"Are we going to kill my Dad?"
Sho, apparently, was also the master of the non-sequitur.
"What now?" asked Fukuda as he nearly dropped the plastic hamster tunnel in his hand. He didn't, of course. A lifetime of living with, working with, being friends with, and now being….lovers…with Suzuki had taught him to keep whatever he felt deep inside where it could never see the light of day. He kept calm. His body and his aura. Sho was a lot more socially shrewd than Suzuki had ever been. He noticed these things. Fukuda did his best but…well he had been doing his best for the past three decades. He was getting tired.
The pile of hamster tunnels on the side of the sink waiting to be washed didn't exactly help.
"My Dad. Are we going to have to kill him. When we take Claw down, I mean." Said Sho
"Don't worry about that now, Sho. We don't even have our team put together yet." Said Fukuda
"How can we put our team together if we don't know what we need them to do? It doesn't make sense." Said Sho
"Well we don't exactly have the luxury of being picky, now do we? It's going to be hard enough to find people willing to defect against your father-" said Fukuda
"What about all the people Dad left to die in the traitor holes?" asked Sho
"We both know that those people are either dead by now or close to it." Said Fukuda
"Then they'll be extra motivated to fight! I mean not the dead guys, obviously, but the guys who are alive still." Said Sho
"Sho, they don't have the strength to go up against your Dad. So far our rebellion force is just the two of us." Said Fukuda
"And your friends." Said Sho
"Yes, if I can convince them to join us. But don't worry about this now. We have a more important mission." Said Fukuda
"What could be more important than stopping Dad?" asked Sho
"Getting these tubes clean for your hamsters." Said Fukuda. He turned around and motioned towards the hamsters rolling around on the kitchen floor. They didn't seem very happy in their hamster balls. The Cat, however, was in heaven. Apparently the only thing better than torturing hamsters through their tank was torturing them while they were in their hamster balls. If only Sho could have been so easily amused, distracted. He had gone back to work, of course, but his mind was elsewhere. Fukuda could tell.
He said nothing.
He had no idea if they were going to kill Suzuki. He didn't want Sho to kill his father, first of all, that was the sort of thing that a person never got back from. He didn't know if he had it in him, either, to kill Suzuki or anyone for that matter. There was no such thing as a bloodless coup. Fukuda didn't know if he could spill blood. He was a healer, he made people better, he didn't hurt them. He hadn't ever hurt anyone before. Sure he'd been a part of something that hurt others but being a cog in the machine wasn't the same as running the machine himself. He didn't know what he was going to do to Suzuki but he knew that he needed out.
And so did Sho.
This was for Sho, not him. This was for Sho's future, his life, and also the future of the world. Even if Suzuki lost the world his rise to power would destabilize it. He wasn't going to go down easy, either, if he lost the world on his own without any outside intervention from Fukuda. The world…and Sho…this was what was best for everyone. This had nothing to do with…what had happened between him and Suzuki. This was just something that was long overdue. This was something that Fukuda should have planned, gone through with, before it had ever even gotten this far. Fukuda was just trying to do the right thing, that was all. It had nothing to do with…all that had happened….
This was about Sho. This was for Sho.
"Hey Fukuda?" asked Sho. Fukuda smiled even though sometimes bad things started with 'hey Fukuda'. He could have been getting ready to tell Fukuda that he wanted to play videogames, or work on their rebellion plans, or just to tell him that he wasn't cleaning the hamster tubes the right way. It also could have been a prelude to something awful…like his rough plans to run away and start a new life with his little boyfriend….
"What's up? More soap?" asked Fukuda. He prayed that this wasn't one of those 'I need to run away and see the love of my life' things. Fukuda…they were in Shanghai. Getting to Japan was a matter of a very short plane ride. Getting there without Suzuki noticing…well that was something else entirely.
