Dads were easy.

Minori had said so…and sometimes she could be right about things. Sometimes she could be wrong, very wrong, like the time she told Mob to confess to Hatori…that hadn't been a good thing to do at all…but this was different. First of all she wasn't confessing to anyone, she was wouldn't have done that even if she had someone to confess to, and second of all dad was….the weirdest person she knew. That was a mean thought to have about her own dad…but it was true. He was weird but his weirdness made him one of the easiest person in Mob's life to…well not trick but…

Deal with. That was a good way to put it.

"Are they going to take the space shuttle to the moon, daddy?" asked Mob as she cuddled up next to her dad. He was easy to deal with…to distract. She didn't much want to be here in bed with him, she wanted to sleep in her own bed in her own room and watch her own shows, but that wouldn't have been a good idea. Videogames could only distract dad for so long. Sho wasn't home, he wasn't even in range, and dad was definitely going to notice. If he noticed he was going to ask questions…and Mob had no idea what she could say if he started asking where Sho was.

She didn't think that she would have been able to use the catching Pokémon lie again.

"Space shuttles don't go past low orbit, Shigeko, you didn't know that?" asked Suzuki as Shigeko pulled in close to him. Normally he would have been overjoyed to have been so near to his daughter. They had been apart for so long, so very long, and….and now it was like nothing had changed. They were watching television together just like before…

Well not like before.

He shifted away from her. Being this near to her…it felt odd. They had been sharing a bed since she had been a child…but she wasn't a child anymore. Her choice of nightwear made that abundantly clear. He had no idea why she was wearing what didn't seem like much more than a t-shirt. Really. It was short like a shirt and tight and…and whatever happened to those gigantic sweaters she used to wear even in the height of summer? When had those gone out of style? He was tempted to tell her to go and put on a sweater, or even change into other pajamas, but he knew that nothing good came from criticizing a woman's clothing.

That was what Shigeko was, now, a woman…whether he liked it or not.

"No, I didn't…but that's the point, right? Of watching this? To learn things?" asked Mob. Dad was scooting away from her now. She didn't know why. Dad was the one who was always trying to spend time with him. He was always talking about how they never spent time together, how he missed her, and how…well how he wanted things to be the way that they had been before. Mob didn't know if they could go back to the way that things had been before….but she was going to have to try.

For Sho, for her little brother, she would do anything.

"Yes. You make a good point." Said Suzuki

"I know. I remember how when I was little you said that documentaries were the best kind of movies because you learned things from them." Said Mob as she reached over with her powers and grabbed her pen from the nightstand. Dad was looking at her. She hoped that he didn't want any. She was happy to share with people…but her dad wasn't most people. He got kind of weird when he stoned…but that was normal for him since he was weird all the time. She wasn't in the mood to deal with him being stoned and touchy…but maybe if he smoked then he would have been less likely to ask why Sho wasn't home in the middle of the night.

Yeah. If dad wanted some then he could have some…but only if he asked.

"Yes…when you were little." Said Suzuki as Shigeko took a drag off of her electronic smoking…thing. There was a clear glass vial near the top of it with something amber colored inside. He hoped, foolishly, that she was smoking some of that harmless vapor liquid that young people loved so much. It smelled terrible, bubblegum was the worst of all and Shigeko loved it, but it didn't smell any worse than marijuana…

He was really getting tired of the smell of marijuana.

She exhaled. That was marijuana. It didn't smell as terrible as when she smoked it the normal way but it did smell…unpleasant. Like a skunky sort of citrus smell. Like someone had beaten a skunk to death with an orange. Heh. Sho would have had a problem with that, both the citrus and the animal cruelty. Unless he'd grown out of his citrus allergy by now. People grew out of allergies, right? He'd have to ask Sho later….though he would leave out the citrus scented marijuana. Sho didn't need to pick up this habit too.

Having one child like…this…was bad enough.

"Shigeko?" asked Suzuki. He waited until she was done coughing. He didn't think that he could tell her to stop, well he was her father, but if he told her to stop then that would alienate her and then she'd leave. Well…she wasn't his only daughter…but she was Shigeko and he didn't have another Shigeko.

