"Panda! Panda! Panda!"
Shimazaki knew what pandas were.
What he didn't know was why Mukai was waking him up at whatever hour this was screaming about them. Toshi rolled over and took most of the blanket with them. He didn't tug it back. He wanted to go back to bed. He hadn't been sleeping for long, he could feel it. He'd been up all night dealing with certain factions that Suzuki had some kind of conflict with. He didn't know or care about Claw's internal politics, he just wanted to smash some heads in…which was what he had been doing all night.
It was morning, now, he could feel the sun.
"How did she get in here?" muttered Toshi. Their voice sounded all gravelly. They were tired. He leaned over and kissed the back of their head. They still smelled like blood. Blood, gunpowder, and….what was the word? The word for the smell of plant guts? Chlorine? No, that was the smell of pools. Chloro-something…whatever. It would come to him later. Right now he needed to get up.
There was a little person who needed him.
"I think she can teleport. Can you, can you?" asked Shimazaki. He patted the bed. Mukai didn't need to be told twice. She ran over and tried her best to climb in. He reached over to help her but she slapped his hand away.
"I can do it!" said Mukai
"No you can't." said Toshi. They reached their hand out. A vine grew from their spider plant and put Mukai back down onto the ground. Shimazaki knew better than to push Toshi on this. They didn't have the energy for this right now. They'd been more awake since kicking, mostly, their Xanax habit but he knew when they'd had enough. Shimazaki had the fun job and he knew it. He got to knock heads in. Toshi was usually on body disposal. The longest and most boring job in the whole hit squad. At least that was what they'd said all those years ago. Back when they'd met.
Those had been the days.
Sort of. He'd been a lot freer then. He went where he had to go and did what he had to do and then in the in between times he partied, fucked, and lived his life. He hadn't had to worry about anyone other than himself. He hadn't had to worry about little people waking him up at whatever ungodly hour his was asking him about pandas. He'd been alone, though, very alone. No little people, no formerly little people, no Mob, and no Toshi either. No nobody…but then Toshi had come along! That had been the best day of his life. Well he hadn't known it. He had just known that he had met someone interesting. All the love and shit had come later…he wasn't entirely sure how much later but here they were. Together and in love…mostly. They'd had their ups and downs but they were happy.
Life was better now than it had been back then, even if he did have little people waking him up at all hours of the day.
"Go away. You don't have to go back to your mom but you can't stay here." Said Toshi. Shimazaki kissed them on the back of their head one more time before he teleported over to Mukai. She was looking under the bed, now, at where Toshi kept what he assumed was porn. Mukai didn't need to see that. It would end up scarring her mentally for the rest of her life and then she'd wind up all fucked up like the rest of them were. The deck was already stacked against her, being a Suzuki and all.
It was a lot better than being a Shimazaki, being a Suzuki, but not by much.
He could have recited his bloodline back to the days of the samurai if he'd wanted to. A long, unbroken, line of people just as fucked up as he was. Crazy ran in the family, if dad had been anything to go off of, and he was glad to see them gone. His cousins, the rest of the family who weren't related to him, his own father…yeah, alright, a lot of people were dead but he was ok with that. He was the last Shimazaki but that was ok, really. Bloodlines were stupid. The only thing that ran in his family was madness, heart disease, and apparently psychic powers.
The world didn't need another Shimazaki. He didn't need another Shimazaki. A little Suzuki, or whatever Mukai's family name was, was good enough.
"Ryou, take her back to Tsuchiya already." Said Toshi
"No can do." Said Shimazaki
"Why the fuck not?" asked Toshi
"Because I don't want to. Me and her are going to have an adventure today, aren't we?" asked Shimazaki as he took the book from Mukai's hand. He ran his hand across the page. The secrets within were not for him to divine, and certainly not for Mukai. He closed it and put it back under the bed. It creaked as Toshi sat up.
