spirits_and_such_offices | Chapter 3: Hunting Season(ing) Part Two

mp_npc posting in

God, was there some planet in retrograde right now? Everything was so…gray. Tome usually would have been able to cite a specific planet but she had been too oddly deflated all day to speculate.

At least she wasn’t the worst one off. No, not by far. That honor went to the pompadour’d thug who did nothing but sulk in the corner of their shared club space now. Her own club mates who were always too scared of him to even approach even tried to offer him one of their honey chip bags out of sheer pity. Tome, usually quite stingy with the resources (especially now they didn’t actually have funding anymore) didn’t even object. ‘How the mighty fall.’

Goda had spent some time trying to cheer Onigawara up. That boy was too nice for his own good. Him AND Kageyama. Tome didn’t know what Goda had been trying, exactly, since she was too engrossed in (or rather numbed by) her video game to listen but she could guess. The Body Improvement Club had one solution for every possible human ailment. It was exactly why she didn’t risk complaining today.

Tome glanced at the clock—it was getting to be that time, wasn’t it? The time where everyone finished their club activities up. Ah. Orwell was calling her name once again.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

spiritsandsuchtrainee

"Are they open this late?"

From:

mp_simplyacommoner

"There are 24/7 laundry services here. The concierge delivers them both ways." Despite Teru's boastful nature, he was fairly matter-of-fact about the luxury amenities he apparently had access to on a whim. Even the fanciful ding! that announced their arrival put on more airs than it's inhabitant.

"Ah, you can have the bedroom." Teru went for his keycard again as they approached his door and he opened it up. The lights turned on for him, illuminating his unit proper. It was clean in a way that looked scarcely lived-in. Again, in spite of it's inhabitant, there was nothing particularly striking about it--at least not more so than anything else in that building.

From:

spiritsandsuchtrainee

"Thanks," Mob said as he took in the sight of Teru's room. It was pretty ordinary. Mob didn't mind it, but it was kind of surprising. Mob took off his dirty shoes and set them outside the door. "Your place is nice."

From:

mp_simplyacommoner

“Thanks.”

Teru raised a hand to float a pamphlet pinned to the tall steely fridge into his hands. He wandered into his bedroom and dug through his drawers.

When he returned, he had a neatly folded pair of pajamas in one arm. The bottoms were a dark green flannel and the top was a long-sleeved pastel print. There was a picture of a cartoon skiing dog on it with English text emblazoned on it.

“Here, you can take a bath and change first. Oh, first, were you feeling pizza or pasta?”

From:

spiritsandsuchtrainee

Mob exchanged the pamphlet for the clothes. "Pizza is fine." He wasn't very picky. That was probably why he and Reigen ate as much ramen and takoyaki as they did.

"I'll be out soon."

It was the truth. Mob scrubbed down as quick as he could, not wanting to keep Teru waiting for long.

"Where should I put my towel?" Mob asked once he emerged. He hadn't had a sleepover that wasn't at his grandparents for many years, but he knew everyone had a different way of doing things. He didn't want to do something wrong, especially since Teru had so generously invited him into his home.

From:

mp_simplyacommoner

Before Mob could say another word, the towel was glowing gold to float from his hands into a closet with a washer and dryer tucked away. And, before Mob could turn around, his school uniform was dancing upwards and tucking itself neatly into a laundry bag.

Mob was his first ever guest and guests didn’t get their fingers dirty, after all.

“The food should be delivered soon. I’ll pass your clothes off to the concierge once I’m out of the shower.” Teru rose from the small dining table and looked Mob up and down. “You know, you look pretty good in green! It’s a hard color to pull off.”

From:

spiritsandsuchtrainee

"Really?" Mob had never considered what kind of clothes he might look good in. He just wore whatever his mom bought him. Maybe he needed to be more conscious of that. "I really like the dog on the shirt."

From:

mp_simplyacommoner

Teru lingered by the other boy as he passed him on his way to the bathroom, his blue eyes going from Mob’s hair to his eyelashes to his cheek. He hummed in complete understanding. “You’ve got a cool undertone. That makes the mint and forest green tones really refreshing on you.”

He thought the dog’s goggles had a similar shape to Mob’s eyes. That boosted its charm.