"Yes, dad? Did you want some?" asked Mob as she held her pen out to dad. He held up his hand and shook his head.

"No…and do you have to smoke that in here?" asked Suzuki

"Yes." said Mob. She didn't want to go outside. If she went outside then dad might have started to wonder about Sho and she couldn't have that.

"Well…alright then…." Said Suzuki. He could hear Shiori's voice in his mind. She had opinions on how he needed to raise his children…and maybe he should have listened to her. She was the love of his life, the mother of his future children, and the stepmother of his current children after all. She knew what she was talking about…but she didn't know Shigeko. She didn't know what she was like. She did what she felt was best even if you forbade her…well he had never forbade her from anything…but still. She was a grown woman, a very short grown woman, and she could live her own life however she chose to…

And this was how she chose to live her life.

"When you take over the world are you going to send people to space?" asked Mob. She had to keep dad thinking about things that he liked. She had to keep his mind off of Sho. He had been thinking, she knew how he looked when he thought, but she couldn't read minds. She wished that she could, maybe, she had all the other powers so what was one more? If she had been able to read minds then she could have been able to deal with dad better…but this was ok. This was working. She put her pen down. She had to keep working…and that meant that she couldn't get distracted….even though she wanted to smoke some more…

She loved Sho more than she loved smoking.

"I…have thought about it…but the immediate years after we come to power will be spent trying to hold onto power. I will have little time for anything else…and I fear that my work may never be done. Your brother may end up having to finish what I started." Said Suzuki. Sho at the helm of the world…he shuddered at the thought. Shigeko would have been a much more competent ruler…but she wasn't his blood. There was no point in taking over the world if the blood of his blood wouldn't end up ruling it. If the children married then it would have been perfect. He would have had the blood of his blood in power and the world wouldn't fall into chaos...

But then there would be the incest precedent…and incest was not best.

Not that it would have actually been incest. There wasn't a drop of blood between Shigeko and Sho. They shared fewer genes, actually, than the average two Japanese people did. Really it wouldn't have been a problem from a biological standpoint…but he couldn't tell them the truth of Shigeko's parentage. It would have done nothing more than destroy this family. So then they would have had to go through life thinking that brothers and sisters could marry….and then…well he did want his bloodline in power…

But that was what did the Hapsburgs in and Suzuki may not have been a big fan of world history but he had learned enough that he wouldn't repeat it.

So the world would fall to Sho…at least he had a girl in his life. Children would be in his immediate future, maybe even before he hit his twenties, and Suzuki would still be in control of his mental facilities at that point. He could groom his grandson to be his successor...or maybe one of Mukai's children? But she was only two and he didn't have that kind of time. He could have had another son….but then he would have had to wait for the boy to at least hit his late teens before Suzuki could retire and hand him the world. At this point it didn't look like he would be conquering the world before his fiftieth year…he'd be almost seventy by the time his next son hit the age of majority…maybe even older since Shiori had expressed that she did not want children at this point in her life despite being forty years old…

Taking over the world would be the easy part. Finding someone to rule it after he died…that was the challenge.

"I can help too, and Mukai, that way you can go to space just like you always wanted." Said Mob. She tried to lean into dad again but he just pulled away. She didn't know what she did. He liked talking about the future, about what the world would be like when he took it over, but now he was staring at her like…like she didn't even know.

"Who told you that? Fukuda?" asked Suzuki as he pulled away from Shigeko. What he had been about to ask her was why she insisted on being so close to him…but that would have been a strange question to ask. Shigeko was his child. Of course she was going to seek out his company both physical and emotional. She had done that before…when she had actually been a child. She was in no way a child at this point…it may have been less jarring if he hadn't been away for so long…but it was jarring and there was nothing that he could do about that.

No, this newer and older version of Shigeko was just someone that he was going to have to get used to.

