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Reverie - Chapter 2

There’s a cactus sitting at his door.

Reigen stares at it with a blank, unblinking stare. He tries to think of how it got there, and why it’s there in the first place. He entertains the idea that it’s a gift for him and immediately finds every actual reason why that makes no sense.

He has no idea why it’s there.

He does the next logical-seeming thing and walks down the stairs to the street. There are a few people walking around, but none look familiar or seem to be in a giving-cacti-to-strangers mood.

“Excuse me?”

Reigen twitches, turning to the woman standing next to him. He decides today is just an odd day. “Yes? What is it?”

The woman fidgets with her purse strap, glancing to the stairs of his office. “I’d like to go inside, if you don’t mind.”

It takes Reigen a moment to realize the impossible fact of oh, she’s a client, and he immediately puts on the brightest smile he can muster. “Ah, of course! Please, come in, I was—I was just about to open up, actually. Just getting a bit of fresh air before starting the day.”

She blinks at him.

A little rusty I guess, Reigen thinks, turning to walk up the steps with a small shake of his head. He hears her footsteps echo his. He thinks over the fact that he actually feels a little nervous about his first client for this business.

I’ll get the hang of it soon. After this job. Right now. I’m good at dealing with people, damn it, he thinks a touch mulishly.

When he reaches his door, he shoves his hand into his pocket to fish out his keys. The lock clicks easily and, after a moment of indecision, Reigen leans down to grab the cactus sitting at his feet.

The client peers around his shoulder. “Is that yours?”

“Oh, you know, it’s—it’s a gift from a grateful client.” Reigen opens the door and leads her inside, waving his hand in the air in some vague gestures. “I’m not open seven days a week and some of my clients are busy, so they just leave gifts out here for me to find when I come in. You know. In gratitude. They’re very grateful, you know.”

He quietly acknowledges that that is the biggest load of bullshit he has spoken in a while.

Reigen leads her to his desk, placing the cactus on the corner to be a problem dealt with later. He highly doubts he has a secret admirer, and random misplaced gifts in front of working establishments are just as unlikely, but—again, later.

He sits down in his chair and interlaces his fingers with a smile. “So what seems to be the problem?”

Reigen strolls into the shop with a casual gait as the small bell on the door gives a light chime.

He glances around and sees his target at the cash register, staring wide-eyed, and makes his way over with a small wave.

“Hey! You aren’t giving your business fraud smile today … Jirou.”

The florist narrows his eyes as he self-consciously adjusts the name tag pinned to his apron. “This is an honest business.”

Reigen smiles. “Of course, of course, I run my own on the straight and narrow. What’s a bit of a business transaction between two businessmen?”

“I was scammed.”

“You’re the one that was weirdly insistent about me looking around and buying that ivy horror show,” Reigen points out simply.

The reply is a small grimace.

“Anyway, I’m actually here for something else.” Reigen swiftly places the small cactus he’d been carrying on the counter. “Do you want this?”

The florist blinks down at the cactus for a moment before picking it up, turning it in his hand. He slants an uncertain look at Reigen. “Is this an apology?”

“Again, business transaction,” Reigen says with a wave of his hand. “But if you want to see it that way then I’m not stopping you. I happened to find it, but I’m not interested in keeping a cactus. So I figured I’d bring it here.”

“... Did you steal it?”

Rude. “If you don’t want it then I’ll just take it to someone else,” he says, reaching out to take the prickly thing back. Jirou jolts back, holding the cactus closer.

“Wait, no, it’s—it’s all right, I’ll take it off of your hands if you don’t mind.”

Reigen stares at the man inches away from hugging a cactus. The response is a small, awkward smile.

It’s fine, though. A few seconds of mentally listing all of the people he could potentially go to with the cactus reminds Reigen that he doesn’t really have friends.

He back tracks over that passing thought and thinks, Well.

The florist says some things about the cactus that goes in one ear and out the other, something about how healthy it is and how it’s a hardy one. Reigen figures that he must be a cacti fanatic or something, considering he didn’t know nearly as much (or anything) about the ivy. He eventually leaves the shop, minus one cactus to bother over.

Or so he’d thought.

Reigen gives a long, hard stare at the cactus that has reappeared in front of his office. Because it’s at the bottom of the stairs this time he’d seen it several meters away, but he didn’t actually believe it had come back.

Looking at it now confirms that it has, indeed, come back.

With a tired sigh, he bends down to pick up the spiky plant. “If he didn’t want it, he should have said,” he mutters.

He pauses and turns to squint down the street. Now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t recall ever saying where he works.

He gives the mental equivalent of a shrug. Maybe Jirou had been passing by and saw him? Unlikely, but it isn’t like Reigen can’t just ask him if he sees the man again. How he somehow managed to reach Spirits and Such and clear out before Reigen arrived is another thing, considering he had taken the quickest route, but again. He can ask.

