It was always better when President Suzuki was gone.

Tsuchiya hadn't ever really thought too much about the man. He was he President, he was insanely powerful, and he signed her checks. That had been their relationship for years, if it could even have bene called that. Later on Mukai came along but even then she hadn't given him much thought. He was a powerful man and that was what powerful men did. They had children with women they never planned on seeing again. They pawned their children off on other people. That was just how it went, how it had always been, and there had been no reason to brood over. She'd gotten a daughter out of it and beyond that she hadn't cared or put any thought at all towards President Suzuki.

Now…well now she had thoughts.

"No! No! No!" shouted Mukai as she tossed her shirt onto the ground. Tsuchiya took a deep breath. In for four, out for four. In for four. Out for four.

"Mukai, you know that you have to put a shirt on. The sky is awake so you're awake, right?" asked Tsuchiya as she picked up Mukai's shirt. This was her red shirt. She loved her red shirt. This was one of her favorite shirts and there was no reason for her to be like this. But she was three, Tsuchiya reminded herself that Mukai was three, and three year olds didn't always make a lot of sense. Tsuchiya was the adult here and she couldn't just give up when Mukai got difficult like this.

When she acted like her brother and sister.

"No! They sky's awake so I'm awake! Remember Frozen, Mama, you have to remember!" shouted Mukai before she slapped the shirt out of Tsuchiya's hands. She took another deep breath. This was Golden Week. She had this week off. Work was sporadic at this level of Claw but now, for the first time in she didn't know how long, she was off the clock. She didn't know what she was going to do with this time off, what she wanted to do, but she knew what she had to do. She had to get Mukai dressed for the day.

She was a mother, she was never truly off the clock.

"Ok Mukai, I remember. The sky's awake so I'm awake, just like from Frozen." Said Tsuchiya

"No, I'm awake! Me!" said Mukai. Tsuchiya inhaled for four and then exhaled for four. This was…Mukai was three and all of this made sense in her mind. She had to put herself in Mukai's sparkly unicorn socks. She was three, she didn't really understand what was happening or what was ok…and she was more than a little spoiled at this point. She was so glad President Suzuki had decided to spend Golden Week elsewhere. Mukai needed a break from him. They all needed a break from him.

"We're both awake, see?" asked Tsuchiya

"No, just me! You go to sleep now!" said Mukai. She pointed at her bed and stomped her foot. Tsuchiya shook her head.

"No Mukai, I can't go back to bed. The sky is awake, see? Now come on, you have to put your shirt on. You know that you have to put your shirt you. You can't just walk around without a shirt on." Said Tsuchiya. She was too tired to play. She had been up for an hour and she was already ready to go back to bed. She hadn't been this bone tired since Mukai had been a baby. She had been so happy to be done with the diaper changes and midnight feedings. It was all going to be so easy from there, she'd thought. Mukai could walk and talk now. It should have been so much easier…but it wasn't.

Mukai could walk and talk now.

She could walk away. She could talk back. She could yell and scream until she got her way. Tsuchiya had spent two and half years trying to raise Mukai into the kind of child that wouldn't yell and scream to get her way. Tsuchiya had never been like that when she had been a child. Mom and Dad would never have put up with this. In fact they hadn't….but Tsuchiya was never going to treat Mukai the same way her parents had treated her.

Even if sometimes, maybe, she got the feeling that Mom and Dad had been right about a couple of things.

"No! No shirt! I don't want to wear a shirt!" said Mukai. Mom and Dad had maybe been right about hard work, a sense of purpose, and the value in keeping a strict schedule. Internal discipline, they called it. A person had to develop their own, internal, sense of discipline. Then you didn't need any external discipline. Tsuchiya hated it, punishing Mukai, it was just…she was so small and she didn't know what she was doing….but she wasn't going to be little forever. She was going to be four soon, then five, then six, and then one day Tsuchiya would blink and Mukai would be a teenager. Then she'd have another Suzuki kid on her hands.

She loved those kids, she really did, but they could be a little…much….sometimes.