"Ryou, come on. You need to give her back to Tsuchiya. You know that." Said Toshi
"I know but…I don't want to. We have fun together. Sho's busy being twelve, I guess he outgrew me, and Mob's been spending all her time with Serizawa-which I don't mind! I really don't. I don't need to have her with me twenty four seven to know that she cares about me, I'm not needy." Said Shimazaki. He was amazed by how alright Toshi was being about the whole 'him and Mob' thing. Back when she'd been a kid, and he'd been messing with her purely for the fun of it, they'd gotten all freaked out. Well things had been different back then, Mob had been an actual kid, and of course they had been freaked out. He would have been too if they had been going after an actual kid. Mob wasn't a kid anymore, she had made that abundantly clear, and this…was not the ideal relationship, but he wasn't needy like he knew Toshi thought.
He didn't NEED her. He just cared about her a whole lot. That was all.
"Again with this needy thing? You're killing me with this, Ryou, you know that?" said Toshi
"What? I'm trying not to be needy. How is that killing you? I thought that this was what you wanted, Toshi."said Shimazaki
"I never said that you were needy, Ryou." Said Toshi
"You did, before. Remember? When you were visiting your boyfriend. Your other boyfriend…not that I mind. You know that I don't mind, right? And you were right, I was being needy. I put way too much of myself onto you so I'm sorry and you were right to rip my heart out and show it to me." Said Shimazaki
"You mean when I had a concussion? From the building that fell down on top of my head? Do you mean the day I can barely remember?" asked Toshi
"Remembering! All alone in the moonlight!" sang Mukai. He patted her on the head. She was starting to know about music. Now all he had to do was teach her about good music. Maybe that was what they would do today, after they had their great panda adventure of course.
"Yeah, that's the one!" said Shimazaki. He could feel Toshi rolling their eyes. He had no idea why. He could feel Mukai doing the same thing. He knew exactly why. She was an adorable little copycat sometimes.
"All fall down!" said Mukai. She let herself fall backwards. He did the same. That had been loud but fuck the people who lived under him. He didn't give a damn about them. That had been fun-ish. His back hurt like hell not but there was no way he was taking it back! There was no going back, always forwards! Forwards towards fun!
And back pain.
"Ryou…just give her back to her mom, ok? I'm tired, you're tired, and Suzuki's probably got more work for us later so just come back to bed and get some sleep." Said Toshi. The prospect of sleeping, of curling up next to Toshi and drifting off into sweet oblivion was a tempting one, Mukai needed him and he didn't want to let her go. He needed her…he needed to do what she wanted, to make her happy, and right now what would have made her happy was, apparently, pandas.
"Tsuchiya's probably exhausted too, or maybe she's still throwing up. I don't know why Suzuki put her on the hit squad, she doesn't have the stomach for it. No she doesn't, no she doesn't." said Shimazaki. He poked Mukai in the stomach a couple of times. She'd liked that a lot back when she'd been a baby….fuck. How long had it been? Nearly three years. It was true what they said about time flying and shit. She was going to be three soon and he was going to be thirty three and Toshi-fuck! Toshi's birthday was coming up in a few months. They were going to be thirty. Fuck. Time…this was what Suzuki should have been funding. Fuck world domination, they needed to perfect time travel!
"She doesn't have to go to Tsuchiya but she can't stay here. Give her to Mob or Suzuki or Sho or Shibata or, I don't know, put stamps on her and stick her through someone's mail slot." Said Toshi
"Suzuki's a bastard, Sho's with Fukuda, Shibata hates me, and Mob's sleeping with Serizawa. it's fine, I'll be back. I just have to take Mukai to the zoo really quick. Doesn't that sound good, Mukai? The zoo? You want to go to zoo?" asked Shimazaki
"Want to go to panda!" shouted Mukai
"Do whatever you want." Said Toshi as they rolled over.
"Always do." Said Shimazaki as he got up. Toshi needed sleep and he needed clothes. He picked Mukai up and teleported her into the hallway. He needed to get dressed and the last thing he needed was people thinking that he was creepy. Apparently people couldn't get it through their heads that he had just been messing with Mob back when she'd been a kid, not MESSING with her, that would have been weird as hell, but just teasing her for his own misguided and bizarre amusement. He couldn't believe that people actually thought he was creepy.
He was a lot of things, few of them positive, but creepy wasn't one of them.
