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When Dimple was in his typical spirits--no pun intended--Reigen could at least keep up a rapport, however snappish. But Dimple hadn’t been himself lately, and nobody quite knew what to do with that.
Serizawa was getting through to him best, if at all. Still, it wasn’t easy to call half-hearted hums of acknowledgement from the window sill across the room a triumph, especially when the spirit was usually so uncharacteristically kind, so peppy with the agency’s newest employee. It made it all the worse that Serizawa had gotten particularly busy with high school-level tutoring courses now that the summer was officially upon them; in his absence, Dimple clearly saw little reason to speak to anybody unless otherwise spoken to.
Wasn’t that strange? Usually Dimple couldn’t be silenced if you begged him on your knees--and Reigen had come close.
Nobody took these developments harder than Mob. The spirit had only been back in their company for a few weeks now. At first, everything had seemed so bright--for as much as Mob’s heart was broken, he had his dear incorporeal companion back, and Dimple seemed equally ecstatic at his own return.
To the point that, for a time, he was even nice to Reigen . Beyond that first possession, beyond the soft hours spent consoling a crying fourteen year-old. They spent free hours together, laughed at one another’s silly jokes. It was as if none of that had ever happened now.
Mob got fidgety watching Dimple simply stare out the office window in silence each day, seemingly unaware of most clients, the summer heat, or Reigen’s occasional panics at insects who had made their way in. One Friday in mid-June, while passing by Reigen’s desk on the way to the restroom, he slipped his master a note.
I’m worried about Dimple and I think something’s bothering him Master.
That was all it said.
When the boy reappeared a moment later, Reigen passed the paper back.
i’m starting to get a little worried myself. have you talked to him?
This time, the note got floated over in a petite bubble of psychic energy.
No I don’t think he’d apreciate that. He was so happy the first two weeks he was home and now I don’t know what to do. You know about this kind of thing so I think maybe you could help.
The little bastard was charging him with--what, impromptu therapy? He wasn’t wrong ; Reigen liked to think he had some capability when it came to advice. Comfort, at the very least. But Dimple was a whole ‘nother animal. It was unlikely he’d touch the chance to spill his guts to Reigen with a ten foot pole.
In response to the boy’s request, Reigen shot Mob a pleading look. Mob merely stared blankly back.
Exasperated, Reigen began scribbling a reply--
as if he’d listen t
--but he never got to finish, because the piece of notebook paper had been deftly snatched from his fingers by a speedy green hand.
“Give that back,” Reigen spat, scowling up at Dimple where he hung plainly in the air beside him.
“Passing notes in class, eh?” The spirit clucked his tongue. “I thought better of you, Shigeo. Reigen, on the other hand… well.”
“Don’t read that,” Mob said, voice so frighteningly even it sent a shiver up Reigen’s spine. “You won’t like it.”
Dimple stared at him with an expression of bemusement, if a bit of horror. Without breaking his gaze, his little fingers unfolded the paper, and he murmured “well, now I’ve got to know what you two are in cahoots about over here. You planning my birthday party?” before glancing coolly down at the paper.
So naturally, his expression fell from smugness to some kind of aloof disgust.
“I warned you,” Mob muttered.
Reigen let out a sigh. “Dimple, it’s just--”
“I’m glad psychoanalysis of the resident ghost has become such a popular staff pastime,” Dimple practically purred. Just like that, his face was pulled in an indignant sneer. “You’re a hypocrite, Shigeo. And you--” here the spirit’s eyes flicked icily down to Reigen, nothing but loathing clear in their shiny black--“you’re still nothing more than a fraud. Don’t pretend you know any more about the inner workings of people’s heads than you do the supernatural.”
The note disappeared in a lick of green flame in Dimple’s palm, and then the spirit phased calmly through the window, disappeared into the blue summer sky beyond.
When he was gone, Reigen sighed again. “He’s certainly got something going on up in that crabby little brain of his. What do you want to--”
Mob’s eyes, full of angry tears, silenced Reigen where he stood.
“Mob,” he murmured.