"No shirts! No shirts!" said Mukai as she ran over to her dresser and started throwing her shirts around. That was a Sho move. She could see him making a mess just because he was frustrated. Thankfully he was old enough to dress himself….though he didn't change clothes that often. He took after his father. She had never once seen President Suzuki in a suit other than the one he always wore and Sho usually lived in that green shirt, blue jeans which she suspected hadn't started out ripped, and coat. Even in all seasons. Maybe it was a family thing. They were an odd bunch, the Suzuki's, or at least Sho and his dad. Shigeko changed her clothes every day, sometimes twice a day. She was always thinking up new outfits to wear, ones that would have made Tsuchiya's parents lose it completely…

Maybe Shigeko would have had more luck.

"Hey Mukai?" asked Tsuchiya

"No shirts! No shirts!" said Mukai as she ran around her room throwing shirts around. Tsuchiya caught one and folded it.

"Hey Mukai? How about Shigeko helps you get dressed? And then Hiroshi can make us all breakfast and we can have a nice morning. How about that?" asked Tsuchiya. Mukai stopped running, now, and sat down.

"Shigeko! Come here right now!" shouted Mukai

"Mukai, inside voice." Said Tsuchiya

"No! Outside voice! Shigeko!" said Mukai. Tsuchiya pulled her phone from her pocket and texted Shigeko. Hopefully she was up by now. Suzuki's tended to be early risers. They might not have needed as much sleep as everyone else. She had lived in close enough quarters with the President to know that sometimes he got as little as four hours. Mukai had been the same way. She had stopped napping a while ago and even when she'd been a baby her naps had been short. She'd been up half the night, too, most of the time just playing and looking for attention. Things had been so much simpler back then…but also in a lot of ways so much more work.

A shirt hit her over the head.

At least she wasn't changing diapers. At least she wasn't warming bottles at three in the morning. At least Mukai wasn't painting the walls with baby food anymore. At least…well things were a little better. Mukai could walk and she could talk….but she could walk away and she could talk back. She was growing up. There was no way around it.

But Tsuchiya could at least try and make her grow up right…or at least better than the other two Suzuki kids had.

She texted Shigeko and waited…she didn't have to wait long. As soon as she hit 'send', very nearly that very second, there was a shift in the energy around her. She knew that feeling well and so did Mukai. Well that was…Shimazaki was always popping in and out. She didn't mind, not really. He was just really lonely, she felt like, and he liked to be needed. Sure he was annoying…and he'd done some very terrible things…but a lot of those had been on other people's orders. He was a pretty decent guy when you got to know him.

Pretty decent, not completely.

"Ryou!" shouted Mukai. She got up and ran to him. He reached his hand out and touched the wall. The other he extended towards her. He smelled terrible. His hair was a mess. He was covered in glitter. Shigeko wasn't much better. She felt something else shift….that was Hiroshi's aura. He must have sense Shimazaki. They didn't get along, which was strange because Hiroshi was really the nicest man, though of course this was Shimazaki they were talking about.

He was a nice man…but he was also incredibly obnoxious, among other things.

"Mukai!" said Shimazaki, one hand still on the wall. Shigeko reached over and patted him on the head. She wasn't looking any better….or smelling any better. She was covered in glitter and…milk? She smelled like sour milk. Her makeup was smeared across her face, she was covered in a layer of sweat, and she smelled….not very good at all.

"You smell bad!" said Mukai. She took a step back and put her hand over her nose.

"Mukai, no, that's mean." Said Tsuchiya

"Sorry, we've been out for while…um, hi. Hi Mukai, hi Tsuchiya." Said Shigeko as she brushed her hair back behind her head. It was a mess. It looked like a craft store had exploded all over her. There was glitter raining down onto the rug, no. It would never come out. Glitter…why did it have to be glitter?

"Hi Ryou." Said Shimazaki. Mukai waved at him. He didn't want back.

"Oh, right, high Ryou….I mean, wait, no. I came here with you so I don't have to say hi." Said Shigeko

"You don't have to say hi." Said Mukai. She nodded to herself in a way that could only be called sagely.