For now, Reigen heads to the nearest abandoned lot that he can recall on his mental map of the area. He makes it halfway there when his stomach growls, and he decides the middle of the sidewalk is just as good a location to leave an unwanted cactus as any abandoned lot. He casually kneels down, pretending to tie his (laceless) shoes, placing the plant under the shade of a tree. He straightens, adjusts his lapels as he casts a quick glance around, and about-faces in the other direction.

It’s still an hour from noon, but he’d skipped breakfast that morning on account of not feeling particularly hungry. He’s hungry now, and contemplates the merits of walking that extra mile to get takoyaki instead of the usual lunch box from the nearby mart.

He lights a cigarette to stave off the bite of hunger, and crushes the half-smoked stick underfoot when he decides that, yes, takoyaki is a good idea.

It’s back.

Only, it’s in his office, on the other side of the door.

Reigen takes about five minutes to check the door—no clear signs of a break-in, at the very least—before turning to aim a disgruntled look at the cactus.

And then he heads to the florist’s (again) to ask some questions on account of this being suspicious and downright creepy.

Jirou blinks at the inquiry. “What? I didn’t—I didn’t do that. I don’t even know where you work, though I did figure it’s nearby.” He absentmindedly rubs the underside of his chin. “I did notice it was gone, but I thought I’d just misplaced it. It’s back with you?”

When Reigen returns to his office, he double-checks the door and inspects the windows. There’s no damage or signs of a break-in. His money is where it should be, his books are in place, nothing important is lost. Everything is immaculate.

That in itself wouldn’t be concerning, would be good, had it not been for the fact that someone had apparently gotten into his office without needing to use force. Why would someone target his office, anyway? And how did they get in? A spare key? Reigen has his key in his pocket and the spare at home. He’s also fairly certain the lock he has on this building is impossible—or at least very difficult—to get through with a lock pick.

He doesn’t have the money to call someone in to change the lock. Not that it’d do any good, he thinks, not if this mystery guy has some method of opening perfectly working locks.

It’s distressing, but not too dire, considering the circumstances. It does bring into question what kind of burglar goes through the trouble of breaking in to leave a cactus. It has to be some kind of practical joke, but the motive is indiscernible. Reigen doesn’t think he’s done anything that deserves a grudge, let alone a grudge that involves leaving some paranoia and a cactus.

He closes up early on account of today just being a weird day. On the way home, he spots a quaint little park that has him consider the potted burden he’s carrying with a thoughtful look.

He places it on the corner of the sandbox and aims a pointed look down at it. “Stay.” He looks around, glaring at the surroundings as if they have done him a personal offense.

Then he turns away to head home.

The following day, he approaches his office with trepidation and a silent dare.

There is no cactus sitting at his door. A quick check reveals that there's nothing waiting for him on the other side of the door, either, and he releases a quiet breath as his shoulders relax.

But then he walks into the room to his desk and sees it sitting right next to the ivy, looking as though it belongs.

He throw his arms up in the air. “Forget it.” He walks around his desk to slump into his chair and aims a scathing look at the cactus, “Fine. Whatever. Welcome, I guess, you're stuck with me.”

It's not as though there has been any damages. Whoever it is that keeps bringing the cactus to his office apparently really wants him to have it, or at least thinks this is a funny enough joke to keep going.

Fine then. They aren't getting it back, they had their chance. And he isn't really … irritated, so much as irritatingly confused. And a little curious, but any worries he had about the perpetrator being someone destructive or dangerous have been more or less allayed (it feels almost a juvenile comfort but he at least feels confident that the consequences wouldn't be anything he can't handle).

Regardless, the cactus is now a permanent fixture in his office.

So.

Reigen leans back, his swivel chair creaking under the strain. He tilts his head as the light catches on the glazed finish of the pots both plants sit in.

They're similar. The pots, that is—he hadn't noticed before, but they’re the same, substandard shape with a glazed finish. They reflect a similar kind of purplish dark-blue color in the light, too.

“Kinda neat,” he murmurs under his breath. “But also kinda ugly.”

He leans forward to pinch a dried leaf from the ivy between two fingers, feeling the brittle texture crunch with light pressure. He carefully pulls off the dead leaf and drops it into the bin next to his desk.

He casts a slanted look at the cactus. The uniform rows of spikes almost look … fuzzy. It has to be a pretty young cactus—at least he assumes so, though he isn’t too sure about the size of cacti correlating with age—and it’s tiny compared to the ivy, looking too small even for the pot it sits in—

Reigen mutters a harsh curse under his breath as he grasps his injured hand, pointer finger aloft, and glares at the cactus.