“I don’t understand. He was being so nice a few days ago. Acting like he really was happy to be back.” The boy’s hands were clenched in furious fists atop his reception desk. “If he’s decided he’s mad at me, he should just say so.”
“Mob, I promise it’s got nothing to do with you. We both know him well enough to be sure of that.” Reigen rested his head in his hand, scratched fingers lazily through his bangs. “We’ll get to the bottom of it. He has to know acting like this isn’t right, no matter what’s ailing him.”
--
Agreements were made. Updates were given, late at night by way of hasty texts.
SK [Sent 11:48pm]: He was waiting here when I got home.
Reigen was relieved, but not surprised. Where else would Dimple have gone?
AR [Sent 11:51pm]: good. we’re gonna get this figured out, mob. now go to bed!
SK [Sent 11:52pm]: Okay thank you Master. Good night
When morning came, muggy and gray, Reigen and Mob made their utmost efforts to keep as close to routine as possible. Serizawa had the day off--and, as such, Dimple was silent. Exorcisms both real and staged, a calm lunch hour over takoyaki, adjustments to the Spirits & Such website, the occasional labored joke on Reigen’s end. It was all uncomfortably strained, but Dimple, still and silent at his place overlooking the street below, didn’t seem to notice.
He didn’t acknowledge it, at least. That got Reigen wondering what had overcome him to swing by and snoop on his coworkers' chicken scratch conversation the previous day--a fluke episode of sociability, perhaps? Reigen kicked himself for botching it, silently. Maybe they’d only prolonged the ghost’s nasty mood by talking about him behind his back.
Five o’clock came, miraculously. While Mob was pushing in his chair and heading for the door--and Dimple righting himself to follow--Reigen cleared his throat.
“Dimple, you don’t mind staying a bit, do you? I’ve got a sneaking suspicion my six o’clock’s the real deal, and I don’t want to keep Mob.”
The spirit rolled his eyes. “We wouldn’t want you getting stuck between a rock and a hard place as per usual, would we? Fine.”
“Thank you, Dimple,” Mob murmured. His genuine smile seemed to throw the spirit for a loop, and he huffed, went back to his place by the window.
“Yeah, yeah.” The ghost let out a little cough. “Get home safe.”
“I will.”
And then Mob was gone.
Reigen stood from his seat, strode slowly back to the drawn shutters and picture plexi that shone down in the evening’s uninspiring light. At the very least, these clouds would make for an excellent sunset.
“Strike a deal with me, Dimple,” Reigen finally said, voice soft and measured.
The spirit gave him a skeptical look.
“Give me something worthwhile I can pass on to Mob,” he continued, “and we’ll both get off your ass for good.”
Dimple actually snickered at that, pulling himself up into a float by the conman’s shoulder. “Boy, you two are a riot. Worried I’m contemplating offing myself, spending all my time staring out the fourth floor window?”
Reigen shot Dimple a shocked glare. “You’re not doing much for your case joking about that.”
Dimple met his eyes with contempt.
“I suppose you don’t have a six o’clock at all,” the spirit said.
“Mob flipped the sign on his way out.”
Dimple opened his mouth to rant, rave, something along those lines if the anger in his eyes was any indication. Reigen cut him off before he could.
“I won’t say you’re not on my mind, Dimple. But it’s Mob I’m considering here. I don’t make a point of getting in acquaintances’ personal business--if you convince me you’re fine, I’ll take it for his sake.”
“That’s a surprise.”
“The kid’s worried about you.” Reigen narrowed his eyes down in the direction of the sidewalk beneath them. “That won’t stop anytime soon.”
Dimple sighed. “He left us together so you could pull out your pipe and fainting couch for me, then. It’s very sweet that you’re willing to spend your precious conning time on a ghost, Reigen, but if you think I’m about to blubber to you about my failing mental wellbeing, you’re out of your fucking mind.”
“I guess I expected that.” Reigen unbuttoned his jacket, threw it over one shoulder. He turned to the spirit, who met his gaze with more than a little wariness. “The point still stands, though. The sooner I get something I can pass on to Mob, the sooner this is all over and done with.”
Dimple looked, briefly, as if he were ready to fight even harder--but then he wilted, eyes rolled up to the ceiling. “Ask away, Doc’.”