"No, it's not that…well yeah, I kind of need more soap. I don't know how hamsters can be this gross…but whatever. That's not it." Said Sho
"Do I want to know what 'it' is?" asked Fukuda
"It's just…what's it like to be an orphan?" asked Sho. Fukuda didn't know what he had been expecting but it hadn't been that. Fukuda…did not have parents. So therefore he was an orphan. He hadn't thought about mom and dad in years. He'd spent his entire adult life without them. They hadn't gone at once, or in as dramatic a fashion as Suzuki's had. That was almost worse. Dad died of a heart attack and mom died in a car crash…both while he'd been away at university. If he'd been there then he could have saved them but he had been all way in Tokyo for university. If he'd been there then….well he'd spent so many years beating himself up over it.
Even though, logically, he wouldn't have had any way of predicting any of that.
Suzuki had said so. That had been his attempt at offering comfort. He had put his hand right on Fukuda's shoulder and told him that since he wasn't clairvoyant he had no way of knowing that his parents wouldn't live long enough to see him graduate from university or any of the other things that happened in your adult life. Even world domination…well maybe it was better that mom and dad had died before they'd seen what he'd become. Suzuki had said that there was no point in being upset over something that he couldn't control or predict….and then they'd hugged. At the time he had thought that Suzuki had finally found a shred of humanity within himself. Later on he'd come to the conclusion that Suzuki had just been trying to get his one companion back to normal so he wouldn't have to deal with Fukuda's grief anymore. Now…well now he didn't want to think about what that had been….
The last thing he needed to do was go over every interaction that they'd had for the past thirty two years with a new, and unwanted, perspective. Right now Sho needed him.
"It's…something that you get used to. But you're not an orphan. Even if your father…doesn't make it…you still have a mother, you know." Said Fukuda
"If I have a mom then where is she? Big sis is more of a mom than mom is…" said Sho
"Don't say things like that, Sho. Your sister is nothing like your mother. Your mother was, is, a…a wonderful woman. She was always thinking of others, for one thing. She gave you two everything she had until she had nothing left to give. Everything she did she did for you. Even leaving your dad." Said Fukuda
"If she gave a fuck about me she would have stayed." Said Sho
"Your mother gives a…she cares about you. She thought that you would be better off…she left because she thought that…she left because-" said Fukuda
"I don't care why she left, I just care that she left. Without her and without Dad then…then I won't have any parents." Said Sho
"You'll have me. You used to say…when you were little I mean, that you wished that I was your…your dad." Said Fukuda
"I was a kid then. I mean I like you but…but even if I wanted you to be my dad it wouldn't make you my dad. If Dad dies then I won't have him or mom…and I don't know what that's going to be like." Said Sho
"It gets easier. I lost both of my parents when I was a little older than you. My Dad died when I was nineteen and my mom when I was twenty one. It felt like…for a while it felt like it would never stop hurting. I would sometimes pick up the phone and dial the house number before I remembered that the house had been sold and mom had been gone for….for a while. I would hear a song on the radio and think of her or…or I would just feel so lost and want to call my dad…it gets easier as time goes on. That's what I mean." Said Fukuda
"Oh. I guess it's like how it hurt really bad when mom left but now…now I can't really….it hurts but not so much. I don't know. Maybe it's because big sis is so much like mom." Said Sho
"She really isn't. You mother would never have…done the things your sister does. You mother would never have been so selfish." Said Fukuda
"My sister isn't selfish! I mean she can be but….but she's just….she's big sis! She's more weird than anything and…and ok, she won't help me take down dad and she did kind of do the opposite of what I told her to do but…but she's not selfish and if you want me to help you take down Dad then you need to stop being such an asshole to big sis!" said Sho
"Alright, alright. I'll keep my mouth shut when it comes to your sister." Said Fukuda. He put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. Cold water ran down his wrists and into his sleeves. Sho held eye contact with him. He narrowed his eyes and focused his aura. Fukuda kept the gesture of surrender up. Sho…nothing good happened when Sho got like this. Shigeko. He would never understand why Sho was still so loyal to her. She took care of him, true, but she was essentially the second coming of Touichirou. He had no idea if it was his influence or just something that happened when a person was born that powerful.
"Good." Said Sho. For a few moments the only sound in the kitchen was the hissing of the cat, the squeaking of the hamsters, and the sloshing of water. Those had been the most blissful moments of the entire night. They were broken, though, by what Fukuda had been conditioned to associate with grisly murders. The sound that preceded when the killer would come out and find some new creative way to hack people apart with a machete or whatever weapon he'd picked up in the thousandth iteration of that hockey mask killer….thing….Sho liked to watch.