A small bead of blood pools on the pad of his finger.

He glances between his finger and the cactus. After a moment, he shakes his hand out and pats it against his pant leg before resting his elbow on the desk.

Thoughts of selling them are immediately disregarded. He was the one that ultimately walked into that shop and negotiated the price for the ivy, and suddenly deciding to put a halt to an operation he has already invested in isn’t his style. If nothing else, they could help him pass the time in between jobs.

Besides, they’re just plants. I already have the … money tree. He blinks. Or was it called a money plant? Rubber … tree?

He shakes his head. The point is, neither of the plants he’s had in his office up until now have died yet. How hard can it be to take care of two more?

“It’s probably easy, right? Yeah, it’s just taking care of two more, smaller plants. Nothing complicated.” He nods to himself. “Easy.”

He spins around to his laptop, pulls up the search engine, and types in “how to take care of plants”.

Several seemingly-legitimate sources pop up on the first page. What he reads seems to be right for the ivy, but the cactus …

He googles “differences between leafy plants and cactuses,” rolls his eyes at the correction “cacti,” then types in “how to take care of succulents” with a quiet mutter.

Who even bothers with grammar and spelling when searching something? It doesn’t matter. He hits enter. I know my grammar.

He finds that cacti are apparently really easy to take care of in that they don’t require a lot of hands-on care, which. Obviously. It makes sense, considering they’re desert plants that thrive in arid conditions. It’s good confirmation, though.

So don’t forget about it but don’t overwater it, either.

He leans heavily onto his elbow, his other hand on the mouse tapping a disjointed rhythm. He glances to the cactus with a frown. “Well aren’t you a self-sufficient little … prickly. Thing.”

It makes this whole thing a little pointless if he really thinks about it, since part of the reason why he was partial to the idea was because it’d give him something to do in the off hours when foot traffic is slow. He supposes it doesn’t really matter though—it’s not like the cactus was actually part of the decision, more like an unanticipated addition to his office.

He jolts when the door chimes, banging his leg against the underside of his desk.

Shit ow, he thinks. “Welcome!” he says, grimacing through the brief throbbing of pain in favor of marveling at the fact that there’s a customer.

Another customer, consecutive days, even!

A slight man with hunched shoulders walks into the room, eyes darting about. “Hello. I heard that this is, uh, a spirit consultation agency?”

“Yes, it is!” Reigen leaps from his seat, striking a pose. “Spirits and Such Consultation, business of the greatest psychic of the twenty-first century: I, Reigen Arataka, at your service!”

The man stares, eyes narrowed, mouth pressed into a thin line. Reigen drops his hands back to his sides and seats himself. He coughs into a fist.

“Uh, please take a seat! Just—just grab the chair from the bookshelf over there, and we can get right to the consultation.” He flashes the man a smile and ignores the clammy feeling in his palms.

The client casts a quick glance to the door before grabbing the simple chair to sit in.

“So what seems to be the issue?” Reigen calls back memories from old movies and shows, “Is there a heavy feeling on your shoulder? A feeling of being watched? Personal belongings suddenly going missing with no culprit to be found?”

The man stares at him a bit skeptically. He casts a quick glance around the room and settles into the chair.

“I think ... I have a spirit haunting me,” the man confesses. He absentmindedly rubs at the junction between his neck and shoulder, grimacing as he speaks. “It’s hard to fall asleep at night because of the pain in my shoulders, and sometimes the pain is so severe that I feel faint.”

Reigen pulls out a notepad and grabs a pen off of the desk. “And how did you come to that conclusion?”

“... Because nothing else is working.”

Reigen nods once, humming in understanding.

“Incidentally, have you tried going to see a healthcare professional about this?”

The man frowns. “Why would I do that?”

The pen pauses briefly, but resumes a moment later. “... I see. Is your family, by chance, a highly spiritual one?”

“Yes, my father managed a shrine while he was still alive. What are you writing?”

“Pertinent information.” Reigen clicks the pen and sets his drawing of One Punch Egg behind the desk, where the client can’t see it.

The man blinks. “... Oh. Is there anything else you need to know?”

“Job, working hours, how you spend your free time,” Reigen lists off with a wave of his hand. “All of that could help me determine what’s ailing you.”

“I see.” The client nods. “Well, I work in the office—you know, the typical salaryman job—so I don’t actually have a lot of free time. I typically leave the office by seven.”

Reigen pinches his chin and nods. The previous (first) client had only needed someone to talk to, someone to lend an ear and nod every once in a while. That had been fine since she paid Reigen for his time and it was easy enough to listen to someone’s issues and give some advice.

But this one actually thinks he’s got a spirit haunting him …

He stands from his seat and walks around his desk towards the client. “Ah, no, just stay seated, please. I need to see up-close for myself just what it is that I’m dealing with, here.”