"Well maybe I wanted a nice hello." Said Shimazaki. He was being sarcastic…at least she thought that he had been going for sarcastic. It came out kind of…well of course she was just being ridiculous. He hadn't been going for anything like that. Shigeko was twelve and a half. She was more like his kid than anything else. He had said as much before, that all of Suzuki's kids were like his kids because Suzuki seemed hellbent on no raising them and somebody had to rise to the occasion.

"Ok, hello." Said Shigeko. He laughed, Mukai laughed, after a delay Shigeko laughed too. Tsuchiya didn't laugh. There wasn't a lot to laugh about there. She knew what Shigeko got up to, she lived every single day of her life like she was in university. That was what she chose to do with her life. Tsuchiya didn't approve, who in their right mind would have, but she didn't say anything. She had said her piece. She had spoken practically until she was blue in the face. Shigeko didn't listen, nobody listened.

You had to pick your battles.

Tsuchiya was going to pick hers. She picked up a shirt, another one of Mukai's red shirts, and handed it to Shigeko. Shimazaki still had his hand on the wall. She knew that his powers cut in and out. She picked up Mukai's meter stick, technically her hitting people stick, and passed it to Shimazaki. She may not have approved of everything that Shigeko did, that she got up to with Shimazaki, but she knew what it felt like to have your powers suddenly cut out. It was like losing a sense…and he had literally lost a sense.

She pressed the meter stick to his hand.

"Oh my fucking God! Tsuchiya, I love you. As a friend." Said Shimazaki. He looked at Shigeko when he said that. She nearly waved her hand in front of his face. She stopped herself at the last minute before she made an idiot out of herself.

"You're my friend. You're my friend, Mama. You're my friend, Ryou. You're my friend, Shigeko." said Mukai. She pointed to each of them just in case they didn't realize that she was talking to them. She made sure to actually poke Shimazaki when she said his name…she picked up on more than she let on.

"We're sisters, but we can be friends too. Ok?" said Shigeko

"Sister friends." Said Mukai

"Like Elsa and Anna except you're not planning on freezing her heart with magic and she doesn't have summer powers." Said Shimazaki. Shigeko's eyes widened. Her qi pooled around her. She looked, honestly, like Mukai on Christmas day. Tsuchiya almost wanted to take a picture but she didn't, she remembered what it was like to be twelve and a half. Still though, Shigeko and Frozen. She was so adorable when it came to anything Frozen.

She nearly looked her age, there.

"Anna doesn't have summer powers. She should but she doesn't, maybe in the sequel. If they ever make a sequel." Said Shigeko forlornly. That was the only way to describe it, she was forlorn. Good. Well not good

"She does in the stories you made up for them." Said Shimazaki

"You read those?" asked Shigeko

"Text to speech read those." Said Shimazaki with a shrug.

"What did you think? I don't write a lot, I just kind of thought that Anna would have summer powers since Anna had winter powers. I've been thinking of doing another one where they have a little sister and she has spring powers or fall powers but-" said Shigeko

"Read to me!" said Mukai as she picked up a book from the floor. She wacked Shimazaki in the side of the head with it. He made no move to dodge it. He probably hadn't seen it coming. Tsuchiya wondered if she should have pried. It must have been one hell of a night if his powers were completely gone like that….but this was none of her business. There was nothing that she could do about it anyway. Shigeko wasn't her daughter, she was President Suzuki's daughter, and Tsuchiya didn't have a say in how Shigeko was being raised.

Shigeko was his daughter, not hers.

Mukai was also his daughter….but Mukai was still young. She had a mother. Shigeko didn't have one of those. Well she'd had one, obviously some woman had given birth to her, but she'd walked right out of her life. Tsuchiya had no idea how anyone could have done that. From the moment she'd set eyes on Mukai she'd known that she would never have been able to let her go. Mukai's mother had given her up too….what was it with these women? Was that President Suzuki's type or something? Women who abandoned their families and left their daughters to grow up all on their own? Well Mukai…Tsuchiya loved Shigeko but she didn't want Mukai to grow up to be Shigeko the second.

She was only three, she had ten years before….but ten years was a pretty short amount of time.

