Sometimes Mob got the feeling that she maybe had too many clothes.

Her entire room was covered in them. Shirts and skirts and dresses and tights. Socks, underwear, and undershirts too. She had so many things to wear…and she had no idea when she had ever gotten some of this stuff. She had been looking for her and Sho's winter clothes, since it was nearly December, and she had found them…and a few boxes of other clothes too. Summer clothes, fall clothes, pajamas, her old costumes…there was so much to go through…but it was something that she had to do right now.

If she didn't get this done now then she would never got it done.

"This is Sho's." said Mob as she pulled a green shirt out of the box. Their clothes were easy to sort. Sho wore mostly green and yellow. She wore mostly pink and blue. It wasn't a rule or anything like that, not like when they had been little and mom only bought her pink things and Sho only got blue things, this was just how they liked their clothes. If Sho wanted other colors he could have them…but not now. No, they had so many clothes as it was. She held up the shirt….it still had tags. The tags were in Mandarin. She had no idea when the last time she went shopping in China was. It must have been a long time ago, though, this shirt wouldn't have fit Sho. She didn't have to tell him to come inside and try it on, she could tell that it wouldn't fit.

She put it in the 'get rid of somehow pile' and got back to work.

There were a few piles. There was the pile of clothes she hadn't gone through yet, the pile of Sho's clothes that were to keep, the pile of Sho's clothes to maybe get rid of, the pile of her clothes for keeping, and the pile of her clothes that she was going to pass on to Mukai. It was wasteful to just throw away perfectly good clothes, in Mob's opinion, which was why she had never thrown any away before. Even the clothes that got ruined just got turned into rags. She couldn't turn perfectly good clothes into rags either. She just…had to find a way to get rid of this stuff that wasn't wasteful.

Getting rid of things was hard.

"Oh!" said Mob as she pulled out another one of Sho's shirts. This one was really old, compared to how big he was now this shirt was like something for a doll. It was from the time she and Sho tried to make tie dye. It turned out that dying clothes was really hard and despite what the internet said you couldn't really do it with Kool-Aid. Not in a way that made patterns. No, this shirt just looked like it was covered in green and yellow stains.

Maybe Mob needed to start a rag pile.

It would have made sense to start one. This shirt was unwearable. It was too small for Sho and even if it hadn't been it just looked like he had spilled a lot of Kool-Aid all over himself. She couldn't let her little brother walk around looking like this…but she couldn't just throw it away, either. This was a piece of their history as people, as siblings, as Shigeko and Sho…and throwing this away would have been like throwing away a piece of their lives. She could maybe just leave it here and then when the Awakened came to clear this house for the next people, more high ranking Claw members, they could pack it up and put it in storage and then…well then in a few years she would find this shirt again and wonder what she was going to do with it…

Sho didn't need this shirt anymore but…but she didn't really need any more rags so this would go in…um…..she would put this back in the box and come to it later!

She put the Kool Aid tie Dye shirt back and found…the other Kool aid tie dye shirt. This was the one that she did. This was the one that she had used pink and blue on. It just turned purple….and not a pretty shade. It was a muddy purple, muddy and gross, and there were white spots on it too from where the color didn't take. She was NEVER wearing this again…she wouldn't have fit into that shirt even if she tried. Even by looking she could tell…and this was definitely a rag. If she wasn't going to wear it…if she wasn't even going to fit into it…

But she never knew until she tried.

She took her shirt off and dropped it in front of her. She had to make sure that she didn't end up losing that one in all the piles. That was one of her rare ones, they stopped making it last year, Hatori had found it online for her. Elsa and Anna, of course, but in their Frozen Fever dresses and with a Christmas background. American sizes so it would fit her. She didn't know what she would do if she lost it…if by the time she found it again it would have to go to the Mukai pile. She didn't even fit into it that well and it was in an American size…

She held her old Kool Aid shirt in front of herself.

She could fit in this. She could and she would. She pulled it over her head. There. She could fit. She tugged it down over her chest…and then she tried with her powers…and she tried with her hands and her powers. It wouldn't go down….there wasn't a lot of stretchiness to this fabric. That was all. It had nothing to do with the fact that she wasn't nine years old anymore…and it had nothing to do with her breasts…which she barely even had! Minori was always telling her that she couldn't wear baggy shirts since they made her look even more like a first grader than she already did. She didn't have breasts, not nice ones, and Shimazaki was wrong and…and Minori was right and….and she could get this shirt on!

She had to.