Ok, yeah, twenty years was one hell of an age gap but it wasn't like he was twisting Mob's arm. She was Mob, Suzuki Shigeko, Vice President of Claw and the second most powerful esper in the world. If she didn't want to be his girlfriend then she could have just told him so and he would have backed off. She didn't even need to threaten his life or his livelihood. She could have if she had wanted to, but she didn't. She was a nice person like that. She was more than a nice person, actually, she was the most caring human being that he had ever met in his life.
And she was his.
Well she was her own person, of course, but she was with him. How in the hell he'd managed to get someone like her and someone like Toshi he would never understand. Lightning did strike twice it seemed. Well he wasn't going to question it. Life was good. He had two people who loved him so there was no need to feel an bad feelings or think any dark thoughts. Thoughts like how everything and everyone could be gone in a second…how Toshi had left him before and they could do it again…how he didn't even know, sometimes, why they needed him at all…
He got dressed.
Pants, shirt, jacket. That was all he needed. He had been told that he wore pretty much the same thing every single day. He didn't care. Toshi picked out his clothes and they new how to make him look good. Apparently red was his best color, and the color of most of his shirts. He trusted them with his life and his wardrobe. That was the best dam thing, in his opinion, having someone you trusted. That was what love was when you got down to it. Trust. Kids trusted their parents not to kill them. Boyfriend's trusted their partners not to run out on them. Mukai trusted him to take her to the zoo. Without trust there could be no love and what could be better than being in love.
Well, whacking people with his cane was a close second.
His cane was still collapsed in his coat pocket. Good. This was going to be such a fun day. Even in this cold he knew the zoo, the big one he and Sho had gone to last time they'd been here, was going to be packed. Good whacking conditions. He'd have to see about getting Mukai her own little cane, then they could hit people together….like he and Sho used to. Back when he'd been a kid, back when he'd been fun, back before….well Sho was ok. He was just going through a lot. This was Claw after all, everyone was going through a lot…and it really sucked….
It sucked worse than trying to get a two year old into her boots.
"No boots! No boots for Mukai!" said Mukai, way too loudly than she should have. He had teleported her over to Tsuchiya and Shibata's apartment. Honestly, those two needed to fuck already and get it over with. Mukai probably wanted a sibling and God knew he wanted more little kids running around. That wasn't going to happen, though, if Mukai woke everyone up with her screaming. She needed to wear her boots and her coat and her mittens and her hair and her scarf and…what else did kids need? Maybe he should have just taped a blanket to her or something, that might have been…no, no, no. She never would have gone for that. She didn't even want to put her shoes on let alone a whole blanket.
She had to, though, otherwise she'd be cold and he'd end up a bad babysitter/friend/pseudo-dad.
"Come on, you have to wear boots. Believe me, kid, it would be easier on me too to just let you walk around in your socks but that's not an option. If I do that then you're going to lose your toes to frostbite. I mean Fukuda can fix you but that shit hurts…and also you'd have to see Fukuda. You don't want that, do you?" asked Shimazaki
"I want to go to panda." Said Mukai
"Then you'd better put your boots on." Said Shimazaki
"I don't want to put my boots on." Said Mukai
"Please? For me? I'll be your friend." Said Shimazaki
"You my friend, Ryou." Said Mukai
"Yeah, I guess that we're already friends…ok, how about this? If you put your boots on now then later on I'll let you have some second hand smoke from one of Toshi's good joints. How does that sound?" asked Shimazaki
"No boots." Said Mukai
"Well if you're holding out for firsthand then you can hold out for the next six years. Not until you're eight or nine, my friend, not until you're eight or nine." Said Shimazaki
"No boots!" said Mukai. Shimazaki frowned. Obviously it was time to change tactics.
"Fine, I don't want you to put those boots on. Don't you dare touch those boots, Suzuki…Sagami…whatever your family name is, Mukai. Don't you put your feet in those boots." Said Shimazaki
"My boots! Mine!" said Mukai. The reverse psychology worked like a charm. She was like a young Sho, all contrary and stubborn. Maybe that was what a young Suzuki had been like, or maybe that was what all little kids were like. He didn't know, he had never even met any of kids he. He knew that he must have had some out there. If…if she had been pregnant and kept it from him then there must have been others, too. He hadn't been careful and…well it didn't matter. It wasn't like there was anyone left alive to ask, for one thing, and if his kids were anything like him then they didn't want anything to do with him. After all he had been gone all of their lives…he hadn't been given a choice, though, having been banished for so long and also just…how was he supposed to tell if a kid was his? He could see bodies, auras, shapes and sizes but not colors or faces…he could have passed any one of his kids on the street and not known….