"In a minute, let me put this shirt on you. You can't walk around without a shirt on, you're a girl. Only boys are allowed to do that." Said Shigeko. She reached out to Mukai. She took a step back. Tsuchiya…well she didn't fully blame Mukai that time. When Shigeko put it like that…but people had to wear clothes. If Mukai had been a boy Tsuchiya would still have put her in a shirt. It was just polite.

"Do whatever you want, I don't care. I can't tell what people are wearing anyway. For all I know everyone around me is naked all the time and I'm the one waking around fully clothed like a weirdo." Said Shimazaki. Shigeko covered her face and shook her head.

"You don't care but other people do. Come on, Mukai, put this on…please?" asked Shigeko. She held out the shirt one more time. Mukai slapped it right out of her hands.

"I tried that already. Mukai's just…she's feeling really willful this morning. I just thought that you'd have better luck." Said Tsuchiya. It was a family trait, one that she would be fighting probably for the entirety of Mukai's life. Shigeko and Sho were both incredibly willful. Sho more so in that easy to manage, low worry, boy way. Shigeko was getting to that age, the one where Tsuchiya was actually going to have to worry. She was acting like an adult long before her time and if she wasn't careful she could have run into real trouble. Not that she was incapable of defending herself, qi rolled off of her in waves. She was just so small and naïve…..thankfully Shimazaki was there to protect her. He may have been a terrible influence but he at least had her best interests at heart.

"I can try again. Come on, Mukai, come here." Said Shigeko. She held out of her hand again. Mukai kicked it away that time.

"No! No shirt! No shirt today!" said Mukai. Tsuchiya pulled her back. She could be upset if she had to be. She could be angry or whatever else. She just couldn't go around hitting people. You were never supposed to just attack someone like that, only defend. If Mukai had been raised at the temple then she would have known that…but the temple was no place for kids. Tsuchiya knew that better than anyone else.

"But Mukai, you have to-" said Shigeko

"Mob, if I may." Said Shimazaki. He held out his hand. Shigeko held the shirt in front of herself before putting it right into his hand.

"I don't want to wear a shirt today." Said Mukai shaking her head.

"And you won't have to. I'm going to wear this shirt today." Said Shimazaki. He motioned like he was going to put it on….oh. Reverse psychology. That was…a thing that worked. A thing that shouldn't have worked. She didn't want Mukai to grow up to be contrary for the sake of being contrary. She maybe have been three now but she wouldn't be three forever. She was learning right now and this was not the lesson Tsuchiya wanted her to learn. This was not how she wanted Mukai to grow up….

But it did work for now….

"But that's too small for you." Said Shigeko. She cocked her head to the side, clearly confused.

"Are you sure about that?" asked Shimazaki

"Too small! It won't fit!" said Mukai. She tried to take her shirt back from him. The minute she touched it, the second she made contact, he held it high above her head. She stomped her foot and yanked on his jacket.

"Nope, I think it'll fit just fine." Said Shimazaki

"No, it's mine!" said Mukai

"You just said that you didn't want it." Said Shimazaki

"I do! I do! It's my shirt!" said Mukai

"Fine, then get dressed." Said Shimazaki. Mukai lifted her arms. Shigeko took the shirt from Shimazaki and pulled it down over Mukai's head. She didn't fight, not once.

"This is my shirt! Mine! Mukai's!" shouted Mukai as she ran out of her room. Well that was….exhausting. it was only seven thirty in the morning and Tsuchiya was already ready to go to bed…but that was just how it was when you had kids. It never stopped…

No matter how old they got.

"Shigeko, do you want to stay for breakfast? Hiroshi would probably make you whatever you wanted. Shimazaki…I would have invited you too but…." Said Tsuchiya. She struggled to find a good way to tell him that Hiroshi wasn't exactly president of the Shimazaki Ryou fan club. In a lot of ways he brought it on himself. He was weird, and obnoxious, even by Claw's standards. He would be more than a little much and his history was full of…things which she hoped had been exaggerated. Even if only half of it was exaggerated it was still…a lot to deal with. Hiroshi didn't like him, for good reason, and she…well he was good with the kids and he could actually be a very sweet person sometimes. If you got past his general Shimazaki-ness.