"Eww, no. I don't talk to him. I just thought that going to space was your dream. That's why you watch so many space shows and stuff." Said Mob sticking out her tongue. Talking to Fukuda? No. She…well she didn't like not liking people…but she didn't like him. She disliked him more than she disliked being the sort of person who disliked people. She knew that she was supposed to be nice, mom had always told her to be sweet, but mom wasn't here anymore and even if she had been…if she had appeared right there at the end of the bed then Mob….well she wouldn't have listened to a word mom said.

Not a single word.

Dad barely ever told her what to do these days and he was around. Mom had lost the right to tell her what to do when she left. Fukuda…he'd never told her what to do…but since he was happy to be a jerk then he didn't get to talk to her since she didn't have time in her life for jerks. She hardly had time for her own family let alone someone who didn't even like her. She had so much to do all the time. Even stuff that should have been fun like hanging out with her friends, not that Minori was a good friend or anything, just…wasn't fun. Sometimes everything felt like a chore, even more than the actual chores, and she didn't have time to deal with Fukuda. H-word, dealing with dad was more than enough sometimes.

Like now, this was one of those times.

"Going to space was my dream once, when I was young, but then one day my father sat me down and told me that I needed to have a more realistic plan for my future." Said Suzuki. Father had been very clear and direct. One day Suzuki came home from school, found the cardboard box he'd fashioned into a spaceship nothing more than a smoldering pile of ash in the backyard, and father standing over it. He'd come home from work early that day specifically to meet him after school to discuss a piece of schoolwork mother had stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet.

What I want to be when I grow up.

He'd been ten years old, then, and he'd been doing assignments like those since kindergarten. Back when he'd been very small his dreams had been vague. He'd wanted to go back to his own planet, back to where the people who looked like him and had his abilities lived, of course that had been before he had been old enough to know that extraterrestrials most likely would have destroyed the Earth instead of leaving one of their children there. Still…he'd spent so much of his life wanting to go home…and then when he'd realized that home was the house he lived in with his family he'd wanted to become an astronaut. Japan hadn't had a space program at the time but the Americans and Soviets both took foreigners. He had already been fluent in English, and with mother's American accent too, so America would have been his best bet. Dual citizenship would have helped, and it would have been easy with mother's blood in his veins…he'd taken that into account. He'd taken everything into account when he'd done that assignment. What sort of education he would have needed, the cost of it, the physical requirements, things like that…he'd worked very hard…

But he'd been nothing more than a child.

You're not going to be a child forever. Father had said that. Father had sat him down and told him that one day he would become a man and he would have not only himself to think about but his parents, wife, and children as well. If the Americans and the Soviets didn't blow the world up by the time he came of age he would have to think of a path that would allow him to provide for his entire family. Father said that he was lucky in a way. Their family used to run a company that made weapons, that was the role that his grandfather had been forced to fill, but with the end of the war grandfather had let father, an infant at the time, chose his own path in life…of course it had been easier for father since he'd had an older brother for a time. Suzuki didn't have any siblings, and he never would father had said, so more fell to him…and he had to think about someone other than himself. He had to be realistic.

So ruling the world made perfect sense. If he wasn't meant to escape this world then he was meant to rule it.

"Is taking over the world easier than going into space?" asked Mob. She didn't think that it was. People went up into space all the time, they had a whole shuttle for it, but nobody had ever ruled the whole world before. She knew that dad would be the person to rule it, though, since this was his dream. When you had a dream then you did whatever you could to reach it, like on TV. Also the world would be a lot better once dad ruled it. Once that happened, once that day dad was always talking about came, then everyone in the world would be friends. Espers and normal people.

"It's what I was born to do just as your brother was born to rule the world and his son will be born to take over after him." said Suzuki. Taking over the world was a lot of work, more than being an astronaut, but this was what he'd been born to do. There had been other men who'd gone to space, and he was above every other man on this planet, so of course he was meant to do something that no man had ever done before. He had the power to do so. Why would he have been given the power to rule the world if he wasn't meant to do just that?