“You can keep those if you want. I don’t wear them much.”

From:

spiritsandsuchtrainee

"Are you sure?" Mob wasn't sure why Teru was being so nice to him. Especially since Teru had done a lot today to help him and Tome already.

From:

mp_simplyacommoner

“Clothes should go where they look best. Now! Make yourself comfortable.” It sounded less like an invitation and more like a demand as Mob was lifted into the air with the familiar glowing golden energy and floated to the couch. The remote nestled itself into his hand and a striped blanket draped itself over his lap. It didn’t stop there though, with a hot mug of tea, mineral water, and soda arranging themselves on the table before Mob.

“I’ll be right out.”

From:

spiritsandsuchtrainee

Mob did not object, but it was weird seeing another psychic using their powers like that... but then again, Mob hadn't exactly met a lot of psychics before. Until now, it was just him and Reigen, even though he and Tome had spent a lot of time looking for telepaths.

Mob stifled a yawn as he reached for the mug of tea. He was determined to stay awake longer. He reached for the remote and turned on the TV. By the time Teru finally emerged, Mob was engrossed in the tail end of an action movie he started halfway through.

From:

mp_simplyacommoner

Teru straightened his own pajamas as he emerged. He was in a comfortable blue ensemble. There was a massive photo-realistic shark on his top while his bottoms had a comparatively quite cutesy shark pattern across them. He opened his mouth but closed it when he saw Mob swaddled and very absorbed by whatever he had chosen to watch. Teru quietly leaned forward against the back of the couch to observe.

Ah, a superhero one. So, Mob liked those too? They were really popular right now, but Teru usually watched them in the original English audio. This one was dubbed over. Still, the actors didn't do a bad job. The way Thor screamed as Loki fell into the wormhole was pretty convincing.

The doorbell chimed and Teru snapped back to attention to fetch the food and coordinate Mob's clothes with the concierge.

From:

spiritsandsuchtrainee

It was only once the doorbell rang that Mob became aware of the other boy.

"Oh, Teru, you're out."

From:

mp_simplyacommoner

“Were you so entranced by Chris Hemsworth you didn’t notice?” Teru laughed good-naturedly as he floated the box of pizza over to the coffee table.

From:

spiritsandsuchtrainee

"There's something about his eyebrows," Mob said, pointing at the screen when there was a close up.

From:

mp_simplyacommoner

Teru leapt over the back of the couch to take a seat near the other boy and grab his share of pizza. It was his favorite - a speciality bulgogi pizza with the most tender savory beef and he hoped Mob liked it as much as he did.

“His eyebrows?” Teru took the remote to pause on a frame where he could get a better look. “What about them?”

From:

spiritsandsuchtrainee

"They're really light. They're nothing like yours."

From:

mp_simplyacommoner

“Yeah, you’re right. My eyebrows aren’t as cool looking as his.”

From:

spiritsandsuchtrainee

"No, I think they look really good." Mob was utterly sincere in his conviction. "When your hair was longer, it didn't look much different from his, either." Mob had to admit that Chris Hemsworth's hair looked good, too. And his muscles. Mob really would be happy to have muscles like his. Maybe after a few more years with the Body Improvement Club and he'd be able to be as muscular as he was.

From:

mp_simplyacommoner

"Oh, c'mon," Teru waved that off. Sure, he had been compared to a young Leonardo DiCaprio or River Phoenix (both comparisons he never disagreed with) but Chris Hemsworth? He still had a few growth spurts paired with his gym routine to hit before he earned that one. "So...are you saying you liked my hair better before?"

From:

spiritsandsuchtrainee

"I like your hair no matter how you style it." It was really light and really pretty. A lot different from Mob's darker, more ordinary hair.

From:

mp_simplyacommoner

Teru was quiet. He should be saying something in response, right?

Mob was honest. Painfully honest. That was something Teru had to keep learning over and over again and it made his chest ache in a way that obliterated his genuine happiness at his compliment when he suddenly remembered Mob’s horrified expression when the knife went flying back at him during their fight.

’That was the past!’

“S-so, Tome-san.” Teru grabbed another piece of pizza after he mowed through the last one and hoped Mob was polite enough to humor his awkward subject change. “You should definitely make a move. You really impressed her.”