reigen can handle being yelled at, he can handle Serizawa being upset with him, but he can’t handle this level of compassion and understanding, he can’t. Not when he doesn’t deserve it.
“But, I—”
“Reigen.” Serizawa’s voice is firm. “Don’t. Please. I don’t want you to apologize, I just—I want you to rest. Okay? We can talk in the morning.”
Reigen shuts his mouth. The click of his teeth hurts his ears.
And then the silence is back.
He usually enjoys silence in the rare moments he gets it, but now, even though he knows it’s just a fabrication of his own mind, he can still hear the train, roaring in his ears as it plunges down into time and nothingness. Reigen chokes and clamps his hands over his mouth. On the opposite side of the futon, Serizawa shifts again.
“I’m supposed to be an adult,” Reigen rasps. “I’m supposed to be able to handle this kind of stuff, I—I’m supposed to be stronger than this.”
“We don’t want you to be strong for us all the time, Reigen,” Serizawa murmurs with a startling lack of hesitation. “We just… we want you to be okay. And, we want to know when you aren’t. That’s all. We don’t care about anything else.”
Reigen squeezes his eyes shut, unable to put words to the feeling crashing over his head. Serizawa touches his shoulder gently, and this time, he doesn’t jump.
“Just try to get some sleep now, okay? I’m right here if you need me.”
There’s a lot Reigen wants to say, but there’s nothing left in him now. He can’t muster the energy to fight back anymore. He focuses on the weight of Serizawa’s hand on his shoulder. What that means. The sense of isolation flutters away like feathers in a strong breeze.
“Thank you.”
It isn’t enough to portray his true gratitude—and he isn’t sure that’s even something mere words could do—but Serizawa squeezes his shoulder.
“You’re welcome, Reigen.”
All the signs were there. Serizawa doesn’t know how he could have missed them when they were spelled out in front of him so clearly. He should have asked if he was okay. He should have asked if he was really as fine as he said he was. He shouldn’t have let them board this train, not until he was sure. Not until he knew.
But Reigen is always so strong, with a good head on a set of good shoulders and Serizawa never thought he was capable of breaking. He always stood strong in the midst of their storms and guided them through the winds like it was no big deal at all.
Serizawa forgot that even pillars could crack.
It’s the middle of the night when Serizawa wakes up to a weighted warmth tucked into his side, elbows and knees digging painfully close. Reigen’s sleeves are bunched at the elbows and Serizawa can’t imagine the sleeping position he’s in is restful in the slightest, but he is sleeping. And those black-blue bruises under his eyes aren’t going to get better any other way.
Typically, this arrangement—with Reigen pressed so close he can feel his breath against his arm—would mortify him. But right now, Reigen isn’t his boss. Reigen is a friend, a close and dear friend, who’s hurting more than Serizawa can imagine, and he can’t let that go. He can’t turn the other way and pretend he doesn’t see it just for the sake of professionalism.
So he adjusts as much as he dares, curves an arm around Reigen’s shoulders and lets him stay as close as he wants.
Besides.
When has Spirits and Such ever prioritized professionalism?
The next time Serizawa wakes up, it's bright outside and Reigen is gone.
He sits upright, blankets slipping from around his shoulders, and looks around. Reigen's coat is still hung on the back of the door, which means wherever he is he's coming back, but still. To not see him here after what happened leaves him with a bad taste in his mouth.
He snatches up his phone from the side table and flips it open. The battery is at 23%, but it should last until they get home as long as he doesn’t use it too much. A few texts shouldn’t do any harm, and figuring out just where Reigen ran off to is definitely worth the battery life.
[Serizawa Katsuya] (6:16 AM)
Hey, what's up? Where are you?
[Reigen Arataka] (6:16 AM)
bagels
[Serizawa Katsuya] (6:16 AM)
?
[Reigen Arataka] (6:17 AM)
do you want blueberry or regular
[Serizawa Katsuya] (6:18 AM)
I
I guess blueberry ??
[Reigen Arataka] (6:18 AM)
k cool
Serizawa blinks out into space.