"I can help too. Me and my kids I mean." Said Mob quickly. Dad was thinking again and nothing good ever came from dad thinking. She had to get him thinking about other things, things he liked to think about, and when she grew up was one of his favorite topics. She didn't know what would happen when she grew up, she didn't have a boyfriend but she knew that she had to have kids, but she did know that if Sho needed help then she would help him. Even if she had ten kids and they were all babies who cried and threw up all the time like Mukai used to she would still have done whatever she could to help out her little brother.

If she even had time for them.

Dad's aura slammed against hers. This was why she smoked. Dad was being all…dad…again. She had no idea what she was supposed to do now. She had no idea what she had even said. She knew that she was clueless but dad…he was even worse than she was! At least she was only half of him. She had mom in her and mom wasn't as clueless as dad was…or even clueless at all. She wondered how mom dealt with dad when he got like this….or maybe she hadn't. Dad had been gone for most of the year when she'd been little and mom had still been around.

Maybe that was why mom left. Maybe she just got too tired of dad.

"Children? Why did you mention children?" asked Suzuki. His eyes went down to her stomach. It looked normal, there was the slight pudge that had always been there…right? That little pudge that pressed against her nightshirt. She…well she was only twelve…but when he'd been twelve he'd spent thirty percent of his week mentally undressing his female classmates and stealing mother's department store catalogues. Shigeko was a woman now…and women had the same desires as men…otherwise the species wouldn't be able to reproduce its self. If being penetrated wasn't pleasurable then the tedium of it would have completely turned every woman ever off of penetration. Also if women didn't enjoy anything then what would the point have been? Women and men…that was just…normal and natural…

Normal and natural didn't always mean acceptable and good.

"Because when I grow up I'll have kids one day. Like you said. When I grow up and start my own family then you'll live with us and help me take care of my kids." Said Mob. He had told her that. He had promised her. What? Had he changed his mind? She…she didn't even know. She wanted to have lots of babies, daughters since boys were rough and messy and gross, and she wanted to have a boyfriend who loved her and wanted to be with her all the time and stuff. She even wanted her dad around, the more time he spent with her the less time he'd spend with Sho, but if dad didn't want this anymore…she didn't know what she'd do.

Why did dad get to be the one who made these choices for her life?

Being a girl…it wasn't that great sometimes. Boys got to do more. They got to inherit the world. Girls just had to do whatever their dads told them to do. She didn't know what else she would have wanted to do…she liked running Claw but she wasn't Sho…and without running Claw then she didn't have another option. When she had been little, really little, they had asked at school what she wanted to do when she grew up. She had said that she wanted to work at the animal shelter like mom did sometimes. She liked animals and taking care of things…so maybe she still wanted to work at an animal shelter?

No, dad would never have let her do that. He hated animals.

"I…did say that." Said Suzuki. Right. He'd had this idea for their future, them raising children together, and it had always been a nice thought…but now it was becoming more than a thought. She was twelve now, not ten or eleven, and…and soon she'd be thirteen and then fourteen and fifteen…and she could already have had a child if she wanted to. If she found a man who she cared for. If some man decided that he had the right to touch her. Suzuki…he didn't know how he was supposed to handle it without committing murder…some man and his oldest daughter…

Homosexuality wasn't working out for Hatori. Maybe heterosexuality would serve him better.

"You did. I remember." Said Mob. Dad was looking at her stomach now. She looked down at it. It seemed normal to her.

"But…that day won't be coming soon, will it?" asked Suzuki

"Do you mean me having kids? I can't have kids, dad, I'm twelve." Said Mob. He had said that before, back when they'd had their fight, and she had no idea why. She. Was. Twelve. She didn't even have a boyfriend! And if she did then she wouldn't have done…things…with him! She'd only kissed one boy, twice, and…and also she'd been felt up once…but she hadn't even liked it that much! And even kissing got weird when you opened your mouth! And she'd gotten too freaked out to stay when Teru tried to stick his hand up her dress! And…and her dad didn't need to know about ANY of that! He didn't even need to be thinking about that!