“Are you angry at Mob?”
This caught Dimple off guard. “Of course not.”
“He thinks this is on him. Probably somewhere in the developing mindset that you’ve decided he was, in fact, to blame for your death in the Divine Tree.”
“Stupid kid,” Dimple whispered. “You tell him that couldn’t be further from the truth, alright? Are we done here?”
“Oh, I’m gonna need a little more than that,” Reigen scoffed. “Is it me? Serizawa?”
“No, and no.”
“Are you happy?”
Again, Reigen had managed to trip the spirit up. He hesitated before replying: “Have you ever known me to be?”
“Yes.” The conman’s voice verged on a plea. “You can’t tell me you weren’t happy the night we all went out to dinner after the press conference. Those afternoons we spent running around town training for Mob’s marathon. I know a you that’s happy exists , Dimple; don’t try to tell me he doesn’t. I just want to know why he’s so damn hard to reach.”
“Well, when you find out, give me a ring,” Dimple murmured, snide.
Reigen stared at him for a moment.
“Mob and I couldn’t help noticing your change in demeanor this past week,” he carried on quietly. “You seemed so happy when you first got back. It was--it was awesome. Do you need to hear that? Did you think it didn’t make a difference to us?”
“It’s not that.”
“It was too much, wasn’t it?”
Dimple frowned, turned slowly to meet Reigen’s eyes. “What was too much?”
“Feeling.” Reigen’s calculating gaze narrowed; in his mind, pieces had begun to stick together. Dimple could only spend so long in a moment of peace before growing restless, wishing for hypothetical rain. Creating it himself. “And when the joy of being back slowed just slightly, you plummeted.”
Dimple’s brows furrowed.
“What could somebody else do to help you when you can’t even put a name to your own sadness?”
“ Sadness ,” Dimple mocked him, briefly impressed expression souring at light speed.
Reigen said nothing. He only nodded.
Dimple turned back to the window. He’d taken on a pallor that aged him, somehow. Made his ethereal, sea-green face look minutely more human. “Maybe this wasn’t such a waste of time. At least now I know what I can do to kick myself back into place amongst all of you.”
Reigen still didn’t speak.
“I think you might be right, Reigen.” The spirit cracked a strange, slow smile. “There’s something kind of addicting about throwing yourself wholeheartedly into feeling like a human being. But I’ve had my fun. Broke the damn machine in my fervor.”
The spirit held up a hand to his face, clenched it into a tiny fist. Just as easily, it opened once more.
“All I’ve got anymore is this stupid fucking melancholy. I’m sick of feeling sad. I’ve got to go back to nothing at all, hard as that may turn out to be.” Dimple turned to shoot the conman a smile. “I’ll be damned. You’re a good therapist.”
“Why go back to nothing?” Reigen asked incredulously. “You said it yourself, Dimple. You were happy. Why not work to find that again?”
Dimple’s smile faltered microscopically.
“That seems like a bit of a stretch.”
“Why?” Reigen knew he was beginning to sound desperate. “Don’t you think you deserve that, at the very least, after all this--this nothing?”
“No.”
Reigen gaped. Dimple’s voice had never sounded more honest, more untainted by irony, than it did in this moment.
“No? What the fuck do you mean no? What the hell was all the God stuff for, if not that? ”
“Be serious, Reigen. I’m much less an individual than I am--I don’t know, some minute force of nature.” Dimple shrugged. “The world is full of evil. I still exist in a semi-corporeal form because I contributed to it in life somehow, and I’m meant to keep doing so in death. Evil spirits aren’t happy. Gods certainly aren’t happy. We’re alike in that we can be satiated, and that’s about it.”
Reigen didn’t know what to do with that, so for the time being, he left it.
“You believe in God, then. Gods. Something of that nature.”
Dimple pushed a fist lazily against one of his rosy cheeks, grinning. “I myself am evidence of life after death. I know Paradise exists--or some kind of reincarnation, maybe; I can’t be sure--because I’ve witnessed living beings die and not manifest as earthbound spirits. I wouldn’t call myself atheistic, no.”