She tugged as hard as she could until she could feel the fabric starting to rip. Then she stopped. With her shirt not even half on. She could see her undershirt…she couldn't walk around like this. She couldn't just walk around showing her undershirt like this. She wasn't Mukai. Sometimes Mukai took her clothes off for no reason but that was alright because she was just a little kid. Mob wasn't a little kid anymore…she wasn't really any kind of kid. Dad had said, before, that she was a very short woman. Minegishi said that she wasn't a woman at all and anyone who said that she was didn't know what they were talking about. Mob…she wasn't a kid anymore….she wasn't a woman either. She was in some in between place. Where she couldn't even fit into her old clothes…for reasons. The shirt was just too small. She didn't have…well she had breasts…but they weren't nice!

They weren't anything to write home about.

Fukuda had said that about Minegishi's breasts years ago. Back then it had been the meanest thing that Mob had ever heard, that she could have thought of, so say about someone. That was back when Mob had been a kid. She had wanted to look grown up, to look like she did now. Even when she had been little she would put on mom's dresses and stuff and pretend that she was all grown up. Well growing up was really f-wording awful! She didn't want to look like this anymore! She almost wished that she looked one hundred percent like a first grader. Then boys wouldn't look at her…boys that she knew. She thought that it had been bad when it felt like Fukuda had been looking at her, it had been kind of scary knowing that he said and thought things like that about people who had been born girls, but now she knew that there was something worse. There was always something worse.

Boys could like the way you looked.

Mob had known Shimazaki for nearly half of her life. She had met him when she was eight and now she was twelve. That had to have been really close to half. It felt like it anymore. She had thought that she and Shimazaki would always be just friends but now…now he kissed her and he looked at her and he wanted to kiss her and look at her some more….and he had said that he liked her breasts. Minegishi said that they weren't mad at her and that they had talked to Shimazaki and he agreed to leave her alone…but…but still! It was even worse, Shimazaki liking her, than Fukuda thinking about her…at least he had only been thinking….

She couldn't wear this shirt. She pulled it up over her head as fast as she could…and her undershirt went up with it.

The mirror cracked. She was the one who cracked it. She had meant to. She just…she had seen herself and she got the feeling that other people could even though she knew that nobody could see her. She was alone. Sho and Mukai were playing. Dad was on another away mission. Everyone else was either working or napping. She was all alone in her room. Nobody could see her…but she didn't want to see herself. She didn't want to see why her shirt didn't fit or…or all the red lines that had appeared almost overnight on her hips and breasts and stomach….or…or at the way her…she didn't want to look at herself!

She pulled her undershirt back down.

Time to go back to normal. Time to stop thinking. Time to…time to sort out the clothes. She held the shirt in her hands. She wasn't going to try and put it back on. She might have been able to pull it down if she took off her undershirt…but she couldn't walk around without an undershirt on. Not while it was this cold out. She wondered if that would ever go away. Mom hadn't warned her about that…or a lot of other stuff. Her period. How to get rid of her leg hair. How her hair and skin were going to turn into grease traps overnight. How she would have weird feelings and people would have them about her. How…well mom hadn't thought to warn her about anything that Minegishi or the books they'd given her had warned about….

F-word mom.

What was the point of even thinking about mom? She wasn't here and even if she had bene then she would have just been in her room sleeping or something. She had been really sick by the end…by the time she left. Not sick like Minegishi had been sick. They had said that sometimes they shut down and did dumb stuff like too many Xanax because of their feelings. Mom had been really sick, the kind of sick that Fukuda could fix, the kind that Mob couldn't. Mob had made Minegishi better with love and friendships. Mom…not even Fukuda could make her feel better and he could do anything, like fix Sho's arms when they had extra corners or…or there was the time when Mob had burnt her leg in the bathwater…

Mob was fine now.

There was nothing to be sad about. She knew, had known for a while, the mom was never coming back. She was gone and even if she had been there then she wouldn't have done anything so…so that was that…and this was this. This was a shirt and she had to…she had a lot of things to do and if she didn't get this done now then she would never get it done….

She'd just end up collecting more stuff…and she didn't even know what to do with the stuff that she had.

"Maybe it could be a doll's shirt." Said Mob as she tried to get back to normal, her feelings sometimes got all messed up when she thought about mom. Confused. Mom…she was a confusing person…but Mob…she had….she had to worry about the shirt in her hands. She didn't know if she had doll big enough to fit into people clothes. She maybe could have bought a bigger one but then that would just add more to the big collected of, well, stuff that she had collected over the years. She sometimes thought that she had too much stuff in general, not just clothes. She hadn't thought that it had been that much…but it did kind of collect. Things that she and Sho didn't want anymore, didn't play with anymore, got left at old Claw houses. Sometimes they repeated houses but the stuff wasn't there when they got back. There was maybe a big treasure room or something somewhere….