He knew that there wasn't some machete wielding maniac sneaking up behind them….but going off of the face Sho was making he almost believed there was.
"Your phone is ringing. Either that or Freddy Krueger is coming after us." Said Fukuda, ending in a laugh that he didn't fully feel.
"That's Jason's theme. He's in his own series…well they crossover but only in one movie." Said Sho
"Oh…I didn't know that." Said Fukuda
"Well now you do." Said Sho. His phone stopped ringing, then, and there was some blissful silence. It was broken thirty seconds later. The same sound. Sho never got calls. Fukuda wondered if Sho had that as his ringtone for everyone or if he had that specific ringtone for that specific person. He wouldn't have put it past Sho.
"Are you going to get that?" asked Fukuda
"No." said Sho
"Are you at least going to see who it is?" asked Fukuda
"No, I know who it is and I can't answer because…because I'm the one who's selfish." Said Sho. He scrubbed the hamster tube in his hand so tightly it slipped out into the water. Fukuda reached in and handed it back.
"Your girlfriend again?" asked Fukuda with a sigh. Not his best moment. He had only been thinking of Sho's future, then, the fact that Suzuki would never have let him be himself. The fact that he needed to do whatever he had to do to get through the day. He hadn't been able to think, back then, of a future where Sho would have been planning, seriously planning, to rebel against his father.
"Shut up! I don't need to hear about how-how I have to be with her because I lied to her a lot and I don't need to know about pragmatic choices and I don't need to hear about how I'm the biggest dick hole in the whole world!" said Sho
"You know that I don't think that about you, and you know that I could never think that about you. I think that you're a little boy-" said Fukuda
"I'm twelve!" said Sho. He kicked the cabinet under his feet. Fukuda raised his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
"Ok, I think that you're a twelve year old boy who's going through a lot. It's hard figuring yourself out and I'm impressed that you're being so honest with yourself about this. Especially at your age. Some people….some people take almost fifty years to be honest with themselves about things like this." said Fukuda, bitterness seeping into his voice. He couldn't help it. The entire thing was just bizarre…that was the word he was going with. Bizarre. Unpleasant. Silicon…he hated the smell of silicon now…
"It's not hard to understand. I'm gay, I like guys, and I think that I always knew that I liked guys but I didn't want to admit it. Like how when I was little and I thought that I really wanted Shimazaki to be my friend…it's like I liked him but I didn't know it yet." Said Sho. He slammed his hand against the standing water in the sink. It must have still hurt…well of course it did. The worst heartbreak was always the first. Eventually a person got used to it…he didn't want Sho to get used to it. The pain. Fukuda fixed pain, he didn't just let it sit and sink in.
"I'm sorry, by the way. About how things went with you and him. I know that you cared about him a lot." Said Fukuda
"He's scared of Dad, that makes him a coward, and I could never love a coward. Ritsu isn't scared of Dad. He isn't scared of anything. He's the bravest guy I ever met…and he's nice, too. Like really nice even though technically I was the enemy. He smells really good, too, even when-" said Sho
"I'm sorry about what happened with Shimazaki and your sister." Said Fukuda. He was playing hopscotch in a minefield. He knew it. Sho didn't want to hear a word against Shigeko. He definitely didn't want to open up these old wounds…but this was what it was. Sho needed to get off of this Ritsu thing. Fate really had a cruel sense of humor, didn't it? Sho and Ritsu. Shigeko's secret brother and her adoptive one. The world was too small, the world of espers even smaller.
"What are you talking about?" asked Sho
"Just…the way they feel about each other." Said Fukuda. He knew how painful that must have been for Sho. It was painful enough for Fukuda to witness. There were times when he looked at Shigeko and saw the little girl she had once been. The little girl who liked princess dresses and Disney movies. The little girl who wore cat ears headbands and needed to be pushed on the swing. The little girl who clung to his leg and begged him to stay for just a little while longer, to play with her just a little more, to read her just one more story. It hurt, seeing the person she had become. Knowing about the things she did. Seeing who she had done them with. She was only twelve years old…Masami would have died on the spot if she could have seen her daughter now. Her adoptive daughter. There was no way any child of Masami's could have possibly acted like that.
