The warm, honey colored wood paneling on the nurse's station and on the arms of the few low chairs spread across the floor argued vehemently with the unmistakeable scent of disinfectant floating in the air. A handful of somber-faced people passed in and out of the many doors lined up and down the hallways, all swaddled in the pastel tones of their scrubs- all except for Ritsu, who sported the black of his school uniform instead, and the ghostly Dimple, who bled out harsh neon green only for those with the gift to see him. The two stood poised before a door at the end of the hall, quiet.

Ritsu's fingers brushed against the silver door handle to the hospital room with a tight, unforgiving hold, as if it might bend if he focused all of his being into it.

And move it did- the handle pushed down beneath his palm without warning, and the gears inside the lock turned and twisted to let the door fall open without a sound.

Ritsu drew his hand away as if he had been burned. The air displaced by the door pushed him back, and he shrank away from the cool darkness beckoning him from within the room.

"Ritsu," Dimple said, his ethereal lime presence competing with the cold fluorescent lights reflecting off the waxed floor of the hallway, "Don't be scared. He isn't dead, and he's going to be fine."

The boy spared the spirit no glance. Instead, he swallowed, once, the emerging lump in his throat pushing up and down under his skin like a bobber on a line, and took a step inside the doorway.

The room was small. A monitor sang a metronomic lullaby to the sleeping Arataka Reigen lying between the plastic arms of his bed like a child on a mother's lap. From his arms, a series of tubes- some filled with something clear, one filled with something the color of sin- protruded like extended veins rooting him to the bed.

Ritsu stepped closer, eyes wide and his face as pale as Reigen's.

The top of the mint hospital gown lay open. A thick skin of gauze and bandages presented itself to Ritsu and the open air.

"He looks pretty good, all things considered," Dimple appraised. "He may look like a ghost, but he's not. I'd know." A pause. "He's still got the rest of his life to be a pain in your living ass, don't worry."

Ritsu took another set of steps closer to Reigen's bed. The monitor continued on, undisturbed, and eventually Ritsu's fists uncurled and flattened out against the legs of his pants. He wiped his palms on himself, his fingers digging into the black fabric, and then slowly pulled them away.

"So what're you gonna do?" Dimple asked. "Draw something on his face? Heh."

"It missed his heart," Ritsu said, his voice low.

"Most of it, yeah," Dimple corrected. "So much for acting like he doesn't have one!"

The deionized air filling the room pushed through in a gentle gust, and warmer, like it could laugh in Reigen's stead. Then, it calmed down and returned to a steady, silent stream.

"What will my brother say?" Ritsu questioned, his words rupturing the atmosphere like stones breaking the surface of a tranquil lake deep within the earth. "When he learns I did this?"

the devil himself appeared the moment he was mentioned. "Don't worry. Dimple's right."

Ritsu and Dimple both snapped to attention, their flared eyes searching the shadows on the other side of Reigen's bed.

"Master is going to be okay." Shigeo sat perched on a chair within the dark, like he was swaddled in blanket made to match his own black uniform. Next to him was a standing tray with a box of takoyaki, half-eaten. "Besides, Master said it was an accident."

Ritsu reached for the exit then, and flattened himself against the wooden door when he found it closed.

"Ritsu?" Shigeo asked. "What's wrong?" He circled around the bed and came closer, his eyes alternating between the air over his shoulder and his brother. "There isn't a ghost in here besides Dimple, is there?"

Ritsu fumbled for and clawed at the door handle behind him like an animal. The blood in the bag above Reigen's head churned within its casing, and the pre-wrapped plastic spoon and fork sitting idle by the takoyaki on the other side of the room curled up in fear.

"Ritsu," tried Dimple, "Calm down!"

The boy flipped around and again grabbed at the handle.

"Ritsu, nothing's here. It's okay," Shigeo said, a smile pulling at the corners of his eternally enigmatic expression. He held out a hand towards his brother, palm open, and came closer.