Well now it had been emptied.

The Castle had, back when she lived there, a bunch of treasure rooms. Only one had real treasures, or at least it had been back when she and Sho had been little, and those had just been old broken toys of dad's. Maybe she could just box all the old clothes and toys up and have them sent to the Castle…not that she would ever go back there. She knew where it was, she knew how to order a plane or a car or a train ticket, and she knew that she had plenty of shoes and coats to wear if she decided to go out…but she couldn't go back.

Dad said not to.

They weren't supposed to look back, he had said, life was always moving forward and death was stagnation, dad had said. Going back to the Castle wasn't allowed…so she wouldn't be going there. It wasn't that….that the Castle was the last place she had lived with mom. She didn't miss it, she used to, but…but that was where mom had lived and she didn't want to think about mom right now. She didn't want to think about how mom used to box their old baby things up for later, Mob didn't know when later was, and…and how she maybe missed her old baby blanket or her mermaid cats or all those dolls Sho had sent to the doll hospital….she didn't care about that old stuff….

She had enough stuff here that she didn't have space to even think about her old stuff.

"Time to make a new pile…" said Mob. She wouldn't make a throw away pile after all. She didn't think that she could. She didn't think that she would be able to just take the past and throw it away…she felt sort of like mom. When she had been really little mom had let her play dress up in some of her old clothes. Mom said that she was going to keep them forever because she might have been able to get back to being as skinny as she was before she had babies. Mob hadn't had a baby…and she didn't think that she was fat. She was just tall and…and she THESE now…and it wasn't like she was going to be able to just leave them but…but maybe it was better just to…

She knew that it made more sense to throw away clothes that didn't fit her anymore but she didn't think that she could make sense anymore…since nothing really made sense anymore.

Especially not that.

"Hey Mob, got you something." Said Shimazaki as he teleported…RIGHT INTO HER ROOM! This was…she covered her chest. She turned away from him and covered her chest with both hands Somewhere between turning away and making a complete mess out of all the clothes she realized that Shimazaki couldn't actually see her. Well that hadn't stopped her from making a mess out of everything. The clothes were everywhere…and now she would have to make new piles….or maybe she could just quit and buy new winter clothes.

Yes. That was a good plan.

That was a plan that took her out of this room. Him being in her room…he had never been in her room before. He had never seen her with her shirt off before…never been in the same room as her when she wasn't all the way dressed and-and-and was that why he was here?! No…no way! She…she wasn't going to do that! She didn't even like being felt up and…and she wasn't sure if she would ever like any of the stuff that came after or even what those things were and…and….and….

Shimazaki needed to get the f-word out of her room!

"Shima-Ryou! Go away!" shouted Mob. She closed her eyes and shook her head. He was still there….why was he still there!?

"Sorry, sorry, I thought you liked milk." Said Shimazaki

"I do…now go away! I'm naked and…and….and go away!" said Mob. She wasn't naked, not even close, but she felt naked and that was enough. She could still feel him with her aura. He was still there. He took a step and…she opened her eyes. Oh. He'd turned his back to her. He had his hands in his pockets and his back was to her…and he'd gotten her milk. She could see it, there, by his feet and…and she had been mean, hadn't she? She couldn't be mean to him even if he came into her room without asking. She was his friend and…and she was the one who had made him like her. This was her fault.

She grabbed a shirt with her powers and pulled it over her head.

"You decent yet?" asked Shimazaki

"I…I have a shirt on again. I'm sorry that I yelled at you." Said Mob

"No, I'm sorry. I should have figured that you weren't dressed or…or whatever." Said Shimazaki

"I'm sorrier. I really shouldn't have yelled at you…that was mean." Said Mob

"Are we just going to spend the whole day standing back to back apologizing to each other?" asked Shimazaki. He had a point, this was weird, and anyway she had another shirt on so she was ok. This one fit…sort of. It was tight in the chest, it was another old one, but Shimazaki couldn't tell…right? She wasn't sure how it worked exactly. She knew how she saw things in her mind's eye. She just sort of…knew that they were there…not like seeing with her eyes but more like if she'd turned her skin into a net and caught whatever it was she was trying to pick up. That could have been how it worked for him but…but if she asked him then he would have just hung out in her room for longer….and she didn't want to hang out with him at all.

She had turned into a kind of mean person…she would have to do something about that.

"No…um…we can turn around now." Said Mob. She turned around slowly. She kept her eyes closed while she turned. She maybe hoped, part of her maybe hoped, that she would open her eyes and he would be gone. That was just a wish though, and wishes didn't come true even if you folded two thousand paper cranes. He was still there…and he was looking at her. Well he was facing her. His aura was away from her…that was nice of her.