"You can, biologically." Said Suzuki. Was she being careful? Was she even doing anything? She spent most of her time with Minegishi, who had been born female, and…well her other friends were men…but Hatori was a homosexual. Shibata was most likely a homosexual as well. Serizawa was more of a child than the actual children. Fukuda would never have betrayed him like that. Shimazaki…was a very attractive man, objectively. He was a powerful esper even amongst other espers, he was incredibly fit, and if his mission reports were anything to go off as well as what Suzuki had seen of his work he was more than capable

"Don't talk about that." Said Mob. She pulled her hair down over her face. Why….why the f-word did dad have to bring that up?! Why the f-word was he even thinking about that?! And why the f-word did he think that it was ANY of his business!?

"What? It's a biological fact that at this point in your life you can bear a child." Said Suzuki as he got the hair out of Shigeko's face. What was she hiding from? This was simply a biological fact. If she so chose to she could have a child. If anything he was the one who should have been hiding. He was the one who's raised her after all.

"Dad! I-I don't even have a boyfriend!" said Mob as dad pushed the hair out of her face. What? Why did he have to look at her?! Couldn't he have just thought about her? It sure seemed like he'd been doing plenty of that already!

"Good. I was worried for a moment." Said Suzuki. She didn't even have a boyfriend…well a committed romantic partner was not a prerequisite for having a child…but she had been raised in a monogamous home in a monogamous culture…so at least she wasn't going around collecting men like he wished he'd been collecting women at her age. Of course when he'd been her age there had been no chance of anything happening with anyone. Women really did have the advantage on the sexual marketplace…not that Shigeko was anywhere near the sexual marketplace….and not that she even knew what it WAS!

Well she better not have known.

"You don't have to worry about that! I'm twelve! I don't even have a boyfriend to do…stuff…with! And I don't do that kind of stuff…" Said Mob. What? Did everyone in the whole world take one look at her and think that she was taking her clothes off and doing things with boys all day and all night? Even her own dad? She didn't know which was worse, dad thinking about her doing sex stuff with boys or dad thinking about her getting her period and how she could have babies now, she didn't even want to think about which was worse. She wondered if he'd been talking to Fukuda. He thought about her doing things like that with boys, Shimazaki specifically, all the time.

"Oh. Well….I don't watch you twenty four hours a day. I don't know what you do with your time…and I don't want to know." Said Suzuki. If she had reached that point in her life…then he didn't want to know. Knowing would only enrage him…at best…and disgust him at worst. No father ever wanted to think about his daughter's romantic or sexual life. That was normal. He was normal. She was normal. They were both normal…they were both normal together.

"Why does everyone think I do that kind of stuff!?" asked Mob. She tried to hide her face in her nightshirt but dad tugged it down off of her face. Why?! What, if he wasn't looking at her did he think that she didn't exist anymore? Was he like Mukai when she'd been a baby!?

"Because you're getting older. You're old enough to have the same…desires…that all adults have and you have the freedom to act on those desires." Said Suzuki slowly. This was, well it struck him as, something that he needed to speak to her about. When he'd been about her age mother had given him a book and then told him not to come to her or father with any questions since these were not the things that people thought about. When he'd been slightly older, three or four years, father had given him a box of condoms and told him to be careful. What was he supposed to do when it came to Shigeko? She was female…this was really Masami's area of expertise. He hadn't even thought to warn her about menstruation…though even if he had remembered that menstruation was a thing that happened he would have been just as clueless as Shigeko had been. Masami should have at least left him a note or something about this. What was he supposed to do? Telling Shigeko not to have sex would have been useless.

It sure as hell hadn't stopped him from doing anything.

If she had been male then it would have been so much easier to speak to her about this. He would have simply told her that condoms were a necessary burden until she got better at pulling out, to watch out for women who would have gotten pregnant on purpose for her family's money and power, and that sleeping around was something that was best gotten out of your system in university because that was when it was easiest to meet new sexual partners. He had no wisdom or warnings for Shigeko…and even if he had he didn't want to talk to her about these sorts of things.

This really was more of a mother's job…and he only knew how to be a father.