Need to figure out how I’m going to get out of this one, he quietly admits.

He makes a show of examining the man’s back and shoulders, making noncommittal noises and nodding as though he is any closer to understanding the issue. Which, after a few pokes and prods, isn’t necessarily false—he’s pretty sure that the client is just suffering from shoulder pains, evident by the numerous knots he finds.

“From what I see, you may need an evil spirit reduction cleansing,” he says eventually, pressing his thumb into a knot that makes the client twitch.

“A what?”

“Evil spirit reduction. Some of the more common spirits are impossible to fully exorcise, but you can get people like me to perform a reduction cleansing that will make life significantly easier to live.”

Another wince. “How much is that?”

“Thirty for a ten-percent reduction, seventy-five for fifty, and a hundred for ninety-five. It’s on the flyer in front of you, on the desk.”

“I’ll take the ninety-five reduction,” the man says. “Do I pay upfront, or … ?”

“After the procedure. We can discuss the details after.” Reigen steps back to announce emphatically, “Incidentally, I can see it now! What a malevolent spirit!”

The man whips around to stare at him, wide-eyed, but immediately doubles over in pain at the abrupt motion. “Y-you do? You can see it?”

Reigen gives him a hundred-watt smile anyway. “Of course!”

Yeah, no. It’s definitely shoulder pains.

“It’s very clear to me, the identity of the culprit: it’s an ‘overwork-and-no-exercise’ spirit! They’re quite common and it’s easy to become possessed by one. Don’t sit at your desk for such long periods of time and be sure to work out to keep these spirits away.” He waves his hands through the air in exaggerated motions. “Try to stand up every couple of hours or so. Movement is the key!”

The man side-eyes him with an uncertain look. “Are you sure? It hurts more when I move my shoulders.”

“That’s why I’m going to perform a spirit reduction!” Reigen flashes him a thumbs up and another smile. “It’s to reduce the pai—to, uh, significantly weaken the spirit so that your own actions can shake it off. It’s after that you need to act, because another spirit can come along, starting the whole process all over again.”

He fishes out a salt packet he had saved from one of his lunches and lightly sprinkles it over the client.

“... What are you—”

“I’m preparing for the spirit reduction. Spirits are warded off by salt, after all.” The words are stated with unyielding confidence as a bead of sweat trails down Reigen’s forehead.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

With a preparatory breath of air, he tries to refer back to something—anything—that could help. He isn’t a masseur, after all, and it’s very well possible that he could end up hurting the client instead of actually helping him. He strains to remember a shiatsu book he read one time on the toilet at his previous workplace, and prays the volunteer work he did as a kid comes through for him.

He cracks his knuckles. “I’m going to need you to relax your shoulders, this may take a while.”

Reigen wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and peels his collar from his neck with the other.

The client pays and leaves appearing satisfied, which means that he must’ve done a decent enough job. He still mentally notes to research and practice when he can. He thinks he has some other good massage books sitting somewhere on the shelves collecting dust, and the side room which is currently being used as storage space could be converted to something more business-oriented; a massage/spirit-expelling room of sorts.

Even if he knows full well that this isn’t exactly a morally acceptable venture, he still wants to give his clients their money’s worth—which probably isn’t the limited masseur ability he picked up from giving shoulder massages to the local old ladies in his middle school years.

Still, he lets himself feel the satisfaction of a job well done, even if it isn’t in the most clear-cut sense.

Reigen fishes the cigarette box out of the side drawer and kicks his legs up onto the desk, lighting the stick with practiced ease. A deep breath. He sinks into his chair and it creaks beneath him.

They really are kinda ugly, he thinks, frowning at the plants sitting beside his legs. He considers them both for a moment and amends, well, the cactus is.

He’s never been too fond of cacti, though they have their interesting qualities. The ivy, while ugly, is almost peaceful to look at. And what makes it ugly is his mediocre pruning job anyway.

… Though, they’re both interesting to look at. He contemplates it being the green, the knowledge that they are living, but there is something arguably nice about having them in his office.

They’re both … charming. He frowns at the word, but nods his head nonetheless. Yeah. Yeah, that’s the word. Charming. Ugly in an aesthetic sense, but they still have something that makes them not as … bad.

They serve as only a brief distraction, he knows, but that’s why he had caved in the first place. There’s nothing wrong with that.

He shifts the placement of his feet, and his gaze catches on the ashtray sitting at the corner of his desk. Three half smoked cigarettes sit in a small ash pile, one still upright from when he smothered it—he forgot to empty it the other day.

His eyes linger for a moment longer before drifting to the far wall.

The clock reads 1pm.

He distantly realizes that he hasn’t smoked for over a day.

#Reverie #MP100

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