a minor headcanon that I will die defending is that reigen initially assumed that mob’s supposed “psychic powers” were just how he rationalized his autism to himself. like here’s an obviously autistic kid, one reigen clocks immediately because he’s, well, reigen, and he’s talking about extra sensory perception and having powers he can’t control, powers that are scary. obviously, he assumes, this is something the kid picked up from his parents, a way for him to rationalize his alienation from other children— that no, you’re not “different”, you’re special (not even going into the parents who think their autistic children are like, aliens) and the other kids can see that you’re special and so they treat you like you’re weird and creepy and they don’t invite you to play and they whisper behind your back but it’s fine, because one day they’ll see how special you really are. and adult autistic reigen arataka, who was also probably-definitely bullied as a child, decides to nip that thought in the bud and gives the whole spiel, that no, “psychic powers” (autism) don’t make you special, and yes, they do make you different, and that’s fine because everyone’s different, and at the end of the day you have agency and you get to decide the kind of person you’ll be, so choose to be a kind one, and he sees this kid hanging off his every word as he tells him the kind of stuff he wishes someone had told him when he was so little and alone, and he mentally pats himself on the back and hypes himself up for another cigarette.
