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[nyndelion]

共感 - empathy -

MP100; Serizawa & Reigen centric fanfic

SFW, general audiences, no pairings, AU

Wordcount: 2058

AO3 link

“Reigen-san… Why don’t you relax and take a break for a bit?”

The blonde looked up from his laptop to the man sitting across the room, feeling his facial muscles stiff and tired, especially around his eyes. “You don’t know how much I literally can Not do that right now without my business to collapse before my very eyes, Serizawa” Even as exhausted as he looked – and sounded -, he still conveyed his words dramatically, punctuating every other expression with his usual wild gestures, achieving to make Serizawa’s mouth corners lift slightly. “This is serious business, after that quite problematic case we had this week, I really got to work my ass off so we don’t get sued, and also I am late with taxes, which is the last thing we need after all that” He returned his eyes to his laptop screen. “Doing taxes correctly could be the sole difference between a running, successful business and a sinking one”.

Serizawa stayed silent, but kept looking at his boss. Reigen’s face was being illuminated by the computer screen, adding a creepier and sick looking glow to it, intensifying by the minute as the sun started to set outside, darkening the already closed Spirits & Such office, where the two men kept working on different kinds of paperwork. He looked down to his hands, fidgeting absentmindedly; Serizawa knew he couldn’t really help his boss with what troubled him right now, given he was extremely inexperienced in all this ‘serious intimidating adult stuff’, as he prefers calling it, and suggested Reigen to take a break in the first place as it was the only thing that he came up with after at least 20 minutes of being the only witness to the greatly unpleasant vibes he was letting swarm all around the office.

The truth no one else knew yet is, after his first encounter with Shigeo Kageyama at the stairs of that building in the center of Seasoning City two and a half months ago, Serizawa got a new power off of Shigeo’s display of empathy towards him when he returned the ball of energy that was tossed at him by accident, resulting in Serizawa to be able to sense other people’s most intense emotions, even if they weren’t ESPers themselves. He was able to sense, and even sometimes clearly see how that intense emotional energy spread in the ambient, and how it interacted with the energy of animals, plants, minerals, and other people.

He had to admit that a couple of weeks after gaining this new ability, and after getting used to it and recognizing the similarities in the more usual emotions and the way different people used to release the analogous energy, it was very useful in everyday life. He could prevent himself from interacting with angry strangers that might lash out on him simply because he wanted to know where the soup aisle was in the convenience store, or be more mindful and kind if interacting with someone that was trying really hard not to let out an especially dreadful sad energy. So yeah, for someone that struggled reading new circumstances and that tends to overanalyze everyday social situations to the verge of anxious breakdowns, it was a very useful tool at trying to be more independent and navigate casual human relationships more confidently.

However, these new ‘empathy powers’ could be perplexing in other circumstances, such as interacting with someone every day. And even more perplexing if that someone was, well… Reigen.

Serizawa wasn’t complaining, not at all, but he also couldn’t really lie to himself about this. If social relationships and being able to ‘read the mood’ successfully were a mystery to him back then in grade school, and even more after being a hikikomori for so long, existing around Reigen and being able to sense his many fluctuating, often contradictory and usually intense emotions without enough verbal correlation that served as an explanation or context for such sudden changes made their time together at the office – that is, while not doing any exorcism job- a hell of a ride for him, as a certified anxious overanalyzer he was.

So, even is this has been a rather calm day at the office and he could finally get some school assignments done before going home, at some point of the evening the dreadful energy emanating from the self-proclaimed Greatest Psychic of the 21st Century started to distract him from his task, and also to slightly upset him. He could sense stress, fear, a little bit of anger, and something else there he couldn’t really place, that he didn’t sense before he tried to talk Reigen into taking a break. It was something bittersweet that seemed almost out of place in the mix, but that was surely filtering all the energy and spreading in every direction, circulating viciously as if made out of thick smoke, hovering the plants that Reigen kept there and tried to take care of, slowly infecting their faint pale green auras.

Serizawa decided he needed to do something, even if it was a small gesture. Now Reigen had started to stamp his feet rhythmically, adding more frustration to the emotional soup, in pumps that mixed extremely well with the prevailing anger, enhancing it. He thought he better change his strategy; he had already tried talking to convince Reigen he needed a break, and he had been around long enough to realize insistence didn’t work well with him, given he could easily turn the tables around in any kind of debate. So he stood up and went to the kitchen.

He started by boiling some water, and reaching out to the assorted tea box from the counter cabinet. He then saw the dark brown box that was hidden behind the other, more colorful one, and remembered the time Reigen told him to keep it a secret from the teenagers that used to frequent the office a couple of days every week, since it was his preferred dark chocolate he kept for special occasions, such as when he had an unusual sweet tooth day. Serizawa connected the dots and realized that the ‘sweet tooth days’ were those when Reigen released more of what seemed sad energy all of a sudden, which perplexed Serizawa because he didn’t have almost anything to work out the reasons that could have triggered those sad emotions waves. He could only guess it seemed to be something unpleasant he saw on his computer.

