The McLinden Misadventures

First Day On The Job pt 2

Reigen forced his jaw not to drop.

"W-what?!" He jumped to his feet and tried to smooth back his hair. "Don't be ridiculous! Of course I'm an esper! I'm the Greatest Psychic of the 21st Century-"

"You think I can't feel you lying through your fucking teeth?!" cried Perry. "You've been lying since the moment I walked in the door this morning!"

"Ms McLi- Perry, please," Serizawa said as he too stood up and gently approached her. "It isn't as simple as you think it is-"

"Oh really?!" shouted Perry. "Because it's seeming pretty fucking simple to me!"

Serizawa opened his mouth to keep talking, but quickly fell silent.

"Did you know?" She pointed at Reigen's sweating face. "Did you know that this sweaty fuck was a fraud?!"

Nobody spoke. Serizawa frowned and avoided her eyes, but neither he nor Reigen could think of anything they could say in their defence.

Perry threw her hand down.

"You did," she spat. "You're both fucking in on it, aren't you?!"

"Leave Serizawa out of this!" Reigen ordered. "He didn't start working for me until long after my business had been-"

"If he knew about you having all the psychic power of a fucking cheese, then he's in on it!" Perry pointed out. "You've been lying to innocent people and cheating them out of their cash that they could spend on someone who WOULD help them!"

"Like Serizawa said, it isn't as simple as that!" said Reigen. "Most of the time, the people who come and see me don't actually have any spiritual-"

"You know what?" Perry picked up her laptop and her bag. "I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear another stupid word out of your fucking mouth, alright?!"

She slid the laptop into her bag as she strode towards the door.

"Perry, please just wait a moment!" Serizawa jumped out from behind his desk.

To both men's relief, she paused at the door.

"You know," she said, and turned back to face them, "it's funny. I've been fired from at least fifty jobs since I arrived in this country. Never got to quit one. Never got to find out what that's like."

She opened the door.

"First time for everything, huh?"

She stepped out into the hallway, not even bothering to close the door.

Reigen sat back down behind his desk.

"...never had that happen before..." he muttered.

"I'm going to go and catch her before she leaves," said Serizawa, and he hurried over to the door. "You deserve better than a first-day quit, Mr Reigen!"

He disappeared out into the hallway.

Reigen fell forward with a sigh, and his forehead slammed onto the surface of his desk harder than he had intended, but he didn't care.

He deserved it as a punishment for his stupidity. For thinking that he could keep a living lie detector on staff and not think she might catch on to the fact that he was a fake. What the hell had he been thinking? How could he have ever considered that he'd be able to fool someone with those kinds of abilities?!

He deserved this pounding ache in his forehead. Deserved to have run out of the aspirin he usually kept in his desk.

A punishment for the worst mistake he had ever made in his entire life.