Reigen comes through the door roughly ten minutes later, after Serizawa has gotten up and splashed tap water into his face. Reigen is carrying a plastic bag with a brand name Serizawa isn’t familiar with, and the dark circles under his eyes are mere shadows compared to what they used to be. He still looks like he just crawled out of a coffin, but that’s still marginally better than last night. Last night, it was like he wasn’t even there at all.
“Reigen,” Serizawa says over his shoulder, tossing the hand towel onto the bathroom counter as he steps back into the room. “Where’d you—?”
“Here.” Reigen throws a paper bag at him. It smacks him in the face and he only just catches it before it falls. “I was going to wake you but you seemed pretty comfortable, so. Good morning.”
“M… Morning.”
Reigen then pulls two identical canned beverages from the plastic bag, and for a horrifying second Serizawa thinks he’s going to throw those, too, but no; he sets one on the side table and cracks open the other.
“Dunno if you drink coffee, but I grabbed you one anyway.”
Serizawa gives the pastry bag one final hard look before glancing at the can of coffee. He did have that self-set rule before about not refusing what Reigen (or anyone else at Spirits and Such) offered, but…
“Ah, I’m… actually more of a tea drinker. Sorry.”
Reigen shrugs. “More for me, then,” he says, and takes a sip larger than anyone has any business taking. He lowers the can, looks at the label, then tilts his head up at Serizawa. “What.”
Serizawa holds his gaze, but then he shakes his head and moves to sit on the edge of the futon, fiddling with the lip of the bag. “You seem… chipper.”
Reigen gives a mirthless laugh. “Heh. That’s good, because I kinda feel like my soul took a spin through a cement truck.”
“That’s… oddly specific.”
“Yeah.” The futon creaks; Serizawa looks over his shoulder and sees Reigen sitting at the foot of it, with the can of coffee in his lap. “God, what I wouldn’t do for a shower…” He trails off, shakes his head. “Sorry. I’m sure there’s a lot of other places you’d rather be right now. Like. Literally anywhere else.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Serizawa says. “It actually hasn’t been all that bad.” And then, he realizes what he said. “No, no, wait, no, I don’t mean—I don’t mean what happened on the train was—”
“I know what you mean.” He takes another sip, but it’s more tentative this time. The space between them has become uneasy. “And… about that. Actually. I’m sorry. I never wanted you to see that.”
Serizawa eases back a little. They’ve been over this, he can handle this. “It’s alright.”
Reigen snorts, but there’s no humor in it. The sound is bitter and hateful. “Yeah, okay. Guess I’ll break down and have panic attacks more often on the bullet train in the middle of nowhere, sure.”
Serizawa flinches. “That’s—No, that’s not what I meant.”
“You didn’t need to see that.” Reigen squeezes the can. "You shouldn't have had to see that.”
“But I did. And it’s okay.”
Reigen makes that sound again. Serizawa really, really wishes he wouldn’t. "Yeah. Okay. Sure."
“Reigen, listen.” Serizawa swings his legs up onto the futon and crosses them, twisting until he’s facing Reigen. He leaves the pastry bag on the side table. “Please. I don’t want you to apologize for that anymore. It’s—It’s horrible that you had to—to deal with it, but you don’t need to apologize. Sometimes those things just—they happen, y’know? It’s no one’s fault, especially not yours.”
Reigen won’t look at him. Serizawa doesn’t know what to do. After a moment longer of silent warring and debate, he scoots a few inches closer. Reigen doesn’t move.
“... Do you want to talk?”
“About what?”
“About what happened at the resort.”
Reigen pauses. His thumb taps against the side of the can.
“Not really,” he says finally, sounding defeated. “You already know what happened, anyway, there’s nothing new to talk about.”
“I know, but—you were there a lot longer than I was, did—”
“Nothing happened.” The answer comes too quickly to be genuine. A lot of Reigen’s answers have been like this lately. “Seriously. Nothing happened. That was kind of the point.”
“You were alone.”
Reigen’s shoulders rise and fall with a long, hard breath. “... Yeah.”
Serizawa shifts. There’s a long stretch of silence that he doesn’t dare break. Eventually, Reigen drags a hand through his hair and takes a breath.
“It was—It was empty,” he says. “Quiet. After a while the train noises just kinda became background stuff. Kinda like breathing. You’re so used to it that sometimes you just… forget.”
