the thing about Shou & Mob is that it’s really fucking awkward. it’s awkward and uncomfortable no matter how you slice it. this is the guy that you loudly deemed awful/cowardly/cruel, that you paralleled to your abuser or accused of killing your family, and it turns out that all this time he’s actually just been an ordinary kid who really does want to help and protect people, maybe even protect you. isn’t that fucked up? wouldn’t that drive anyone crazy?
and Mob i think is used to getting over that kind of toxic first meeting, i think he’s gotten very good at grasping “that was fucked but man idk what i’d have done either” as a concept. and conversely i don’t think Shou has ever gotten over anything in his entire life.
so much in his life has connections to Mob now, it sucks, he can’t escape reminders of their weird fucked relationship that barely exists. like. what even is Mob to Shou, anymore? his best friend’s brother? his best friend’s trauma? the guy who defeated his dad? the guy who saved his dad? the hero who did everything Shou couldn’t? he’s nothing to Shou himself exactly, except maybe his defender that one time, but that was just one time wasn’t it? does that even really count? is Mob even half as fucked up about this as Shou? how is that any fair?
and meanwhile Mob goes “yay little brother two” and accepts Shou into his life, but also, how do we think Mob feels about the fact that he’s never really fought Shou. like, yes, confession arc is a thing that happened, but he was attacking everything so i’m not convinced it counts. in WD, Mob went full power, he let his feelings show— and not only did it not hurt Shou in the slightest, it protected him. if we’re following Mob’s line of thought as “Shou = Ritsu (roughly)”, we could even draw direct parallels to Toichirou Fight and The Incident. our Ritsu-figure tries to fight back against a bully who is taking whatever they want -> Ritsu-figure gets hurt -> Mob snaps and unleashes his psychic powers violently. then Just Add Reigen and that’s the same steps as WD climax! but this time Mob does it right, he can rewalk that day and do it better, and maybe it’s a sort of proof that it really was just a horrible accident. psychic powers are any other attribute, right? and this time, no one got hurt. he even saved Shou’s dad. he did good. no one died.
i wonder if Shou ever seriously expected no one to die. i wonder if he even planned for a world where him and his dad both leave the tower alive. he wanted it, oh god he did, he wanted a world where their family would all walk away unharmed and see each other again after everything. but i think he knew. he knew his dad would sooner kill himself in a cosmic explosion than just… say sorry. there’s a reason that he didn’t try talking Toichirou down this time. he’s made peace with that much, at least.
then this fuckass bowlcut kid that you’ve spent the last 24 hours antagonizing in your head (and a little bit outside of it) comes waltzing up and changes everything. and suddenly everyone’s alive and your scars are gone and there’s a broccoli. what. huh. huh. what. how.
