Mob was long overdue for a haircut.

Only her bangs, of course, because she just…had never cut the rest of her hair off before. Mom had told her, when she was little, that when she had been little she had wished more than anything for hair like Mob's. Long hair that was black and perfectly straight. Mob didn't think that her hair was special, it looked like everyone else's, but that was why mom had wanted hair like that, she had said. When she had been little people used to make fun of her for having wavy brown hair. Mob didn't know what the connection between people making fun of Mom and Mob not being allowed to cut her hair short was.

If mom wanted hair like Mob's so badly then she could have just straightened and dyed her hair and let Mob do what she wanted with it.

Not that Mob wanted to cut it short…not really short. Not like Minegishi's was now. Their hair was as short as it had been when she first met them. Too short to tie back or braid or…or anything. Well that made sense, Minegishi didn't like things like that, even though she didn't know why. They looked so nice with long purple hair. They wanted really short hair, though, and they could do whatever they wanted since it was their hair…even though what they wanted made no sense. Adults, she had noticed, made no sense a lot of the time.

Adults were weird.

"So what are we doing today Mob? You just want me to cut your bangs?" asked Minegishi as they finished combing her hair. They put their comb down onto the chair next to them. It was weird, getting her hair combed outside. They had to be outside. Hatori came back from work and now he was taking a real shower where nobody was allowed to bother him for any reason. Mob wondered if apologizing to him counted as bothering him…but maybe even if she did finish getting her hair cut before he finished his shower she shouldn't try and talk to him through the door.

Even though she wanted to apologize…she had a lot of apologies she had to make now.

"Yes….that would be nice…but you don't have to. I know that you're probably tired and stuff." Said Mob

"After what happened this morning I don't think that I'll be able to fall back asleep for a while." Said Minegishi

"Do you want to smoke until you get tired?" asked Mob

"No, what I want to do is cut your hair and then after that we can find something that has nothing to do with smoking to fill the hours until the chaos starts up again." said Minegishi. Mob nodded. She really wanted to smoke but Minegishi didn't want to and she had to do what her friend wanted. She loved them after all and when you loved someone then you did what you could to make them happy…and that meant putting your own feelings aside.

Mob wasn't that good at that.

She had broken her promise to Sho…and to dad, if a threat could be called a promise. She maybe thought that it could have been. She had said that something was most certainly going to happen…if dad did something….and he did do something. He was mean to Sho. Sho finally told him that he was gay and dad…the only thing that he could think to do was be mean to him. Dad hadn't hit him, which was very good, but also dad had told him that he wasn't allowed to like boys…like he had some kind of control over that…and like dad had the right to tell Sho what went on in his heart. She didn't even get to tell Sho what went on in his heart and she was his big sister.

If she'd gotten a say about that then she would have told him not to cheat…but she barely even got a say in her own hair let alone someone else's heart.

"If that's what you want…um….can we…read manga? I mean you can read real books and I can read manga." Said Mob. She knew that she had chores to do, and homeschool, and also she'd promised Minori that she would meet her after school and that she'd bring Mukai with so they could take more cute pictures of her so they could get more followers….and at some point she was going to have to tell dad how terrible he'd been to Sho…but she could do that over dinner…

She had a lot she had to do…but what she wanted to do was spend time with her best friend….she'd pay for being selfish later.

"Sounds great. We'll go to that manga store you like, too, the one with all the UFO catchers." Said Minegishi. Mob knew what they were doing, they were trying to make her feel better, but she didn't need anyone or anything to make her feel better. The only way she could feel better was if she fixed this…if she found some way out of this where she didn't end up making her family even smaller. She didn't know how mom had done this, chosen to leave, and without either of them….well without Sho. She should have taken Sho with…if she took him with then he wouldn't have to be with dad. She could have stayed with dad and taken care of him.

She would have missed Sho but Sho would have been happy…and that was what mattered.