"Hey." Said Shimazaki

"Hi." Said Mob

"Brought you some milk…or at least it felt like milk." Said Shimazaki

"I saw…see…I can see. It's milk." Said Mob It was skim milk but she wasn't going to say anything. She didn't think that it mattered, you weren't supposed to be rude when you got a gift, and even if she was it wasn't like she could have made him stop giving her gifts. He liked giving gifts even outside of holidays…he was a good friend like that.

"Good…the kind you like, right?" asked Shimazaki. Mob…didn't know if she could lie to his face…she had already told him so many lies. Lies were the worst thing that you could tell someone. Without trust there could be no friendship and…and she wanted to be his friend and everyone else's and…and this whole thing….she wanted to tell the truth about something! She just….she just…

She took a chance.

"It's skim milk…I don't really like skim milk…but it's the thought that counts!" said Mob. She had hurt his voice…she could see his chest shaking. She hadn't thought about how she would end up hurting his feelings…she should have thought about his feelings. She had only been thinking about her own feelings…she was so selfish…she was such a selfish girlfriend….friend who kissed….whatever she was to Shimazaki.

Like person who made him….laugh?

"I even managed to fuck this up." Laughed Shimazaki…even though that was nothing there to laugh at. He shouldn't have been talking about himself like that! He was her friend and…and her friends didn't get to talk about themselves like they were anything other than wonderful!

"No you didn't! I can drink skim milk and-and-and I don't want to ever hear you talking about yourself like that! You're my….you're my friend." Said Mob. He stopped laughing….and now he was looking at her. She could feel his aura…and he reached out to her. She stood still…he found her braid.

"Thanks." Said Shimazaki

"For…for what?" asked Mob

"For being…for being you." Said Shimazaki. He smiled when he said that. His whole aura and his face, too. She was glad that she had made him happy even though she really had no idea what she'd done.

"But…but that's not doing anything. I don't know how to not be myself so…so I don't know if that's something you thank someone for…..sorry." said Mob

"No, I'm sorry. Just….let me think." Said Shimazaki

"Do you want to go back to your house and think? It's probably really quiet there." said Mob. She had told him to leave but…but she had been mean there so it didn't matter if he listened to her or not. You didn't have to be mean to other people to be heard and…and when you said mean things then people didn't have to listen to you. Unless you were dad, of course. Everyone listened to dad, even Shimazaki….

But dad wasn't home right now. He was away on a mission. She was all alone.

"Building me up….I needed that. Toshi's pissed at me and….and pretty much everyone I know is…well that's my fault. I didn't think this kind of thing could affect me…it shouldn't. I'm so fucking boring now-" said Shimazaki

"I just said not to talk about yourself like that. You're not boring. Nothing about you could ever be boring. You're Shimazaki Ryou. You're the most interesting, craziest, person that I've ever met….but in a nice way and….and please don't talk about yourself like that!" said Mob. He smiled again…and let go of her braid. She knew that she should have been happy to have him let go of her braid, and she would have been, if his hand hadn't moved to the side of her face. She knew what this meant…he was going to kiss her….

At least it never took very long.

That was good. He just kissed her and then it was done and over with…well, normally. She was in her room now and she knew what people did in rooms and….and she didn't want to do that. She didn't…she did and she didn't. She wanted a boyfriend, she wanted to have someone to love her and all the stuff that came with it, but it was weird, too, because whenever she thought about having a boyfriend now she couldn't help but think about Shimazaki and….and this…

She really hoped that this didn't take very long.

"You're great, you know that?" asked Shimazaki

"I…I know you said that before." Said Mob

"Because I meant it. You're like…Toshi but not Toshi. You're you but you're also a lot like Toshi, not that Toshi is ever going to stop being my number one, but you're you too. You're like one of those old fashioned lightbulbs and Toshi is one of those new swirly ones." Said Shimazaki. She wanted him to get on with it already. Then she could listen to him talk about Minegishi…if he wanted to talk about Minegishi then maybe it would have been better if he talked TO them….not that she would ever say that….

She didn't want to say anything at all.

"Um….are you going to kiss me?" asked Mob

"Do you want me to?" asked Shimazaki. Mob blinked. He had never asked her before. He just kissed her. He always just leaned in and kissed her like it was nothing. Well it wasn't nothing, kissing wasn't ever nothing, not…not for her. She wondered how he and Minegishi could have kissed other people and done even more than that without even being in like with them let alone never having been in love. Love…love mattered to her…

But what she wanted didn't matter…right?