“Do you believe in purpose?” Reigen carried on. “Fate?”
“What a fun question,” Dimple wondered, voice dripping once more with indecipherable sarcasm. “Yes and no. I have trouble believing whatever clumsy divine hand that made life and death the blurred way they are had the foresight to put such systems in place, but on the other hand… well, why would I be here now if not to come back and rescue your sorry behind?”
Reigen decided to try a new approach. He turned away from Dimple, fixed his attention solely out the window.
Silence followed. And then success.
“That’s part of what I’m having so much trouble with,” the spirit continued in a low voice. “I can’t help feeling I wasn’t really supposed to survive the Divine Tree,”
“Mob would have killed me in a blind rage,” Reigen murmured. “You saved my life, Dimple. Sure, chance brought you back--some kind of divinity, maybe, if you’re into that sort of thing--but you didn’t have to find me. You didn’t have to carry me back into the storm to stop Mob. Those were choices you made.”
Dimple stared at him. Reigen avoided his gaze as best he could.
“Hey, I’ve gotta keep you off my turf in the world of the beyond as long as possible, haven’t I?”
Reigen didn’t know how to respond to that, so he stayed quiet.
“We’ve strayed pretty far from therapy talk,” Dimple went on, hesitant. “Where are you trying to go with this, Reigen?”
Reigen took a deep breath.
“I’m trying to find a way to tell you in terms you’ll understand that I don’t see you as some minute force of nature. I do see you as an individual. I see you as a person. Mob and Serizawa, too. Shit, Dimple, I’d bet money nine out of every ten people you’ve ever met would call me batshit if I referred to you as a force of goddamn nature. And to say you don’t deserve happiness is depriving yourself of a basic right.” Finally, Reigen let their eyes meet once more. “I’m trying to find a way to get you to take this seriously. To take me seriously. I let Mob assign me this job when I thought you were worked up over some petty grievance, Dimple. But what you’re feeling, the way you’ve let yourself learn to process it—they’re not just brief faltering. They’re not just a few bad days in a row.”
Dimple was, for the first time over the course of this conversation, speechless.
“I think you’re depressed.”
Dimple actually laughed at that—short, shocked, and cruel. “Heavens, I’ve been dying for a fucking prognosis. What are you gonna do, put me on Prozac?”
“Are you telling me you knew?” Reigen’s nose wrinkled.
“Did I manage to put together, in some abstract sense, that I’ve been doomed to an unshakeable shit mood? Yeah. Yeah, I knew.” Dimple’s expression went cold. “But what good does that do me? I don’t have a human metabolism. Hell, I don’t even have the brain chemistry necessary to solidly explain why I ended up the way I did. You’re about to ask me why I never told anybody, and this right here is exactly what would’ve happened. We’d hit a wall. We’d realize that, nice as it may be to put a name to things for the sake of our own comfort, there’s not much modern medicine can do for a dead guy.”
“Fuck Prozac, Dimple; at the very least, this should give you some kind of reason you’re stuck thinking the way you do. I mean, shit; yeah, I can’t attest to literal chemical imbalances that leave you feeling like you don’t deserve happiness, but from what I’ve seen of your penchant for the--the replication of biological processes--” Reigen stopped, forced himself to breathe. “You don’t have to punish yourself just because some fundamental part of your mind is rigged to work against you. And believe you me: shutting out your feelings altogether is only gonna feed it.”
Dimple didn’t seem to know what to say to any of that. For a second, he looked awfully sad.
“I’m sorry,” Reigen uttered. “I’m sorry none of us saw until now, and that you didn’t have the language to tell us.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Dimple croaked. “I want your pity just as little as I want to hear what I do and don’t deserve. All that matters is what I have, and if that’s nothing, so be it.” The spirit’s voice dropped low as he scowled past the glass. “If I was brought back to have nothing--”
“You have people who missed you when you were gone,” Reigen hissed incredulously. “You have friends who feel empathy for you, Dimple, whether or not you notice. I wouldn’t call us the best of friends, but it sure as shit doesn’t feel good watching you stare out this goddamn window all day looking like you’re the loneliest person in the world. You have Shigeo, you have Serizawa, and whether you like it or not, you have me.”
