An Aside: Mobile Gaming

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

They had hit a lull and Mob was fussing.

Of course it didn’t look like fussing to anyone else, but Reigen was fine-tuned to Mob’s nearly-invisible displays of emotion. A tiny line on his forehead or by his mouth conveyed deep befuddlement, and all of it was aimed at his phone which he hadn’t put down for the last fifteen minutes.

Reigen would have ordinarily been inclined to have him do something more useful with himself, but this was unusual enough that he gave it a few more minutes of observation, glancing up from behind his screen, before saying something.

“Is your phone on the fritz or something?” ’Please say no.’

Comments

[mp_npc]

Before Kasa could say anything, Chōchin yawned a great exhale of smoke. "It's for the best..."

"Seriously!?"

"Yeah. There's no place for us in society. Think about it...we can't even thrive around electricity. What would eating some kid's energy do but buy us a little more time to wither away?"

As Kasa spluttered, Morinji returned to the tea room with a cup in her small hands. "Now, now. No matter how great our troubles are, we shall never trouble our guests." She tipped herself over to pour Mob a steaming cup of...something that smelled vaguely herbal-y.

"You say that, but when he ran off months ago, he's seemed pretty lively--"

"We won't speak of him in front of our honored guest." Morinji's tinny voice cut straight through Kasa's retort. "He can't trouble anyone as long as they're in these walls, and he shan't."

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"Who are you talking about?" Mob took the drink in hand and bowed his head thankfully at Morinji.

[mp_npc]

Morinji looked reticent to answer (or as much as a possessed teapot could) before a harsh clattering sounded outside and shook the walls. Morinji looked aghast, but Chochin grumbled before she could get too antsy.

“Ain’t Biwa. That’s something else.”

“—igeo-kun!” A man barked over the howling wind from outside the house.

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"Oh, Master Reigen." Mob set his cup down before even taking a sip and headed in the direction of his teacher's voice.

"I'm in here," Mob called back. He didn't yell, just spoke in a louder-than-usual voice.

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

Reigen didn’t call back so much as he hacked and wheezed and he didn’t run so much as he stumbled and clawed the window open.

“WHAT THE HEL—WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?” He yelled from across the tea room, still being absolutely battered by branches outside.

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"I've been here, with the spirits," Mob answered simply. "I thought when you went to find the spirits you'd find me, too."

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

Reigen felt his face get hot. "I told you to stay right where you were!"

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"But I got pulled away," Mob explained, expecting Reigen to understand he was speaking quite literally.

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

“Just stay put!” Reigen slammed the old window shut - something he would have never dreamt of doing, especially not to a clients window where he was risking property damage - and dragged himself towards the entrance.

“Are you sure that’s not your dad? You both look exactly the same tw me…” Kasa scratched his brim.

“Oh, dear. He was crying for sure.” Morinji’s fish-shaped lid for a face looked genuinely concerned.

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"No, my dad is a lot more strict," Mob said. True to what Morinji said, Reigen did indeed look like he was crying. Mob appreciated that they pointed it out.

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

Reigen opened the entry doors wide and took a deep breath. He dutifully removed his muddy shoes and his coat and hung it up. He walked into the tea room, surrounded by spirits he could see, but he paid them no mind. A sentient tatami mat unfurled for him and he sat down directly across from his tiny employee.

“Shigeo-kun. We need to discuss something very important.” Morinji fetched a cup for him in record time and filled it with the hot herbal tea. He warmed his hand with it.

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"Sure," Mob said passively, taking a drink from his own cup.

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

Reigen sniffed a little more loudly than intended. "It's really important that you stay by my side at all times during jobs. It's dangerous if we're not together."

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"Yeah, but after I got pulled away, I thought it'd be safer for me to stay in one place."

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

"And you were right to do that. But you need to get comfortable with taking action and making yourself conspicuous." Reigen sniffed again. "Not that I need you too, I would have found you by your, uh, aura soon enough. But not everyone is as spiritually attuned as me, so if it were anyone else, it could have been really bad."

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

Mob absorbed Reigen's lesson completely, and for a moment, appeared to consider it.

"Maybe it would help if I had a phone."

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

A phone? The thought hadn't crossed Reigen's mind until the kid's suggestion.

"Oh, crap," Reigen muttered under his breath, suddenly digging into his pocket for his own phone. He had gotten so soaked through and had tripped at least a dozen times in his mad scramble to find Shigeo that he realized he didn't even know if he still had it--or if it still worked if he did. Reigen closed his fingers around it and flipped it open. The screen still lit up just as it always did. He breathed a deep sigh of relief when--

Kreeeeeeeee!

