Snowed Out

Mob Psycho 100

Summary: In which snow has piled up literally everywhere outside of the office building, and Reigen has no choice but to take care of it.

“If you want a job done right, you've gotta do it yourself.”

Genre: General, Humor
Rating: K+
Characters: Arataka Reigen, Shigeo Kageyama
-----

Surprisingly enough, it was a slow day at the office. Slow, as those kinds of days normally were, but today had been unnaturally quiet.

While Reigen appreciated the extra time to finish up paperwork (that he most certainly had not been procrastinating on), something about this particular situation rubbed him the wrong way. He glared at his computer screen for another minute or so before conceding defeat and closing the laptop lid. Not that he had done much in the past hour except sigh heavily, glance at the time, then go back to staring at the blank document, anyways.

He stood from his chair and stretched his arms and legs, turning his attention towards the office window. Again, something didn't feel right, and he stared out at the scenery before him, wracking his brain to figure out what exactly was wrong. The only thing that came to mind was the word “white”, which wasn't surprising, considering the heavy snowfall that had occurred the night before. But as he continued staring, realization slowly dawned upon him, and he slammed his hands against the windowsill, nearly shoving his face against the glass to get a better look.

“What the hell??”

As it turned out, snow had piled up all around the office building, spilling onto the sidewalk. It was no wonder he'd had no clients today - as it was still snowy outside, a nice blockade had also formed in front of the door since he had first come in. Reigen could only gape at the sight until he regained his composure and raced downstairs to get a better look. The moment the door was opened, snow buried both his feet and the welcome mat.

“What am I even paying those landscapers for?? Can't even do their job, huh?”

Exasperated, Reigen ran a hand through his hair, making a mental note to call the company later. For now, he had to figure out what should be done at this moment. Contemplating this particular issue, he sighed again and began heading back upstairs to his office. There, he shut and locked the door, flipping the “closed” sign up and moved to head home for a quick stop.

“If you want a job done right, you've gotta do it yourself.”

--

Approximately 40 minutes later found Reigen, now dressed in proper winter attire, standing outside the office building. He had stepped into a small department store on the way back and purchased two snow shovels. He had spent a little more than he had wanted to, and the “buy one, get one half off” deal - that was just too good to pass up - did little to help his already sour mood.

Having laid one shovel against the building wall, he leaned on the other and took in the view before him. Where did one even start with this sort of predicament? He was used to dealing with snow that reached up to your knees, but not snow that reached up to just under your chest. What he wouldn't give for a smoke right about now….

No time like the present, he thought forlornly, and decided that starting with the entrance area and working his way towards the street would be a good idea. And so, with great effort, he began shoveling. He would have made some exceptional progress, had the piles not kept collapsing and ruining all of his work, as well as the snowy weather playing a hand in his undoing. A near 10 minute battle with the winter bullcrap, and he was very close to breaking something.

Well, if the snow wanted to play it that way, then so be it. He had an ace up his sleeve anyways.

“Piss me off, will you? Then you leave me no choice! SNOW SPLASH!!”

In a maneuver not unlike his special Salt Splash technique, he began rapidly shoveling snow out of his path, creating a clean and clear pathway to the front door in no time at all. He paused to take a breath, and turned around to proudly look upon his efforts.



“Master?”



Reigen yelped and nearly leapt out of his skin when, instead of seeing the sidewalk behind him, he was suddenly greeted by Shigeo. His presence REALLY didn’t stand out.

“Mob! Don't sneak up on people like that!” Reigen panted, placing a hand on his chest as he tried to calm his hammering heart.

“Sorry. I wasn't sure what you were doing,” Shigeo replied, then also took a moment to survey the scene. “It snowed really hard, didn't it…”

“Yeah, last night. But the landscapers didn't come and take care of it this morning like they were supposed to,” Reigen jammed a thumb to his chest and continued, “so that leaves me to finish up the dirty work.”

Shigeo nodded, but said nothing else. They stood in silence for a moment, when Reigen was hit with an idea.

“Say, Mob? Think you could give me a hand with all of this? I've even got an extra shovel.” He gestured to the lone shovel still leaned against the wall. “Today IS normally a work day for you, but I'll even pay you a little extra if you help me out, since this isn’t a regular job.”

Reigen had, in fact, forgotten that Shigeo was supposed to come in today, having been so wrapped up in the weather conundrum. He had originally planned to get Serizawa to assist him, but this worked out even better in the end. On the other hand, Shigeo was happy to find that his efforts with the Body Improvement Club were finally coming to fruition, if only a little, since he didn’t struggle as hard as he thought he would with the task. He assumed that Reigen would tell him to use his powers to move the snow away, but was surprised when he was instead told to think of this as extra training.

Nearly 2 hours had come and gone by the time they finished clearing just about all of the snow off of the Spirits and Such Consultation property. It was still considerably early in the day, but both Reigen and Shigeo were too exhausted and cold to simply go back to work now.

“Well, I, for one, could really go for some nice, hot ramen right about now. How about you?”

“That's a good idea.”

“Then it's settled! Let's get some lunch and call it a day!”

--

Over ramen, both of them lamented the fact that their muscles would be screaming at them tomorrow, but they were also grateful that tomorrow just so happened to be their day off. Yet despite the mishaps and slow start to the day entirely, Reigen felt as though he had accomplished more today than he had in a long time.

Now, if he could just find another way to avoid doing that damn paperwork.