"Dad…don't ever talk about that stuff ever again. It's gross." Said Mob. She didn't care if dad didn't like it. She took her pen, took a long drag, and then held it in her lungs until she felt like she was going to explode. Her lungs, of course, she was doing her best to keep her powers in check. She didn't know why dad was being like this…and she didn't want to ask. She would rather have fought with dad about smoking or even gotten stoned with him. She…well at least she had distracted him from thinking about Sho…so…yay?

The things she did for her little brother….not that she was complaining. No, she loved her brother.

"That goes both ways, you know. I don't enjoy thinking of that part of your life but I accept that it is coming. I have no choice in accepting that fact." Said Suzuki. He had no choice in accepting many facts…such as the fact that his daughter smoked. She smoked everything that she could get her hands on…and she drank…but at least she wasn't having sex. There. He could thank God for the small mercies…and if she did start having sex…well he would maybe have to take up smoking marijuana and drinking hard liquor.

"Dad! Don't think about me doing…stuff…like that! That's a weird thing to think about and I just…I don't even know any boys-" said Mob

"You know plenty of men. There's Shimazaki-" said Suzuki. He didn't know what he said to make Shigeko make that…sound. A cross between a squeak and a shriek. What? Shimazaki was very attractive and he knew that, before, she'd had feelings for him. She had said that those feelings were gone…and he was going to believe her…even though he knew that when he'd been her age he never would have discussed anything relating to his feelings for a girl with them, romantic or sexual. That would have been just terrible.

"I'm not in love with him!" said Mob. Why did everyone think that she was doing things with Shimazaki! He was her best friend's boyfriend! She would NEVER have betrayed Minegishi like that! Also even if he hadn't been Minegishi's best friend she still wouldn't have even had a crush on Shimazaki let alone wanted to do sex stuff with him!

"Sexual desire does not always follow love." Said Suzuki. He looked away from her while he said that. Partially because he did not want to be discussing this with his daughter and partially because he had really messed up in that regard. He hadn't loved Mukai's mother…well he'd been attracted to her…but still. He had been irresponsible and acted terribly. He could see that now. If some man had the nerve to leave Shigeko with a child…then he would have to die. Yes. Any man who had the nerve to treat his daughter the way that Suzuki had treated women in the past then he would have to die a slow and painful death.

"Dad…please…never use the s-word ever again." said Mob Sex…was not a thing that anyone ever needed to talk to their dad about that. She didn't even know how she would have talked to her mom about that! She…well she talked about that stuff with Minegishi but they were her friend. Parents were never meant to even think about that word…even though that was how she had gotten here.

"Understood. I'll find another word for it. Do we still have that thesaurus?" asked Suzuki. That would have been a welcome distraction, looking things up in the thesaurus. He couldn't think of anything farther from all of what they had been talking about.

"It's with the homeschool stuff…but I don't want you to use another word for it. I don't want to talk about it at all…and especially not with my dad." Said Mob

"Well…I'm the only parent you have and I should speak to you about…certain aspects of your life. Aspects of your life that…may not be happening now but will and…I don't want you to make mistakes. You're female and the mistakes that you could make have greater consequences than the ones you would have made if you had been born male." Said Suzuki

"What do you mean?" asked Mob

"Well if you had been born male then I could have passed the wisdom of my experience onto you." Said Suzuki

"Well…um…you can pass it on to Sho. He's a boy." Said Mob

"I have nothing to teach him. He's already more romantically successful than I was at your age. Honestly I'm amazed he's even found someone willing to hold his sticky fingers let alone marry him." said Suzuki

"Y-Yeah…Sho has a girlfriend…but…um…you can tell me the wisdom if you want to." Said Suzuki

"There's nothing that you can learn from me. I'm a man and you're a woman." Said Suzuki

"I'm twelve." Said Mob. She didn't think that she was a woman. She felt like an adult a lot of the time but not a women. Mom was a woman. Women had husbands and kids and cooked and cleaned…well she did that already…and Sho and Mukai were kind of like her kids…but she still didn't feel like a woman. Like an adult but not a woman…if that even worked at all.