It didn't matter. This kid, the one in front of him with her shoes on the wrong feet mattered…and what mattered the most was taking her to the zoo.
So off they went.
Her boots were on, that was what mattered. Her little boots, her little hat, and her little mittens. She hadn't wanted her little scarf and, really, it wasn't a hill worth dying over. Scarves were dangerous as hell anyway. He'd known three people, three, that had died from scarves. Sure they kept you warm but they were also perfect for grabbing, getting caught in revolving doors, and hanging yourself. He'd have to see if Shibata would have been willing to teach him how to knit. Toshi used to have one of those infinity scarf things. No way to hang yourself with that. He'd have to see about that later, though, right now he needed to figure out where in the hell they kept the pandas at this zoo.
This was China so there were bound to be pandas…he just didn't know where.
"Panda! I want to go to panda!" shouted Mukai
"Give me a second, Mukai, animals aren't that easy to tell apart you know. Not like people." Said Shimazaki. He could sense…a hell of a lot of normal people and a hell of a lot of animals. It was loud, here, lots of talking and walking and ambient music. He had never understood the whole 'ambient music' thing. All that did was make it harder to hear your surroundings. Sighted people were weird like that. He could see, well sense, in all directions so he didn't have to live in fear of someone coming up behind him with an axe. Normal people, sighted people in general, were so vulnerable to being murdered….or just attacked…
He held Mukai close with his free hand.
"I want to go to panda! Right now!" said Mukai
"I suppose you wouldn't be so kind as to say 'over there'?" asked Shimazaki. He gave a passerby a good whack to the leg. He made sure to keep his eyes opened while he did it. There. Now he could laugh and not feel any bad feelings or think any dark thoughts. Thoughts like how he was so useless to Mukai that one day she'd trade him in for Fukuda too. That he couldn't give her what she wanted. That it was better that he didn't have any of his kids in his life, that he would have been a really shitty dad to them. That…that he was never going to find those stupid pandas and then she'd hate him for the rest of her life…
Shut up, brain, or I'll bang my head against the nearest concrete wall.
"Over there." said Mukai
"You're just being a little mocking bird, aren't you? You have no idea where the pandas are, do you?" asked Shimazaki
"Pandas? About nine meters that way….to the north, on the north path." Said a voice from beside him. A normal person, no need to get freaked out. He had just been spending time with espers for too long. Espers were like going to a metal show while normal people were like listening to that soft world music shit Toshi put on when they were in the tub. He may have jumped, a little, but he was fine. He was fine and this was fine. Finally, someone helped the poor lost blind man! And he didn't have to brush off his mandarin either!
"Thank you so much." Said Shimazaki with a bow, a polite one not a 'please don't kill me' one. It was hard bowing with a cane…well it was hard to do a lot of shit with a cane. Hold Mukai's hand while he walked with her, carry a bowl of soup, walk on his hands. He hated this thing and he didn't really need it…but it was fun to hit people with it as he passed them by. So it stayed…though he wouldn't be whacking this guy. No, he would walk without the hot sting of plastic against his shins. It was the least Shimazaki could do, the guy had averted one of Mukai famous frustration tantrums after all.
"Thank you!" said Mukai, she gave a much bigger bow, and a much cuter one too. How someone like Suzuki could have made a kid like her was completely beyond human comprehension.
"You're welcome, little one. Oh, your daughter is just the cutest little thing!" said the normal person. A woman. He hadn't done the poor, single, blind dad thing in a while. If he had been with Sho, back when he'd been an adorable little rage monster and not the twelve year old sad kid he was now, he would have totally picked this woman up…but he was on a mission now. Plus a person got bored of casual whatever after a while, or at least he did.
What he would never get bored of, however, was messing with people.
"Thanks, she looks just like me." Said Shimazaki. That got him a lot of 'ums' and 'uhs'. Uncomfortable ones. He knew she didn't look like him. Apparently Suzuki had a very distinctive and weird sort of coloring to him, on that he'd passed down to his kids. Shimazaki knew that she wasn't his daughter, that she didn't look like him, but he could still deliver his line with the same earnest pride that any dad would have.