It was important to think about other people. She wanted to go to the manga store. She wanted to get some new books, books where people were friends and hung out and fell in love, and also she could maybe find something that Sho liked too. Something with fighting…or maybe not since he'd probably had enough fighting. Something about hamsters or cats then. Something….if she got him something then maybe it would have been less selfish of her….

No. The fact that she was even thinking of doing anything but focus on fixing what had happened between her and Sho and dad and dad and Sho together…the fact that she was thinking of herself at all made her selfish.

"No, we don't have to do that." Said Mob

"What? You don't like UFO catchers?" asked Minegishi

"No, no, I like them a lot. I mean I'm not good at them but I like them….I just know how tired you are and how you hate being around lots of people at once and also how you hate the heat and love to take naps while you read…and I want you to be happy." Said Mob

"Well what would make me happy would be getting you out of this house and out of your own head." Said Minegishi

"I'm not in my head, I'm here with you in the yard." Said Mob

"I know you and I know that you're probably overthinking this whole thing with your dad and your brother to hell and back." Said Minegishi

"I'm not overthinking it…and not to the h-word. I'm just thinking about how…how now I have to be mean to dad and…and how I promised dad and Sho that if dad was mean to Sho when he told him that he liked boys then I would take Sho and leave…well I said if dad hit him…and dad didn't hit him, but dad did say that he wasn't allowed to like boys so-" said Mob

"Mob, come on." Said Minegishi

"Come where? I mean I'll go to the manga store if you want me to." Said Mob

"I mean come on. This went better, WAY better, than any of us thought it would. Your dad didn't kill your brother….so just count this one as a win and stop worrying already. You have enough to deal with as it is, Mob, and I wish you didn't take so much of this onto yourself." Said Minegishi

"I'm the big sister, I'm supposed to take care of Sho…and I'm the Daughter…I'm supposed to take care of dad…and also with mom gone I'm kind of like her too because there aren't any more girls in our family…well there's Mukai but she's just a little kid." Said Mob

"And you're twelve." Said Minegishi

"I know." Said Mob. She was going to be twelve for a while now…even though she felt much older. Right now she was tired, like an old person, like dad was a lot of the time. She wondered how adults did this, dealt with this, lived with being tired all the time. Being in charge of not only yourself but everyone around you….there was a lot to think about and worry about…and when things went wrong you had nobody to blame but yourself….like now. She had nobody to blame but herself. She wished, a little bit, that she could be little again…that she could feel like Mukai. She never had to worry about anything. Everyone else worried about her…but she was two. There was a very big difference between being two and being twelve. H-word, there was a big difference between turning twelve in May and turning twelve in December…and it was getting close to Sho's birthday…..and now she would have to worry about what she would get him for his birthday….but Shimazaki's birthday would come sooner…and then there was the anniversary of Serizawa becoming her friend. He said that he hadn't wanted a birthday party so she was throwing this for him…if he even wanted that…and she was going to have to plan all of this around their next move…and then the one after that…and then there was Christmas…

There was a lot to do and not a lot of her to do it.

"So stop with this already, leave your dad and your brother alone, and just…calm down already. Also sit still and close your eyes so I fix your bangs already….they've been driving me crazy for weeks now." Said Minegishi. Mob did what she was told. It was easier to do what she was told. That way she didn't have to think…and not thinking about this wasn't exactly as easy as Minegishi made it seem. She knew that she wasn't, exactly, a part of this…she wasn't in the fight with Sho and dad…but this was her family and she had to take care of them.

That was her job.

She had to take care of her family…and sometimes that meant putting one member of her family before the other. Sho…if she had to take Sho and run then she would. If she had to take Sho to some far off place where dad could never find them then…then she would leave her dad behind. Even if that made her an orphan…and also friendless. She knew that people who defected got punished…and she couldn't ask her friends to risk that…

She hadn't really thought this through.

