Touichirou had an interesting definition of 'making dinner'.

"Touichirou….what is this?" asked Shiori as she poked at her bowl of…porridge? It was sticky and lumpy and it kept on trying to steal her spoon every time she stabbed it. She was going to go off on a limb and consider this to be porridge. Touichirou really liked breakfast, she had known that, but when she had told him to make dinner she had assumed that he would have made dinner.

Not late-night breakfast.

"Dinner." Said Suzuki as he spooned up some of his porridge. Shiori was picking at it. He tasted it. Perfect. Sticky and textured, like good porridge was. He hated watery porridge. It was like eating oat soup. Porridge needed textures….at least the porridge he preferred needed textures.

Shiori didn't seem to be thrilled with the dinner offerings.

"Are you sure it's not breakfast?" asked Shiori

"I think that the time the meal is consumed dictates it's name, not the contents." Said Suzuki

"No, I'm pretty sure it depends on the meal." Said Shiori

"Oh…" said Suzuki. Well…he had done his best. He had never had to make any meal completely on his own before. University didn't count. He'd lived on rice, takeout, porridge, and packets of noodles. Shiori had rice and packets of noodles, and he had nothing against takeout, but Shiori had wanted an actual meal and he loved her so he…well he had done his best.

It hadn't been good enough.

Shigeko should have shown him how to make actual meals. She knew how to make curry, it was one of her best dishes, and she should have shown him…well he should have told her to show him how to make curry. But he hadn't been able to. Shiori didn't want the children to know about her and if Suzuki had gone up to Shigeko and told her to show him how to make specific meals…well she would have had questions that he would not have been able to answer. So really this was Shiori's….

A dangerous train of thought. He loved Shiori. Nothing was ever her fault.

"Not that I don't like the whole 'breakfast for dinner' thing, it's fun, but I do mind the…is this supposed to be porridge?" asked Shiori

"Yes." said Suzuki. He didn't know what else it could have been. This was one of the few things that he had known how to make well. Shigeko hadn't had to teach him how to make this. This was…he liked it…but as he had been told many times before he may not have had the same sense of taste as everyone else. Shiori certainly didn't share his tastes. She pushed her bowl away and shook her head.

"It's like eating paper mâché." Said Shiori. Touichirou looked every bit the kicked dog….well what was she supposed to do? Choke it down and call it ice cream? So what, she was just supposed to sit there night after night for the rest of her life choking down that passed for food in Touichirou-land? And then what about their kids? Was she supposed to teach her kids that they had to choke down whatever to make someone happy?

She was not teaching her kids that nonsense.

If she was even going to be having kids with him. She didn't know. She didn't even know if she was going to marry this man. The ring fit, having him around was alright, but kids….that was a big step. Marriage, at the end of the day, was just a piece of paper and an agreement. Paper burnt, agreements could be broken, and people divorced all the time. Not as much as they should have but Shiori wasn't her mother, she wasn't going 'stay together for the kids'…if there even were kids. If she even had…she was getting ahead of herself. She didn't know if they were going to have kids or get married…and….well she had to cross her bridges as she came to them.

How in the hell were they supposed to get married and have kids if they couldn't even get dinner sorted out?

"I...apologize. I don't normally cook." Said Suzuki. It felt like he was confessing something terrible. He had never cooked before, not in any relationship he had ever been in, but she was unlike anyone that he had ever been in a relationship with. No woman had ever asked so much of him….but that didn't matter. He could not fail. Shiori wouldn't have wanted anything to do with him if he didn't rise to the occasion.

No woman wanted to be with a failure….and he could not be a failure.

"I can tell….but it's alright. We have other things." Said Shiori. She was going to go easy on him this time. It was hard, it went against every instinct she had, but she was going to do it. She left her porridge alone and decided to start on the omelet….it was alright. Raw in the middle but it wasn't like she hadn't ever had salmonella before. He was trying, that was what mattered. He was trying for her so she could at least meet him halfway.

That was how these things worked…at least as far as she could tell.

It wasn't as though she had never had a boyfriend before. She had just never had a boyfriend like Touichirou. Someone serious. Actually serious, not someone who claimed to love her but gave his life to someone else. Touichirou was ready to give her his life. Everything. Well not everything…he had Claw and she had her work…but he wasn't kowtowing for another man. She didn't think that she could have been with a man who kowtowed…

To anyone but her.

She poked at her omelet again. The most powerful man in the world had made this for her. All she'd had to do was point him to the kitchen and he'd jumped right to it. And now she had…not a feats for the ages, of course, but he had gone through the trouble…he had stepped so far outside of his comfort zone…he had done it all for her.

He loved her. He honestly loved her.

"It's good." Said Shiori as she choked down a bite of nearly raw, and ice cold, omelet. She could make an effort to go easy on him when it came to this, his favorite food. Touichirou had made this first and the rice last….it showed. She was going to have to teach him how to cook. She had no interest in becoming his mother. She wasn't going to chase him through the house with a rolling pin or whatever. She wanted…she wanted a partner, or someone who….well not a servant but someone who deferred to her, or….well she didn't want to mother him, that was the point….but he needed it. How a man like him could have gone this long without the most basic of life skills….she was going to have do teach him so much….

But she did want to be with him and….and at least he was willing to learn.

