In Perpetual Panic

“Something bothering you, Mob?” He sat down next to him.

“Master, you and Serizawa are friends, right?” He looked down now, still picking at his fingers.

“Uh… What? Yea, we’re friends, why do you ask?” Reigen responded in a nervous manner.

“Well, do you two hang out?”

Reigen raised an eyebrow, and nodded his head. He muttered a ‘yeah’, praying Mob wasn’t getting to what he thought he was.

“Me and Teru do too, but lately it’s been sort of… Awkward?” He looked at Reigen.

His expression dropped for a second. He stared at Mob, slightly squinting his eyes. Laughing, he put a hand on Mob’s shoulder. “Ah, why didn’t you start with that!” His laugh turned into an awkward one as it died down. “Awkward, how?”

“Well the last time me and Teru hung out was at a coffee shop. It was fine until the waiter assumed we were on a date.”

“I mean it does sound like a date.” Dimple pointed out.

Mob furrowed his eyebrows and looked back and forth at Reigen and Dimple. Meanwhile Dimple and Reigen exchanged a look.

“Listen, Mob, if both of you didn’t mean or want it to be a date it wouldn’t have been awkward after that. Normal friends would’ve just laughed it off.” Reigen said in the nicest way possible.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mob said. He sounded genuinely confused, but he got the gist of it.

“You just confused the kid more.” Dimple looked at reigen while extending his arms out towards Mob, as if mob was a figure at display that Dimple was presenting.

Mobs phone then rang, it was Teru. He answered and greeted him. The whole time, Reigen and Dimple eavesdropped, and when Mob got off the phone they looked away not so nonchalantly...

“I gotta go now, master. See you tomorrow! Bye, Dimple!” Mob said, jumping off the couch.

“Is he really that stupid?” Dimple asked, watching Mob shut the door behind him.

Reigen only shrugged in response.

“Mob!” A boy with blonde hair called out.

Upon hearing his name, Mob turned towards the direction of the voice. “Teru!” He responded with a smile.

The two boys walked down the street, this time they were headed to a dumpling restaurant . Things were not awkward at all, not at first. Mob and Teruki mingled normally, like two guy friends. It was once they got to the restaurant that things got uncomfortable.

They sat down at a table and ordered. Mob looked around the restaurant; he was starting to get conscious of his surroundings and who he was sitting infront of. He shook his head and buried himself into the menu. He was too busy with his own feelings to notice Teruki was looking to start a conversation.

“So what are you gonna order?” He finally said.

“Uhm… I’m not sure.” Mob said, now actually browsing through the menu.

“I’m feeling some shrimp dumplings today.” Teru said as he put down the menu, still glancing at the other options.

An awkward silence followed. Teru gave up trying to make conversation and instead waited for the waiter to salvage him from this embarrassment. of course, that didn’t help.

After several instances of the waiter rushing by, the girl finally stopped at their table. “Pardon the wait, what can I get started for you boys?”

“I’ll take the shrimp dumplings, and uh… What exactly are your boba flavors?” He thought to complain about their vagueness on the menu, but it wouldn’t have helped the awkwardness of their situation.

“We have taro, mango, jasmine, and matcha milk tea.” She explained with a smile. “Oh, and of course we have our valentine’s day special!”

“Valentine’s day special… Sure why not.” He shrugged foolishly. He was completely naive of the situation this would put him in later on.

The waitress moved on to Mob and took his order.

“Would you like anything to drink with that?”

He shook his head and mumbled, “just water, please.”

The waitress nodded and swiftly put away her notepad in her apron before walking away.

Now without any menus getting in the way, Teru and Mob could see eye to eye; though Mob couldn’t hold eye contact for long. Teru once again striked up a small conversation, and while this did help with the awkwardness of the situation it did not last long before the drink arrived.

“Here’s that drink for y’all, happy Valentine’s day!” The waiter said completely casual about the abomination she was handing to these teenage platonic boy friends.

Teru stared at the drink for a few seconds. There he was being extra again for no reason at all, and now it has backfired. To be fair, what did he expect from a Valentine’s day drink?

Mob too looked a bit puzzled at the over the top drink, but the two straws on opposites ends of the drink was the cherry on top (ignoring the two cherries that were actually on top of the whipped cream adorning the drink). This looked more like a milkshake than a boba milk tea.

Teru finally found the words to make a joke out of this situation. “Valentine’s day is a week away… Did they really have to be so extra?” He added a dry laugh at the end of his sentence then shut his mouth by stuffing it with boba pearls before he made anything worse.

Moving past this ‘it’s fate’ situation, the waiter stopped by with their food and ran off to another table before Mob could even mention that she had forgotten his water. He sighed.

Poor innocent Mob truly believed he could get through the entire meal without a single source of hydration, and unlucky him he had picked some dumplings with a medium spice level. It wasn’t insane, but just enough to make you need a drink of water in between dumplings; and of course, the only drink available was the Valentine’s day boba milk tea. Mob stared at it with intensity after Teru set it down. The two cherries on the whipped cream floating over the milk tea took the shape of two bright red eyes. The two straws became claws to a sweet monster. Mob shook his head and grabbed the drink anyway. He carefully placed his lips on one of the straws and gulped down a few boba pearls.

Teru stopped right as he was about to put a dumpling in his mouth. “I believe that was my straw…” Then he quickly shut himself up by stuffing the dumpling in his mouth. 

Mob froze midway through slurp. Without a blink he set the drink down and slid it close to Teru’s plate. Teru’s eyes followed Mob’s movements and when mob pulled his hand back to this side of the table, their eyes met.

“I mean, it’s whatever I don’t care!” Teru quickly regretted his previous words.

Mob only nodded in response, clearly embarrassed.

Teru watched as Mob’s cheeks remained indubitably hot. He slammed his chopsticks on the table and finally said, “Is this about the last time we hung out?… Last date we had?”

Date, that’s what he called it. “Huh…??!” Mob jumped back a little.

“If you’re alright with that, of course.” He avoided eye contact.

“Uh… Yes, I’m… Okay with that.” Mob put his head down and stared directly at his fidgeting hands.

Outside the restaurant window Reigen was squatting with his hands against the window sill, an interesting sight. Dimple was floating by his side.

“Come on Mob lift your head up! Have some courage!” Reigen groaned with a frantic hand on his face.

“This is boring. When are they gonna kiss!” Dimple complained.

The rest of the date went on normally, no awkardness. It was finally back to how Mob and Teru were before, except they had subtly accepted their feelings. There was no change in their relationship but a quiet agreement.

“Wait are they leaving already?” Reigen pressed his forehead against the glass. Before he could even stand up from his questionable position, the door of the restaurant opened and from it came Mob and Teru.

“Oh. Hello, master.” Mob waved innocently then walked past him, arm intertwined with Teru’s.

Reigen followed with his eyes as they continued walking along the sidewalk together, jaw dropped. “I’m so proud of you, Mob.” A tear formed in his left eye which he wiped with his index finger as he whispered praises to Mob.