A sharp whine that was eerily human but not at all human hit his ears and he covered one. Every tsukumogami fled, even the mat under his knees, though it had to worm painfully to do it. The lantern lights flickered in panic. Reigen looked around in surprise, as if he had only just realized they had all been there all along.

Morinji tipped over, spilling what was left of her tea everywhere, the etched featuers of her face twisting in pain. "Ooouuuu...take it away...!"

"Wha--hey!" Before he could even process what was happening, Reigen's phone was being wrenched out of his hand by a freakishly quick one-legged umbrella and being tossed out of the window in short order.

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

Mob watched passively as the phone flew out of the window and landed on the ground outside. His gaze slowly turned back to his distressed employer, who he regarded with the same neutral countenance.

"I think they can't be around technology," Mob offered helpfully.

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

There were times Reigen wanted to grab the boy’s round cheeks with both hands and just squeeze. This was one of them.

“Kasa…! Don’t…treat the guest…in such a way.”

“Mori-chan! Seriously…!?” The umbrella ghost wilted. “I was just tryin’ to look out for us! Besides, this ugly jerk is here to exorcize us!”

“Okay, okay.” Reigen cleared his throat. Out of every indignity that had happened, going after his handsome self was too far. “Exorcism is a strong word.”

“The hell would you call it then, huh?”

“We’re here to soothe.” Reigen raised his hands—even if these spirits seemed weak, there was still a real risk to them and all of their clients property if he couldn’t bring this situation back under control.

Besides, the kid was watching, too.

The crotchety umbrella seemed skeptical but he wasn’t making any sudden moves. Reigen got up and righted the teapot that had tipped over. “Shigeo-kun, were you treated kindly here?”

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

Mob answered without hesitation. "Yeah, they've all been really nice to me."

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

“Except for the kidnapping,” Chochin yawned.

Kasa winced with his enormous single eye. After a long pause, he knelt on his single knee. “I’m terribly sorry. I won’t be doin’ it again.”

“Well, I’m grateful you kept my student safe at any rate.” Reigen’s hand made a series of snappy flourishes to gesture out the window. “I will be needing that phone before it gets completely soaked through, though. If I turn it off before coming back in, will that be fine?”

“Y-yeah, probably…” Kasa watched him leave—suddenly struck with a sudden sense of alarm as he exited. The rest of his fellow spirits felt it too and he frantically tried to spring after him. “W-wait, don’t go out there! It ain’t safe—!”

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

It was only then that Mob felt it -- a very powerful spirit. He was sure Reigen would feel it himself, but he couldn't stop him from calling out his master's name anyway.

"Master Reigen! You shouldn't go out there!"

No matter how strong his master was, he couldn't do this unprepared.

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

Reigen moved with haste—he’d be lucky if the damn thing still worked at this point, never mind the time it’d probably take to dig through the mud and bamboo for it. Luckily he was quick to spot it, its black frame standing out clearly where it had landed on a strip of white cloth. He closed the distance as fast as the thick mud would let him and picked it up. It greeted him with a familiar chime and he sighed in relief. When this was all over he was putting both it and Shigeo on a leash. Never again.

Then, the cloth shifted. Reigen blinked water out of his eyes. It was getting taller, far taller than him—and suddenly it was encircling him. His yelp of shock was muffled as it tightened its grip on him and there were hands on his head and on his back—!?

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

Mob's trademark shield formed a dome around Reigen; it couldn't block the spirit from completely swallowing the half-orb around him, but it did rip the entrenching arms away from his head and back.

"Who is this?" Mob shouted out. He was outside now, his hands thrust out in front of him.

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

Reigen gracelessly fell onto his back with a splat into the mud after the tall whatever it was forcibly released him. If nothing else he didn't fall onto his phone. There was a sour and spoilt smell clinging to him now and Reigen recognized it at once--

'...Booze?'

There was a sniff. Then, there was growling--no, crying--no, blubbering. Reigen wiped at his eyes to finally see what had grabbed him. A towering man with an instrument for a head was trying to feebly reach for him. 'A biwa.' He spared a thought for the traditional music classes he took in middle school. It's face was twisted with inelegant sobbing and when it wiped at it's face it's cries distorted with a harsh twang as it plucked itself.

"A-A nice group of guys...a nice group of guys showed up...!"