"I'm aware…you're only twelve and there are so many things you don't know…" said Suzuki

"Like what?" asked Mob

"You should be careful who you choose to be…intimate…with. You're the one who carries the child-" said Suzuki

"Dad!" said Mob. She knew what intimate meant. Intimate meant sex. She knew what carrying a child meant. It meant being pregnant. Dad was talking about her having SEX and being PREGNANT! Mob…she thought about sex sometimes…a lot of the times…and she knew that if she actually did the things she thought about she'd get pregnant. She knew that she'd have to get pregnant when she grew up…but that was still a long time away!

"I don't want you to end up having a child with someone you regret. I don't want you to make those sorts of mistakes." Said Suzuki quietly. He cared deeply for Mukai…but he hadn't been ready for another child at that point in his life. He had still been in the middle of mourning Masami without even realizing that he'd been mourning. Pang Sujin had been a woman who he'd been attracted to deeply, and if he had been intelligent enough to realize that Masami wasn't coming back he would have pursued a relationship with her, but he had been mourning and stupid and…and he'd treated her so terribly…and he didn't even know where she was…he had no way to tell her how ashamed of himself he was and how sorry he was.

"You'd better not be talking about Mukai. I told you, tou-dad, people aren't mistakes." Said Mob. She had been about to tell dad off again, and with his given name too, but instead she just smoked. She knew that a fight would have been the wrong kind of distraction.

"No…well…she was not a mistake. She was…unplanned. It's difficult to have an unplanned human being…well as a man it is…but as a woman you'll go through a lot of physical and emotional changes and I want you to…to make sure that the man who you end up...becoming intimate with…is the man who's child you want to have." Said Suzuki

"I'm twelve. I don't think about stuff like that…and it's weird that you think about me doing stuff like that." Said Mob. Dad was weird, she had known this about him since she had been old enough to realize it, but this…was not his normal kind of weird. She liked it better when he talked for hours about ruling the world and kendo and Minecraft and what life in outer space would have been like. She didn't need him thinking about things that she was never going to do. She didn't know any boys, she didn't have a boyfriend, and even if she did…even if she'd found the love of her life and they lived in a big, fancy house together with their babies dad SHOULD NOT have been thinking about her doing things like that!

Seriously! What the h-word was the matter with him!?

"When you become a parent you'll understand. When you have a daughter you won't simply see her as she is in the present. You'll see her past and future as well, whenever you look at her, and it will be difficult to reconcile the three versions of her within your mind." Said Suzuki. Yes, that was what it was like…and she would never understand. For so long she had been the one person in this world who could understand him…but there were so many years that separated them….a lifetime. She could understand him up to a point and he could understand her up to a point….

And now they had reached that point.

She wasn't a child anymore…and he'd had so few years with her. It seemed like one day she'd ben small, small enough to fit into his arms, and now she was…this person. This woman. He was a man and she was a woman and, yes, she was his child but…but that could only take them both so far. She understood what it was to be as powerful as him, the work that came with it and the burden, and for the longest time that had been his only burden. There had been so little, in the past, but now there was so much and…and she couldn't help him with that…just like there were parts of her life that he had no way of even beginning to understand…

She was pressed against his side…but an abyss separated them.

"Hey dad?" asked Mob. Dad was sad now…even though he had no reason to be sad. She'd asked him about space, he was the one who started talking about all of this gross stuff! She loved him, as weird as he was she loved him, but this…was maybe too weird.

"Yes?" asked Suzuki. She was looking him, now, and her eyes…at least those were the same. Everything else had changed about her but her eyes would be the one thing to remain constant in the unstoppable force of time.

"Do you…do you ever think that people will be able to live on the moon?" asked Mob. Space…dad liked space…and if he didn't want to talk about space then they could talk about kendo…and if he didn't want to talk about kendo then they could play Minecraft…and if he liked Pokémon better than Minecraft now then they could play that instead. She didn't care what they did just so long as they stopped talking about weird stuff like this!

Distracting dad was easy even if he was really, REALLY, weird.