“And what then?” The spirit’s tone was blank, even. “All I ever wanted was a friend or two, and I got them. What am I supposed to do next?”
Despite himself, Reigen smirked. “You wish it were that easy. Friendship isn’t a game of collection, Dimple; it’s kind of an ongoing process. And as of yet, you’ve given us about two weeks’ worth before seemingly revoking the invitation.”
Dimple frowned. “That’s not what happened.”
“Mob sure seems to think so.” Reigen’s voice softened, if minutely. “I know being where you are can make you do and say things you don’t mean. I know , Dimple; I promise I do. Getting over the hump of aversion to honesty is so worth the effort. It sucks, but it still sucks so much less than trying to put up a front for the rest of your afterlife.”
Dimple opened his mouth to carry on snidely retorting, but then he stopped, shut it again. After a long moment’s pause: “What would you have me do, then?”
“Say what you mean.” Reigen turned back to the window. “I’ll look away. Turn my back to you, if you want.”
Briefly, the spirit scanned his companion, then nodded. Reigen turned to face the office door.
“Having one word to put to my fucked up head doesn’t do me much good.” Dimple’s tone was cool, quiet. “I feel like all I’ve got in me anymore is, like… rocks. Lead, maybe. I’ve got no fucking clue what to do about that. I can’t tell you anything I mean, Reigen, not without tearing myself up from the inside out. Is all that satisfactory?”
Reigen had his eyes shut; he’d listened to every syllable the spirit spoke, played them back again in his head.
“I know how you feel,” he said carefully. “There’s so much I wish I could relay to you, but I don’t know if I could do so… out loud, if you know what I mean.”
Behind his back, silence.
“If I do know what you mean--you’ve gotten much too cozy with the idea of possession for your own good.”
“Pretty scary opening yourself up so wholeheartedly, isn’t it?” Reigen agreed. “Come on. I think I can offer at least a little guidance.”
He held out an open hand behind him. It took at least a full minute to feel the soft, minute touch of Dimple’s fingertips against his palm before he phased in entirely, filling Reigen’s head and heart and nerves.
The tears came quicker than Reigen had expected, admittedly.
Dimple was shocked. He pressed two fingers up beneath one blurred eye, felt saltwater wet their whorled pads. “Why are--what did you do?” he asked.
I made an educated assumption, Reigen replied simply. Maybe a spirit’s tear ducts aren’t as volatile as a human’s; maybe they’re on equal footing. But I can, at the very least, guarantee that mine’ll act up at the first sign of collapse. Seems all I’ve been doing these days is crying over what happened between us and Mob last month.
Dimple’s breath had grown quick and uneven in Reigen’s lungs. He swiped furiously at their eyes, pushing tears away with palms, trembling wrists. “I won’t do this. Not here. Not with you.”
When Reigen felt a burning pull from within, he wrapped his arms around himself, clenched his eyes shut, pressed his forehead against the window pane to hold the possession fast. I know it doesn’t feel good, but you have to feel it. You have to understand you’re not doomed to deal with this alone.
“I don’t have to do anything,” the spirit babbled, face wet with tears and snot and spit. “Let me go. I don’t have to. I don’t have to. I hate you, Reigen, I can’t--I-I can’t--”
Slowly, Reigen let his hands drop to rest against the glass.
“I can’t stand you. I don’t want this.” And with that, the spirit let out a great, gasping cry, head pushing so hard against the glass Reigen briefly feared it might crack. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to keep finding ways to justify my own existence to myself. I’m scared I’ll stop wanting it altogether. I’m so fucking scared.”
They sank to their knees, head hitting and remaining against the sill.
“All I’ve ever had is this fucking drive to--keep living, and it’s going away. Every day, it gets smaller and smaller. I don’t--I don’t know what’s gonna happen to me when I lose that. I don’t want to end up wishing my life was over when I’ve been forced to stick it through. I’m so scared.”
For a moment, the spirit was overcome, hyperventilating in a desperate attempt to quell the raspy wails that fought their way forth.
“I’m just so tired,” he sobbed. “I’m so tired of living. But I don’t know what else I’d do.”