The metal pole by Reigen's bed writhed and twisted in outrage as Ritsu slapped his brother's hand away and turned to face him again, his hair standing on end and his teeth bared like a cat's in the face of its death.

"Ritsu!" cried Dimple. "You're doing it again!"

Shigeo stepped away, his eyes tracing over the squealing pole and then back to his brother. "Oh, I get it. It's just as bad for you as it was for me." He redirected his hand towards the pole and the wires straining to connect it to Reigen's arm, and quietly straightened it back out. "Not even you could get it under control this fast, I guess." Shigeo shook his head. "I'm sorry." Then, he met his brother's stare with another, brighter smile from beneath the even curtain of his hair. "But Master would help you for sure if you wanted. You'd get better with it a lot quicker than I have. I know you would."

Ritsu gave up on finding an exit and slid down against the surface of the door. He landed with a thud as his shaking legs gave out.

"Ritsu?" Shigeo asked, kneeling down to see his brother's face. "Oh, it's okay, Ritsu. You can cry. You didn't mean to do anything wrong, though."

The boy wailed. "I-I'm sorry! P-please-!"

Dimple shimmered overhead, his thick lips in a hard line that all but connected the spots on his cheeks. "Hey, Shigeo," the ghost said, "maybe Ritsu isn't ready to face Reigen like this just yet. How about he and I go back to your house for today, huh?"

Shigeo kept his eyes on his brother. "That's a good idea. We can go home together!"

Dimple put himself between the two brothers. "No, Shigeo, I think you need to stay here with Reigen for a little while. Just in case."

"I have been here all day," Shigeo said.

"You mean you skipped your club meeting?"

The boy stared at Dimple, his usual mask completely erasing the smile he had for his brother.

Ritsu sniffled. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "I'm sorry!"

Shigeo smiled again. "It's okay, Ritsu. We can stop for ramen on the way back, or I can have takoyaki again, if you want that. I can call mom and tell her, or maybe-"

"Mob," Reigen croaked from across the room.

The two boys reacted, the younger one practically jumping out of his skin and the older one coolly turning around and getting to his feet.

"Master," Shigeo said, approaching the bed. "I brought you takoyaki. Do you want me to cut it up for you before you eat it? I don't think you can have them whole right now."

"Nah," Reigen said. "I'll, just, uh." He sighed. "You go on ahead home. I wanna," he swallowed, his voice sloppy, "talk to your brother for a second." His eyebrows pinched together, and he blinked hard and long. "Please."

Shigeo beckoned for his brother. "Ritsu," he said. "Master Reigen would like to talk to you."

"Alone, Mob," Reigen specified, turning his head as best he could to look at the boy.

Shigeo's eyes bored holes into Reigen, who did much the same in return, and after an eternity squeezed inside of a single tiny hospital room, the boy acquiesced with a bob of his head.

"Yes, Master Reigen." Shigeo turned around and gave his brother another smile. "We'll get ramen another day. I know a place with really good char siu that I'm sure you would like."

Ritsu flinched, and then belatedly pulled himself up from the floor and shuffled away from the door. Shigeo opened it with practiced ease and excused himself.

Dimple followed close behind. "I'll wait for you at the entrance, Ritsu," he said, passing through the wall like a fish would cut through water.

The quietude of the room fell back over Ritsu and Reigen both, save for the constant rhythm of life emanating from Reigen's monitor. Ritsu pressed against the wall like he could fade through it like Dimple, like he could become nothing, like he could become as unnoticeable as his brother. His breaths came in ragged, uneven gasps as tears finally sprang forth and ran down his cheeks in fat globs. They spilled onto his uniform, his shoes, the floor.

Eventually, his eyes ran dry and his gasps settled into an even lilt to match Reigen's heartbeat.

"Could you come sit here where I can see you?" Reigen asked. "I don't bite, contrary to popular belief."

