i'm not a child anymore | MOB PSYCHO 100

Chapter 9

Were seven years that big of a gap?

Reigen couldn't sleep. The question kept him up all night. It was ridiculous, really, how much he was considering this. Completely absurd. There was no way, no possible way. But he couldn't help but wonder. Was it that bad? Mob was eighteen. He was twenty-five. If you leaned in close, you could see the difference. But if you looked from afar, you could barely notice it. It was only two years from five years, three from four. Was it okay?

Reigen knew of couples on the internet that had an eleven-year age gaps. Compared to that, seven was nothing. But age was not the biggest problem. A few years back, the year with all the drama with Claw, Mob distanced himself from his sketchy boss. Dimple was right; that shook him up like nothing before. The only way he could get through the weeks was by lying to himself and drinking his troubles away. He had been so close to going back to the drug store and buying a pack of cigarettes. Quite literally. Reigen had spent an entire hour wandering in the shop, walking back and forth across the cigar section. The only reason he resisted was that he almost had another breakdown right there in the aisle, and that was one thing he wasn't going to let the reporters see.

If he got too attached and Mob went away again, his world would never shine again. His day would never appear in color again, because Mob was the only thing that turned everything from black and white to rainbow. His day didn't really start until he saw his student.

God, he was such a hypocrite. Every good entrepreneur knew that depending on somebody else would ultimately be their demise. Don't place your happiness is someone else's hands. That was exactly what he did. Reigen hated losing his grasp on control. Mob was in the driver's seat. Reigen was just praying that when Mob got out of the car, his world wouldn't come to a complete stop. One day, Mob was going to leave him alone in his cramped office and never look back. Serizawa would eventually get a new job, a better one that paid better. Dimple would forget about him. And he would be alone. All alone.

In retrospect, he should have been more careful.

"Don't kill yourself."

"Shut up," Reigen muttered. Then paused. Glanced up in the air and nearly fell off his bed in shock. "D-Dimple!" He yelped. "How the heck did you get in my house?"

"You look like you just saw a ghost," Dimple said.

"I did, technically..."

"I can't believe you can still snap back when you're on the verge of another mental breakdown," Dimple said with a small sigh. "Well, you're Reigen, so what was I expecting?"

Reigen groaned. He rubbed his hands over his face. "What time is it?"

"Almost dawn," Dimple responded. "Don't tell me you spent the entire night staring at the wall." Reigen scowled and Dimple shook his head. "You're not going to lose Mob, okay?" He raised an eyebrow at Reigen's startled expression. "I'm not as dense as Serizawa, you know, I can tell when you're freaking out."

"I'm not," Reigen said defensively. He wasn't about to get any more sleep with the green spirit here, so he dragged himself out of bed and to the bathroom.

"You can't lie to me," the spirit said with a snort. "You know what Mob asked me to do today? He gave me a fucking assignment. The kid wanted me to drag my ass all the way to your little apartment and see if you were sad to see him gone. To see if you would actually make an effort to see him off or if you were going to bitch your way out of trouble again."

Reigen was so surprised that he almost missed the curse words that Dimple spat out. For once, he decided to ignore the misuse of language.

"You should have seen him," Dimple went on. "The kid was going to combust. His brat brother and parents were tiptoeing around him last night like every step was going to set off a bomb. I thought he was going to actually exorcise me with the way he glared. Seriously, his family's gonna have to buy a whole new set of kitchenware."