They sank further, eventually curled up in a pathetic ball against the wall, half-tucked beneath Reigen’s desk chair.
I know it feels like it’ll be this way forever, Reigen whispered. It won’t. I promise it won’t. You should know better than anybody depressive lows only ever rebound back to highs.
“And how do I guarantee I’ll have had more of the latter by the end of it all? That it’ll have been worth the time?”
Without the benefit of meds? You fucking fight. You take stock of every goddamn weapon you have against these spirals, and you fight ‘em with every fucking fiber of your being. And when you can’t do that anymore--
The office door peeled open.
“Sorry, Master, I think I forgot my--”
Mob stopped and blinked around the empty office. At the first sound of their shaky breath, he hurried over to the backside of the desk, looked down to find the duo utterly helpless in a veritable pool of their own tears.
“Master,” Mob uttered fearfully. Then he knelt, noticed the change. “No, I--that isn’t you, is it?”
“I’m sorry I called you a hypocrite,” Dimple whispered.
“Dimple.” The boy’s hands smacked down flat against both of his rosy cheeks, clapped on firmly. His own eyes were shiny with unshed tears, but his face stayed stern. “Friends don’t keep things from each other. If you’re sad, you have to tell me. You have to tell me or I can’t even do anything to help you, and friends are supposed to help one another.”
The spirit merely lurched forward, face landing against the boy’s shirt, arms wrapping tight around his shoulders and torso. In turn, Mob let himself scoot closer, his own arms coming to land behind Reigen’s back.
“I’m sorry, Shigeo; I’m s-so sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Calmly, Mob leaned forward to let his cheek rest in Reigen’s hair. “I’m not angry at you, Dimple. I just wish there was something I could do to make you feel better.”
“That shouldn’t be your responsibility,” the spirit croaked.
“It’s not my responsibility, but I think it’s right. If I were sad, you wouldn’t just leave me alone and hope it went away, would you?”
“No. N-no, Shigeo, of course not.”
“So I won’t do that to you.”
The spirit went on weeping against their charge’s chest, breathing speaky and erratic as he struggled to control it. Eventually it hastened to gaspy hyperventilations; without breaking his relaxed demeanor, Mob murmured, “Master Reigen, can you hear me in there?”
“He--h-h-he can.”
“Help Dimple with his breathing.”
The boy never got a confirmation that his master had heard beyond the eventual slowing of Dimple’s sobs. He quieted, though his grasp around the back of Mob’s shirt grew tighter.
Internally, Reigen spoke up again.
When you can’t fight anymore, he carried on, picking up where he’d left off before Mob’s arrival, come to us, and we’ll fight for you.
Dimple didn’t reply. He only pressed them deeper into Mob’s embrace. Silently, Reigen thanked his lucky stars Mob was in one of his rare moods for physical affection; usually he avoided hugs, held hands, general touching.
Still, they lasted a long while like that. Eventually Mob would take Reigen and Dimple by the shoulders and gently ease them away, and after even more time (well past Mob’s second and final departure), Dimple would pull himself from Reigen’s body. His little green face would be perfectly dry, but you couldn’t mistake the exhaustion painting it, the sort of hot-cheeked, swollen youthfulness that came of so much crying.
“Sorry I tricked you into bawling your eyes out,” Reigen would murmur, pulling a tissue from the box on the desk and dabbing at his eyes.
“That’s okay,” Dimple would mutter back. “Sorry I was all… defensive. And mean.”
Reigen would shrug. “It happens. Sometimes you’ve just gotta open the floodgates.”
And then Dimple only would nod, numb.
But before all that, before the inevitable parting, they reveled in the strange, unfamiliar warmth of Mob’s utter calm and comfort. Dimple didn’t seem fazed by the feeling, but Reigen had never known Mob as this worldly presence; the boy was so gentle--that wasn’t surprising--and at ease.
Dimple hiccuped. “I’m sorry I never told you, Shigeo,” he whispered, nearly unintelligible. “I just--didn’t know how.”
“I understand,” Shigeo murmured back.
Neither Reigen nor Dimple doubted that.