"Shibata doesn't like me for some reason, it's fine. I have to go and see if Toshi's awake anyway…if I can even find them. I can't see shit. Truth be told, Mob, we nearly wound up inside of a wall." Said Shimazaki

"Then let me walk you home. If you get hurt then you'll need Fukuda and he's probably not working during Golden Week…and even if he was you would have had to talk to him and I can't think of anything worse than having to talk to Fukuda." Said Shigeko. She looked away as she said that. Tsuchiya didn't blame her. That guy could be a little….standoffish. That was a good word for him. Well he had to be, of course, since he was President Suzuki's best friend supposedly. President Suzuki obviously had a strange definition of friendship. She would never have been friends with someone her kids so obviously disliked.

Or were downright afraid of.

"Did he say anything to you again? Because if he did I'll-" said Shimazaki. Shigeko shook her head and pooled her qi around her. She was freaking out….Tsuchiya felt her own qi pooling. She knew how men could be, especially when you were that age. She knew not to jump to conclusions about people. She knew how those sorts of conclusions could hurt people. But she knew Shigeko, too, and she was incredibly forgiving. You could spit in her face, get her right between the eyes, and she would have just forgiven you right on the spot and told you that she was sorry that she had done whatever it was that she had done to upset you. She was a sweet girl like that….

She had no idea how Suzuki had made a kid, kids, as friendly as her.

"He didn't say anything to me! He didn't talk to me at all and-and-and I have to get you home now. You need a bath, you smell really bad so….um….bye, Tsuchiya!" said Shigeko before she grabbed Shimazaki by the arm and practically dragged him away. He tapped the ground in front of him with the meter stick as she walked him out of the room. She wondered if there was something that she could have done.

A crash. Running feet.

"Here we go again." said Tsuchiya as she got up. Mukai was running around. She needed breakfast and then she needed to center herself, she couldn't do that on an empty stomach, and she needed to…well she had been asking to go to the park for a while now. Also to Panda. And the Zoo. And to Busan. They would be going to the park, maybe, if she was good. Her dad would have just taken her but her dad wasn't around.

It was easier, better, this way.

Tsuchiya didn't know what she would have done if President Suzuki had been around. He would have undermined her, again, just like he did every single day. She didn't know which she disliked more. His half assed parenting or his complete and total abandonment. She may have liked the abandonment better, at least then he hadn't been there to undermine her and make Mukai into…well something of a…

She could be kind of a brat sometimes.

So could Sho and Shigeko but they weren't her kids. Mukai was hers and she had to look out for her…and that meant doing what was best. She cared about Shigeko but she just didn't have the energy to chase a teenager around. She wasn't going to listen to her and, really, Tsuchiya had no power over her. Shigeko was the boss here and if she wanted to stay out all night clubbing or whatever then what was Tsuchiya supposed to do?

Mukai would never….

Well no never. She'd have her own adult life. As an adult. Keeping her away from the world, shutting as much of it out as she could, wasn't going to work. That was why Tsuchiya had left as soon as she could and why she'd never looked back. She didn't want to give Mukai the sort of life she would have to escape from…but she didn't want to give Mukai the kind of life that she was going to have to recover from, either.

Parenting was hard.

That was what it all came down for. Parenting was hard and Tsuchiya was doing her best but her best…maybe it wasn't good enough. Maybe she wasn't good enough. Maybe Mom had been right, that she had no right to criticize her parents because she had no idea what it was like. She really didn't know….but it didn't matter what she knew. Parenting wasn't about 'knowing' things so much as doing things. She didn't get to just sit around waiting until she knew exactly what to do.

And what she had to do was get Mukai calmed down.

"I'm coming Mukai!" said Tsuchiya as she closed the bedroom door behind her. She'd have to clean that mess up later…wait, no, Mukai was old enough to clean up after herself. She wasn't going to want to, she was going to fight Tsuchiya every step of the way, but in the end she was going to clean her room. Her dad wasn't around to save her, to baby her. No, President Suzuki was probably half a world away by now.

Good. Things were always easier when President Suzuki wasn't around.