"I…um….you've never asked me that before." Said Mob

"I know it's a mood killer but I don't even know if there's a mood to kill. I mean it's fine if you're over me and it's fine if you've actually been busy and it's fine if you want to define the relationship and it's fine if you want to break up-" said Shimazaki

"I don't want to break your heart!" said Mob. Break up…he had said break up…which meant that they were something. She didn't know what they were, she didn't want to be anything else with him, but she didn't want to do something as terrible as break his heart!

"You won't, I can take it." Said Shimazaki

"I…I don't want to…to break your heart and…and I just…I don't want to kiss you or…or do the stuff that comes afterwards but I don't want to break your heart or…or hurt your feelings." Said Mob. She felt Shimazaki's hand leave her face. She hoped and feared that he was about to leave…but he didn't. He just stood there in a pile of clothes…that she would now have to wash….

"Hey Mob…you know that this isn't a sex thing, right?" asked Shimazaki. Washing that pile of clothes was the least of her problems. Shimazaki had just said…he said it! He said it and…and he didn't want it so….so it was ok…right?

"I-I-I-" said Mob

"Because it's not. I mean if you wanted to then fuck yeah-" said Shimazaki

"I don't want to!" said Mob

"I figured you didn't. It's not about that…well…mostly. It's like Eighty nine percent emotional and ten percent sexual and one percent other." Said Shimazaki

"What's the other?" asked Mob. Ten percent…that was less than the percent of dairy in two percent milk. That was doable…that was ignorable…that was good. This was…this was a good thing.

"No idea but it's not a sex thing, ok?" asked Shimazaki

"So…so you don't want to do that kind of stuff with me? I mean…not if I don't ask you first?" asked Mob

"Yeah." Said Shimazaki. Mob felt weak. She needed to sit down. How could she have just not thought to ask!? That was….that could have made a lot of things an h-word of a lot easier than they had been. She was so clueless sometimes.

"Oh….ok…um…that's good to know." Said Mob

"But if you don't want to see me anymore-" said Shimazaki

"No! Don't go!" said Mob. She grabbed him by the hand and held it as tight as she could. She held his hand between hers and she held him in place with her powers. She could stop him from teleporting, she didn't really like doing that since it was rude, but she could do it if she had to…and she didn't have to. He didn't even try to teleport away. He just laced her fingers in his.

As long as he wasn't kissing her then it was ok.

She didn't know what she would have done without him. She didn't know…well she had been avoiding him…but he had still been around! How could she have been so selfish!? She should have just either asked him not to kiss her or just let him kiss her and not complained. She didn't know what she would do if he just left…if she drove another person out of her life. She loved all of her friends and….and even the people you loved most in the world could leave you.

She was never ignoring or avoiding him again just so long as he didn't leave her.

"So now you like me again?" asked Shimazaki. Mob….had no idea what he was talking about…wait…was that was he thought?! She had made him feel…she….couldn't believe she'd made him feel so…bad…..

"I never stopped I've just….I've been busy. Everyone needs me to do things for them and it just…it piles up." Said Mob. She kicked a pile of clothes away. That wasn't a lie…not all the way. Things did pile up when you ignored them. Clothes…toys….chores….other people's feelings. She had been busy but…but not so busy. She was ever going to treat Shimazaki or anyone else like that ever again.

"Well then let me help you. We're in this thing together...it feels like a pile of clothes. We're in this pile of clothes together so let me help you…build a nest?" asked Shimazaki

"I'm trying to see what we need and what I can get rid of…but I can't get rid of anything." Said Mob

"Me neither. Did I ever take you to my storage unit? I've pretty much got my whole life boxed up." Said Shimazaki

"Me too…but the boxes are here and I have to sort clothes anyway…but you can stay and help me if you want to." Said Mob. Shimazaki smiled again….and he leaned in close. She didn't know if he was going to kiss her…he said that he wasn't going to but she didn't know if he had been telling the truth. If she'd got kissed again then…well then she got kissed again. She didn't want to hurt his feelings and she didn't want him to leave and that was much worse than not wanting to be kissed…

She didn't get kissed again.

"You have no idea how badly I want to kiss you right now…but I won't press the issue. Now come on, let's see how useless I can be." Said Shimazaki. He patted her on the back when he said that awful thing about himself. He wasn't useless. He was her friend. Sure he could be weird…really weird…and he could act like a crazy person but he wasn't anything bad. He was her friend and she loved him…maybe not in the way that he wanted her to love him…but she did love him. She loved him as a friend and…and she couldn't treat him like a boyfriend but she could treat him like a friend. She couldn't afford to be mean to her friends.

Even if she had as many friends as she had clothes she never would have intentionally driven one away.