i'm not a child anymore | MOB PSYCHO 100

Chapter 3

Seven years. It could be said as three plus four years. Or maybe 1.75 multiplied by four. You could even go so far as to say 84 months. Or 365 weeks. 2555 days. 61320 hours. In the end, they still meant the same thing. It just sounded a lot less when you said an alternative.

How big was too big of an age gap for relationships? If Mob and Reigen dated four years ago, Shigeo's shishou would be labeled as a pedophile. The same would probably happen now, actually. In a few years though, a seven-year difference wouldn't seem so much anymore.

Mob thought about this at least twice a day. One might see him as obsessed, but another would see him as in love. It just depends on which way they saw him from. Was it the same with age? Was it just a number when both parties were over the age of eighteen? Did it even matter so as long as they were both happy with being in that relationship? Shigeo tried to see it from somebody else's perspective, but no matter who he chose, he always imagined them with a frown. Especially with Ritsu. His little brother would never approve of the possibility of Mob and Reigen-san.

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Mob himself didn't care about what other people thought. Of course, it would be nice to get the approval of friends and family, but it wasn't a necessity. As long as he could hold his shishou in his arms and have his feelings returned, nothing else mattered.

Sometimes, Shigeo wondered if age was even the problem. For the past few years, Reigen had continuously hinted that he only thought of Mob as a son, nothing less, nothing more. It had been clear that Mob should think the same way. Reigen should be nothing more than a mentor figure in his life, perhaps not a father, but definitely not a potential lover. Mob wished reading other people's minds came with his psychic ability. As much as he respected his master's privacy, not knowing how Reigen felt tore him apart from the inside.

Mob sat at his desk, fiddling with a pencil that seemed too small for his hands to properly grip. It was a normal pencil – the type that you had to sharpen when the tip turned dull from usage. Mechanical pencils cost too much to buy once a week when the amount of homework agitated him. Though Shigeo hadn't lost control of his powers for years, small mistakes would occur here and there, from slightly twisted spoons to manual pencils snapped in quarters.

In a week, winter would officially be upon them. After that, a few months would fly by, and Mob would leave for university. Assuming he got into one. Shigeo shuddered to think of what Ritsu would say if none of the schools his older brother applied for accepted him. But that wasn't the point. His parents were insistent that he should go to college far away in order to exercise his independence and self-regulation. Which meant he wouldn't be able to go to Reigen's office after school anymore. The distance was too great, even with the closest school to home that his parents chose for him. Not to mention he would be overloaded with the sheer number of projects and exams.

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"Shige?"

Mob didn't need to glance over his shoulder to know that his little brother was cracking open his door and peaking inside his room. They never kept secrets from each other, but at this, Mob felt oddly compelled to install a lock to his door.

Mob twisted in his chair to face his brother. "What is it, Ritsu?" Mob asked as kindly as he could in the nervous state that he was in. "Is something wrong?"

Ritsu paused, his face scrunching up with an emotion Mob couldn't see properly through the dark. "You shouldn't do all your work in the dark, nii-san," Ritsu said. "You're going to hurt your eyes."

Shigeo raised a hand and gestured faintly at the lamp sitting on his desk. "I do have light. You didn't come here just to remind me to turn on some lights, did you?"