"He doesn't like her, he just likes to mess with people. He likes Minegishi. I don't know why. They suck." Said Sho
"They really do. I don't know how they can stand themselves let alone how another person could stand them." Said Fukuda
"They're always either mad or tired or both! It's like, come on, get some more sleep or drink some coffee or something. I don't know why big sis wants to hang out with them all the time…or maybe they aren't friends anymore. I think that they're fighting again, or maybe big sis just likes Serizawa better. " Said Sho. Fukuda turned away from Sho and busied himself with his work. Serizawa. Shigeko…he had no idea what she got up to in her personal life and he didn't want to know. It was difficult to ignore, however, since she had been wearing what looked to be Serizawa's shirts. They were at least five sizes too big, for one thing, and pretty much all of them had some kind of videogame character on them. He sympathized with Serizawa, of course. It was hard, impossible, to say 'no' to someone like Shigeko. Someone that powerful. Serizawa was a powerful esper in his own right but he was also, well, Serizawa. He was pretty much a child, essentially, and…well if anything Shigeko was the one taking advantage of him. That was one hell of a power imbalance…he really did feel for Serizawa….and even Shimazaki to a much lesser extent.
She really was her father's daughter.
"Those are…his shirts that she's been wearing, right?" asked Fukuda. Staling shirts was a girlfriend move. Suzuki had done the same thing to him. Just stolen the sleep clothes he'd been wearing despite the fact that they'd been in SUZUKI'S bedroom. Shigeko….well she was getting bold, he'd give her that. The hair, the way she was dressing now, they way that she spent all her time either glued to Serizwa's side or sneaking off with Shimazaki….
Fukuda was so glad that he didn't have a daughter. He didn't know how he would have survived.
"I think so. I don't know about clothes, they're dumb….and what are you worried about my sister's clothes for?! We have to make plans, like if we're going to kill Dad or not." Said Sho
"Let's…hold off on the murder plans for now. We have all of these-" said Fukuda
"I can't! I just…every day Claw gets bigger and Dad gets stronger. We don't have time to wait and…and every day that I'm apart from Ritsu it gets harder. He's the first guy to ever like me back and…and it sucks. That I can't be with him. I mean I guess that I deserve it for how I make Emmy feel." Said Sho
"Sho…no. You don't deserve this. You were put in an impossible position, one that a boy your age should never have been put in, and you did the best you could. Now…well things are going to get better. Not now but in time. You and…your boyfriend…will be together eventually. Or maybe a whole other guy. You're only twelve after all. You have your whole life ahead of you." Said Fukuda
"No! I don't want another boyfriend! I'm not leaving Ritsu! I don't just walk out on people….most of the time!" said Sho
"I never said that you were going to leave him. I just meant…I just meant that we shouldn't bank on one vision of the future. Things change, people change, and you still have a lot of growing up to do. You still have a lot of time and you still have a lot to learn." Said Fukuda
"Like what?" asked Sho, his eyes fixed on Fukuda's. He sighed. This was one of those talks they would have to have. Sho was a powerful esper even at his age, and he would grow up to be a powerful man. He needed to learn what to do, and not do, with that power.
"Just….you're a very powerful esper and you're going to grow up to be a very powerful man. Sometimes people can be…intimidated….and when people are intimidated they can…this is hard to talk about. Just make sure that whoever you're with wants to be with you one hundred percent…alright?" asked Fukuda
"Yeah, sure, whatever. Anyway come on, we need to plan! We need to figure out how we're going to take Dad down and if we're going to kill him and how we're going to keep him locked up if we don't kill him and-" said Sho
"Sho….how about we finish up these hamster tubes before we even start planning on how we're going to save the world? How's that sound?" asked Fukuda. Sho…he was a good boy. A driven boy. Once he got an idea in his head then it had to happen. He was a lot like his father in that way….in a lot of ways….
Like his mastery over the non-sequitur.