Last Halloween, when she'd told dad that she'd leave if he was mean to Sho for who he was, she had been trying to leave the house. She had been about to walk out the door…she'd been frustrated…and also she'd been tired…and excited for the party…and she'd just wanted him to stop. She should have thought it through. She didn't know how to leave…and she didn't really want to. She didn't want to leave her friends…or her dad.

Even if he could be kind of a jerk sometimes.

She heard the click of the scissors. She could see some more light coming in from behind her eyelids. It looked pink because her eyelids were pink. That made sense, they were made of skin and her skin was pink. She shouldn't have been looking at the sun. She knew that when she opened her eyes she would have had black spots in her vision. The same thing had happened before when she'd been little. She hadn't been looking at the sun, though, she'd been facing the bathroom lights. It had been when she had been little, too little to cut her own bangs. Dad had done it for her….she hadn't even had to ask him, he'd just done it….

Because she'd been little.

She didn't need him to help her with her hair anymore. She didn't even really need Minegishi's help either. She could do this herself in the bathroom in front of the mirror. She wasn't seven anymore, she was twelve, and she could cut a straight line into her hair without cutting her forehead. She was selfish for making Minegishi do this….well they hadn't really asked her. They had pulled her out of the bathroom, she had been trying to clean up the water, and told her that she was getting a haircut. She changed her clothes, cleaned up her room, and then came back here…and now here she was.

Getting her bangs cut.

It was still selfish, it felt like, even if it hadn't been her idea. Minegishi liked cutting hair, maybe, that might have even been why their hair was so short. Maybe this was ok, then, since they liked cutting hair. Maybe she wasn't selfish at all…or maybe she was more selfish than she ever could have thought. She was looking for a way out of being selfish so maybe that made it worse…she didn't know. She wasn't supposed to be selfish. She should have been nice…sweet…like mom had told her to be. She…she should have done more for dad and Sho…she should have done more for everyone. She should have been nicer…she could have been nicer….if only she'd tried harder…

Dad said that you could do anything if you tried hard enough.

The scissors moved from her forehead bangs to her hime bangs. They were long and had split ends. She didn't know why split ends were so bad and she really kind of wanted to grow her hime bangs into the rest of her hair….but Minegishi knew best. They were doing this for her and she wasn't going to go and tell them what to do, especially over something as dumb as her hime bangs. Even though she was getting tired of them….her hair had been this way for as long as she could remember.

Maybe it would have been easier to chop it all off.

No. That was a selfish thought to have. She knew that mom had wanted hair like hers when she had been little. She knew that it meant a lot to mom…and mom still meant a lot to her. She…she didn't know. She didn't know what she would have done if mom came up to her right now. If she just let herself into the back garden and said….whatever she felt like saying. Maybe where she had been all this time…maybe why she had left Sho with dad…maybe why she had married dad in the first place…maybe the only thing that she was going to say was that Mob wasn't allowed to cut her hair at all.

The back garden opened. It wasn't mom.

She kept her eyes closed. She felt like Mukai. Whenever Mukai saw something scary, even something that wasn't scary like Mob's fuzzy sweater or that doll with the missing eye, she closed her eyes and pretended that she couldn't see. Just because your eyes were closed it didn't mean that the scary thing was gone. She had even told that to Mukai….she really needed to take her own advice…

Or maybe Mukai had been right. She really hoped that Mukai was right.

"Get out of my garden." Said Minegishi. They said that before Fukuda even closed the gate to the garden…well now he was getting closer…he really should have closed the back gate. That would have been the polite thing to do…but Fukuda had stopped being polite a while ago. He had stopped being nice and polite and…he had stopped liking her. She didn't know what she'd done to him and…and she didn't have enough space in her head for him right now.

She didn't know when she would have enough room for him again….and she kind of hoped that day never came.

"I'm not here to hurt your precious garden, I'm looking for Sho." said Fukuda. He was still getting closer ever though everything about Minegishi's aura told him to stay away. She really hoped that he didn't plan on saying or doing anything mean to him…if he did then she didn't know what she would do…probably say something mean to him again…even though she didn't really want to.