Suddenly, he thought… maybe that out of place emotion he sensed that beamed from Reigen after he told him to go take a break was sadness? No, it was clearly something else, but it was quite similar. Maybe it was a complex emotion that had sadness into its mix.

By now, the water he put in the electric kettle had finished boiling, so he took the box that was hiding at the end of the counter and proceeded to make some chamomile and honey tea for his boss. He realized the chocolate box was halfway eaten already, and doubted if it was ok to bring it to him all of a sudden, without him asking to… But then he sensed another frustrated / anxious / angry / bittersweet unplaced emotion wave reaching him and he knew it was the right thing to do right now. Didn’t Reigen tell him more than once to trust his inner voice more and make decisions by himself in order to learn how to be a fully functional, contributing member to society? Maybe this was a good way to practice.

After taking the tea mug and the chocolate box in his hands, Serizawa stood in the kitchen for some seconds before going out to the main office room, breathing deeply through his nose a couple of times to relax and think about the exact words he was going to say. This was another technique his boss taught him, originally to be used before talking to customers, and he has been using it to any other occasion that seemed to get him nervous, since now that he didn’t have his umbrella he realized he needed all the help he could get to get a hang of how unpredictable and chaotic adult life could be.

Finally, he could gather himself enough to come out of the kitchen and approach Reigen’s desk determinately. He didn’t seem to realize he was heading to his desk until he was handing him the mug and the chocolate box. New –and old- emotions were now pumping from him, adding to the soup… Surprise, confusion, that bittersweet emotion again. No anger though; good to go, then.

“Hey, Reigen-san, I thought I should bring you something to help you, and given I couldn’t really help directly with the task you were working on, I figured that maybe I could help with the relaxing part a bit… I hope that’s ok” He turned his eyes away from Reigen’s, not being able to maintain eye contact for much longer as he realized the other man’s gaze was getting more intense. He sensed the surprise to give itself way further into the atmosphere, tuning down the more intense stressful emotions, but also giving more space to the bittersweet emotion to intensify. It was a little different than before, though…

“Ah, Serizawa! Did you suddenly become a telepath?” Reigen’s tone of voice and teasing attitude was very off tune with what his emotional energy gave off, as usual. Serizawa got stiff after the last part. “Hey, that was a joke! Everyone knows telepathy is a bunch of bullcrap, remember you don’t have to take everything so seriously” Reigen finally took the mug and chocolate box from his employee’s hands, letting out more of that weird bittersweet emotion as he put the chocolate box in his desk and proceeded to open it. Now that Serizawa was getting more familiarized with this emotion, he could sense it was morphing to something… warmer? “Y’know, I guess it’s time for a well-deserved break… Hmm?” He screened rapidly at Serizawa, “You didn’t make some tea for yourself? Aren’t you taking a break too? It won’t contribute to a good break atmosphere if you just keep stressing over your homework” he stated, matter-of-factly.

“Yes, sir!” Serizawa went back to the kitchen and prepared himself some green tea with mint. When he stepped back in the office he could sense how the energy changed drastically, now everything was tinted with a warm kind of drowsiness, an energy that surely was fainter than the last stress emotion soup they were being affected by, but that was effective enough to almost wipe it out completely, only a vague sense of nervousness and that bittersweet morphed feeling fluttering around. Also now there was a calming classical music video Reigen was playing on his computer, while sitting on one of the armchairs, across the coffee table Serizawa was using as a desk. He was sitting with his legs crossed, fully supporting his back in the armchair, while taking one chocolate square from the open chocolate box that now was placed in the middle of the coffee table. It seemed he was taking this break very seriously.

Serizawa sat across Reigen in the other armchair. The later coughed a couple of times before talking in a nonchalant way, as if sharing a random thought “I just remembered, I read the other day a quote from this very successful businesswoman on FriendBook, that it’s important to remember any time you apparently are getting stuck into a problem that seemed unsolvable to not let it fool you, no problem in life is unsolvable. You just need to take a break, do something that helps you clear your mind, and look at it in another perspective. Y’know Serizawa, that could really help you in your studies if you find yourself in a seemingly dead end. Remember this advice next time you feel like you need to take a break, and let me now, ok? I’ll try to do the same”.

“Yes, that seems very reasonable” Serizawa held his mug with both hands, staring down at his tea with a soft smile in his mouth, feeling the much calmer atmosphere that surrounded his boss, and realizing the new warm feeling that emanated from him could be placed as gratitude. His new Reigen-convincing technique was officially a hit.

#mp100 #mob psycho 100 #fanfic #serizawa #reigen #serizawa katsuya #reigen arataka #mp100 fanfic #not serirei per se but can be read as pre-serirei #empath!Serizawa #nyn.doc #pls give me feedback if u can!