He was good at this, the dad thing.
He hadn't been good at a lot of things in his life, constructive things, but parenting was one of the few things he could do. If he could have constructed the kid all by himself, taken some random guy home and gotten what he needed, then he would have. Unfortunately he didn't have the people factory inside of himself, just the raw materials. Toshi was lucky. They could have made a whole other person. Someone who had to love you, someone who you could love, someone who was the best parts of yourself and whoever you loved most in the world. He was unlucky, though, since no matter how much he wanted it and how great he would have been at it Toshi's people factory was closed. Their legs were open, as were his, but the factory was closed and locked up tight.
But that was ok.
He had Mukai and she had him. Well him and everyone else. They were pretty much raising this kid communally. Sure Suzuki had supplied the raw materials and his mysterious mistress had supplied the labor but everyone was supplying the love and care and trips to the zoo. This was the best way to raise a kid, he figured, surrounded with all the love in the world. Love and open spaces. That was important. Mukai's little hand was in his free one. She wasn't free…but she at least was outside. She got around, he had no idea how she managed to escape from her apartment every single day but she did, and nobody was going to lock her away…to lock the door and leave her alone…no way to even tell the time. No meals…no set meals….a record player for company….a bucket to piss in….she had more than that. She had everything. The world was hers and he would take her wherever she needed to go.
And right now she needed to go to the pandas.
"See? There, the pandas." Said Shimazaki as the path came to an end. There was a fence in front of him and then a drop. On the other side of that drop was something that was in the shape of a bear. There. If this had been a real mission then there would have been a bonus in it for him for how well he'd done…now if only Mukai had seen it that way.
"I want to go to panda!" said Mukai
"What? Are those not pandas? Because, and let me remind you in case you forgot, I can't see. There's something alive down there, something in the shape of a bear, but I have no idea if that's a panda bear or a polar bear or a Care Bear or whatever other kind of bear. So if that animal down there isn't a panda bear then you need to tell me right now." Said Shimazaki
"That's a panda bear." Said Mukai. She even pointed. Good. Mission still accomplished!
"Alright, see? I promised you that I'd bring you pandas and I did." Said Ryou. There. And people said that parenting was hard.
"No, I want to go to panda!" said Mukai
"Yes, and here we are. There's the pandas. Over there." said Shimazaki. He pointed towards the big, bear shaped thing over the fence. Mukai just stomped her foot. Well someone was grumpy…of course, he hadn't fed her yet. Right. Kids needed food.
"No, I mean eat panda!" said Mukai as she slapped his leg.
"I don't think your dad has enough pull with the Chinese to be killing and eating pandas. They're really serious about pandas here." Said Shimazaki
"No! Eat at panda! Now!" said Mukai
"Fine, if you really want me to kill and cook a panda for you then we can come back later after dark." Said Shimazaki. He really hoped that nobody around them spoke any Japanese. Suzuki was pissed enough already, he probably wouldn't have been happy if Shimazaki got them run out of the country for killing, butchering, and cooking pandas. How did you even cook a panda? Fry it in butter? Yeah, all the best things in life were either fried in butter or dipped in chocolate…ok, he was fifty percent more onboard with this plan.
"No! No kill! Eat! Eat at panda! Orange chicken!" said Mukai
"Wait…do you want to go TO Panda? Panda express?" asked Shimazaki. Well then, someone needed to work on their communication skills. Here he was thinking that she wanted a nice trip to the zoo but what she really wanted was orange chicken for breakfast. He didn't know why. They were in China, they could have gotten real Chinese food. They didn't need orange chicken…or walnut shrimp…or the spicy chicken thing with the chunks of pineapple….
Ok, yeah, she had a good plan here and he was one hundred percent onboard with it.
"Yes! Panda Express! Panda, Panda, Panda!" shouted Mukai. He had no idea where he would even find a Panda Express, this being China he assumed that they were scarce since there was actual Chinese food here, but for her he would look. He would have done anything for her.
She was his kid, not by blood, but she was his nonetheless…and he would do anything for her. Also who didn't want Panda Express for breakfast?