"He's not here, so get the hell out of my garden." Said Minegishi. They said the h-word…but that was the best thing that they could have said right now. She knew that they could have said even worse things…and she knew that she shouldn't have wanted that….but better them than her…even though that had been a really mean thought to have.

"Well does she know where he is? He isn't answering his phone." Said Fukuda. She felt Fukuda's aura on hers. It felt weird….being near him felt weird. Like…bad weird. She used her powers to shake the hair off of her clothes…it felt weird when it itched her….but not as weird as Fukuda's aura felt. Itchy and gross and….and just really weird.

"What did I just-" said Minegishi. Mob could feel them reaching out to the plants around them. She opened her eyes, she had to. As much as she disliked Fukuda, which was more than anyone else in the world even dad right now, she didn't want Minegishi to hurt him. Hurting people was mean and wrong even if the person who was being hurt was Fukuda.

"Fukuda, Minegishi asked you to leave their garden and when someone asks you to leave then you should do what they ask." Said Mob as she opened her eyes. Oh. His clothes were all messed up and his eyes were darting around….and he was rocking on his feet. His aura was nervous so the rest of him was too. If Fukuda was nervous to be here then he should have been at his own house or work or…or wherever else he went during the day.

"Miss Suzuki, have you seen your brother? Your dad told me what happened this morning. I was just looking for him so I could-" said Fukuda. Every single word that he said made Mob want to run away. She wanted to run off into the garden patch and hide in the plants. The tomato vines would have hidden her…or the melon leaves…or even the tiny lemon trees. Though Sho was allergic to lemons, all citrus, and if she got it on her then he could swell up and turn red again…and then he would really need Fukuda.

He kind of needed Fukuda right now, those things in his neck were kind of…big and red and there, but they would heal on their own.

"Sho can heal on his own, thank you." Said Mob. The thank you was good, it made what she said less mean. She may not have liked Fukuda but she didn't just get to be mean to people she disliked. Minegishi could, but that was just how they were.

"You hear her, now get lost." Said Minegishi. One of those biting plants grew at their side. Mob put it back in the ground. Minegishi's aura darted over to hers…..she would have to do something nice to make up for that. Stealing control from them had been kind of mean….kind of really mean…but maybe it was ok. She had stopped them from hurting Fukuda. As much of a jerk that he was she didn't him hurt, just gone.

"Miss Suzuki-" said Fukuda

"I don't know where Sho is. He's with Shimazaki and I don't know where they go or what they do but I know that Sho's out having fun…and…um…maybe you could go somewhere and have fun. Somewhere that isn't here. This is Minegishi's garden…and also my house, since it's my dad's and everything that's his is mine, and…um….if Minegishi doesn't want you here then maybe you should go…or um….we can go….someone can go-" said Mob

"Mob, haircut's over, let's go." Said Minegishi. Mob nodded and hopped down off of her stool. They should have brought that stuff back inside but Minegishi didn't seem like they wanted to. They seemed like they were in kind of a hurry. They put their messenger bag on so fast one of their pins came off. Mob caught it with her powers and put it back onto their bag. She didn't have to look to do that but she did.

She made sure she didn't look at Fukuda once.

She made sure, even as she adjusted her own bag, that she didn't look over at Fukuda. She didn't even let her aura touch his. She walked right past him…and that was kind of mean…but he had been mean first. She wondered what had happened to him, when he'd turned into someone so mean, and she almost wanted to ask him…but she knew that would get her nowhere. All she would end up with was a headache….and she had enough going on in her head already….so she kept on walking. She ignored him calling after her and she kept on walking. She made sure to remember to text Sho later that Fukuda was looking for her and she kept on walking….it wasn't so hard.

She made sure to look down as she passed him, though, thanks to her haircut her bangs were too short to cover her eyes now.