Ritsu held his breath, and shakily moved to the other side of the bed. The only chair in the room was the one by Reigen's side- the one reserved for Ritsu's brother. His hand floated over it for a moment, fingers clenching and unclenching, before he forced out a mighty exhale and sat down. He planted his hands and his gaze into his lap.

"You can't keep running and hiding from your brother, you know," Reigen said.

Ritsu bit his lip. "I wanted to protect him."

"Oh, yeah?"

"He's scary," Ritsu said, "when he gets upset."

Reigen sighed. "You're both just alike in that way."

Ritsu's big eyes took in Reigen now- how small he looked in his hospital gown, and how the dressings for his wounds were a paltry cover for his exposed heart.

"He's scarier when he's not allowed to get upset," Reigen said. He sighed again and took a moment to rest his eyes. "So are you. Don't be like your brother."

"I've," Ritsu answered, swallowing, "I've been told that before."

"Mmm, and I'm telling you again. Don't keep all your thoughts and feelings to yourself. You'll never get better if you keep doing that."

"But," Ritsu's hands ground his pants into his knees, "he can't- that thing, it'll come out again!"

Reigen scoffed. "Is Shou Suzuki dead?"

Ritsu lifted his head. "Shou? N-no."

"Well, I thought Mob," Reigen took another deep breath, "was gonna kill that kid and his crazy dad for a little bit, but it didn't happen." His words came slowly, and deliberately. "I thought Serizawa might get, ah, pretty wasted, too, but now he's Mob's trainee and my business is, like, fifty percent bigger."

"That was different."

"Yeah!" Reigen's hand opposite from his heart flew up from the bed for a second, and then landed with a smack. "Ow, that was a mistake," he muttered. "Anyway. Those guys were bad guys threatening us- threatening you, if you want the specifics of Mob's psychology. None of them got hit with anything they weren't asking for." He shut his eyes again. "Even then, they didn't die, or get maimed, or something."

"Only because my brother was in control then."

Reigen gave a mighty grunt, his eyes still closed. "Did your brother go nuts about seeing me like this?"

"I don't know. He was already here. He already knew, somehow." Ritsu kicked at the tile on the floor. "He came looking for you, I guess."

"Yeah, like he never went nuts going after you when you disappeared."

"Beg pardon?"

"Your brother is very much in control about this, and about things involving you. When he was little it might've been different, i don't know, but that's why he and I met at all." Reigen smiled, pain evident in his teeth. "He saw a problem, and made the effort to go out and fix it. Been doin' it for four years." He turned his head to take in Ritsu. "And you're not. Not really. You're just being selfish and cowardly."

"What?! But I love my brother!" Ritsu leaned forward, his fists sitting on his thighs. "Everything I did, I did for him!"

"No, it wasn't. You did it for you so that you could keep running from the issue."

"I always asked him how he was, and he never would tell me! Never! He doesn't talk to me! He's never talked to me since back then!"

Reigen's grimace appeared plain on his face. "Yeah, but did you try talkin' to him?"

"I just told you! I do! I-"

"Gah, stop yelling," Reigen said, the monitor speeding up just a hair. "Please. Don't. Just, I don't have it in me for that right now."

Ritsu took a shuddering breath, and then considered his shoes.

Reigen continued. "What I mean is, you never told Mob how you feel. How you really feel. Not this thing you do that gets you riled up until stuff blows up." He stopped for a breath, and his lips tripped over one another more and more with each word he spoke. "You should do him you're scared, and why, and why you want him to talk to you. You both have trouble with things, and that's okay so long as you can communicate them and work past them." Reigen's eyelids drooped. "'N that's all I got. Just don't keep lying and isolating yourself, Ritsu. Doesn't work."

"Why should I take advice from you?" Ritsu shot back.

"'Cause I," Reigen said, "I've made that mistake all my life." His eyes fell shut again, and stayed that way. "Eat that takoyaki and help Mob watch my cat."

A gentle snore followed soon after.