Serizawa doesn’t say anything. This is the most Reigen has said about the train, he isn’t about to interrupt. Reigen shifts, tucking his feet underneath him.
“It’s not that I’ve never been alone before,” Reigen says softly, glancing out the window. “I was on my own for a while before Mob came into the picture. But this wasn’t just--being lonely. It was deeper than that. It was… It was scary. Not knowing what was happening, or why it was happening, or how to stop it. And the question of whether or not I’d ever be able to get out of there was…” He trails off and sucks in a long breath. “It was a lot.”
Serizawa’s stomach flips into his throat. He squeezes his hands together and digs his fingernails into his palms.
“I’m sorry,” he manages, and it’s not enough. There’s nothing he could say that could articulate how gutted he is by the knowledge, the realization, the weight. “I’m so sorry I didn’t realize something was wrong, I—I could have figured it out sooner, I could have gotten you out of there, I—”
Reigen doesn’t say anything right away. He keeps tapping the side of the can. “S’not your fault.”
“I know it’s not my fault,” Serizawa stammers out, “but I still could have—I don’t know, I could have done something.”
“You’re doing something now.” Serizawa’s teeth snap together. Reigen swallows hard before continuing. “I don’t want you to apologize anymore, either, just—don’t. Don’t do that.”
Serizawa looks down at his hands. He knows there’s a part of him that will never truly be forgiven, even if just by his own condemnation, but this isn’t about him right now, either. He’ll have time to deal with his own guilt over time. Over time. But not right now.
Right now, there’s Reigen. Reigen’s all that matters to him right now. Serizawa remembers the mornings after his own panic attacks; how drained, how lost, how disoriented. How alone. And he’d be damned before he let Reigen feel that way too.
He scoots even closer, until their knees bump.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
Reigen bites his lip. “I don’t know.”
There’s no lie behind that.
“... Do you want a hug?”
Serizawa doesn’t know what possessed him to ask the question—only that he’d always wanted hugs from his mother, but never dared to get close to her for her own safety. That isn't an issue now. Reigen fiddles.
“... Yeah. Actually. If you don’t mind.”
Serizawa has never hugged anyone before. Even the times when his mother hugged him, she’d always been the instigator, not him. So he isn’t really sure if there’s a right way or a wrong way to do it, or if there’s some kind of ‘etiquette’ he should study beforehand.
But that’s hindsight thinking, because right now he doesn’t think about it, and he yanks Reigen into his arms and embraces him tight. Reigen makes a startled, squeak-like noise, but he returns the gesture and digs his forehead into Serizawa’s shoulder.
There are a lot of things in Spirits and Such.
There’s uncertainty in Spirits and Such. There’s energy in Spirits and Such, woven into its foundation and sparking up from the floorboards. There’s electricity in Spirits and Such. There’s a blazing sense of What’s going to happen today? in Spirits and Such, an anticipation that makes every moment an experience and every day a journey.
But more than that, there’s hope in Spirits and Such. There’s help in Spirits and Such. There’s love in Spirits and Such. The business Reigen built on a whim, the business that’s since become a home for lost people. And maybe Serizawa is thinking too far into it. Maybe he’s putting poetry where logic belongs.
But there is something about Spirits and Such. Something he thought he had with Claw, but didn’t realize how twisted that distortion of it was until he had the real thing.
Acceptance. Love. Friendship.
Serizawa squeezes Reigen tighter.
“Reigen?”
“Yeah?” Reigen’s voice is thick and muffled.
“Promise me one thing.”
“... Okay.”
“Say something.” His voice breaks like ice under hot water, and he buries his face into Reigen’s shoulder too. “Next time. Please. Promise me you’ll say something.”
Reigen takes a breath. It’s shuddering, shaky. He feels the effort behind it.
“Okay.” Voice like a whisper, Reigen hugs him tighter. “Okay, I will. I promise.”
Serizawa doesn’t say anything else.
He hopes Reigen feels the same way. About Spirits and Such. He hopes he feels that same acceptance, that same love, that same friendship.
And if he doesn’t yet, well. Serizawa and the others will keep showing him until he does.