"Ae you sure?" asked Suzuki as he picked at his food. He had paid attention to Shigeko, eventually, but somehow he had still gotten it wrong. Even he wouldn't have eaten this and he had been told that he was the sort of person who could eat anything. Tadashi had said that. Suzuki had never really seen it. He had a list, a long one, of foods that he would not eat. This wasn't on the list…

But it was going to be.

"Do you want me to be honest with you or do you want me to go easy on you?" asked Shiori

"Of course I don't want you to lie to me." Said Suzuki

"Alright, the truth then. It's raw in the middle and somehow overcooked on the outside." Said Shiori. Touichirou somehow managed to look like a twice kicked dog. She had a part of herself that felt…well like she had done something wrong…but she hadn't. She had tried being nice to him but Touichirou had asked her to be honest….so really whatever he was feeling was his own fault.

"I….apologize. I should have paid more attention to my daughter when she explained the cooking process to me." Said Touichirou. Shiori rolled her eyes.

"Or maybe you could have just learned on your own instead of, you know, depending on your thirteen year old." Said Shiori. Touichirou and his daughter did not inspire confidence. She had no idea how he could possibly have thought she would want to have children with him after hearing about great of a job he was doing with his oldest. Shiori didn't know if she would have been able to survive her own little Shigeko. A little girl who walked around acting like she was a grown woman. Of course Touichirou thought everything was all well and good with her and who she was….

Shiori hoped they had a boy….if they ever even had a kid.

She didn't know. This was a lot. She could just….she could see it now. The most ridiculous thing that she had ever seen, thought about, in her entire life. Her, pregnant and being ordered around by a toddler, while her husband asked him to tie her shoes. Not the life she had imagined for herself. Not the life anyone would have imagined for herself. Shiori had plans and…and she could change them, for him, but she wasn't going forget them. She wasn't going to just….just give up because of him….

She wasn't…..

"She's twelve." Said Suzuki. She was going to be twelve for as long as he could keep her twelve. Thirteen…he was not ready for thirteen. Shiori would understand when they had their child, how quickly time could move forwards, and how little time you had with your children while they were still your child. She would understand….he hoped. He didn't know. Right now they two of them might as well have been speaking mutually unintelligible languages.

"That doesn't help." Said Shiori with a shake of her head. He depended on his thirteen year old…well that was his life, wasn't it? Taking over the world but depending on women to tie his shoes and cut his food for him. Shiori didn't know if she could be that woman. She knew that she didn't want to be that woman but she just…if she had to be her…no. There was no 'had to'. She was who she was. She knew exactly who she was and who she wanted to be….and she didn't know if that person, the one she wanted to be, was capable of….

"I don't know why you're angry with me. I can make you something else if you want…and if you tell me how." Said Suzuki

"That's the thing….I just….I don't want to have to explain every little thing to you. I don't want to be your mother." Said Shiori

"You're nothing like my mother." Said Suzuki. He had never meant anything, been more serious about anything, than he was in that moment. Mother had been….many things. Several of them frightening and most of them perplexing. Shiori was nothing like mother, she didn't even raise her voice.

"I never said that I was specifically like 'your' mother. I just meant that I don't want to end up having to teach you how to cook and clean and tie your shoes." Said Shiori. Right. This was Touichirou. He needed everything spelled out for him. Maybe she needed to start keeping alphabet soup in the house.

"I know how to tie my shoes…I just haven't had cause to in several years." Said Suzuki. He didn't see the value in it, doing things on his own. He understood the value of learning but he had no idea why she was so insistent the he do everything on his own. He understood the value of delegation. If he needed something done but it wasn't something he absolutely had to see to then he could have someone else see to it. He could have had all of his meals cooked for him and even his shoes tied for him if he had wanted to….but he wouldn't, of course, since Shiori would not have liked it.

"Touichirou, I love you, but you're ridiculous sometimes." Laughed Shiori. Well that certainly broke the tension. It was true, he did wear slip ones. That was…he was so adorable sometimes.

"Is this good laughter or bad laughter?" asked Suzuki. He was just going to ask. This was Shiori. It was alright to ask her questions like this. She wasn't Masami.

"Good, good. You're just…you're adorable, Touichirou, and I love you….and dinner is alright. I mean it's not great but I don't feel like getting up and teaching you to cook right now." Said Shiori. There. Maybe she was just tired. Maybe she was just tired and hungry….this was about learning to live together. Learning to live together meant learning to live with his shortcomings. She didn't know…well she was trying and that was something. That was the point of…of all of this.

"Or ever…it seems." Said Suzuki. It would have hurt less if she had hit him. Not that he ever would have let her hit him, of course, if the time ever came then he could have easily subdued her…but there would have been the sense of betrayal. There was a sense of…even now…and he didn't know….he had done as she'd asked. He had done as she'd asked and it hadn't been good enough.

"Well you're more perceptive than I thought. Yes, alright, I am not looking forward to spending hours and hours in the kitchen teaching you how to boil water." Said Shiori

"I know how to boil water." Said Suzuki

"Great then. There are other things, too, that I just…do not have the patience to teach you." Said Shiori

"Well there's no need to get upset. I can just learn from Shigeko, she's actually a very talented cook." Said Suzuki. There. Problem solved. Shigeko could do the cooking…if Shiori ever agreed to meeting her. Shiori had this idea that it would be too much, her meeting his children. Sho he could understand. Sho was a nightmare. But his daughters were…well Shigeko had been heaven sent when she'd been a child….alright, he could sort of understand Shiori's reluctance to meet Shigeko…but Mukai, Daughter, was a wonderful child. He hoped that he and Shiori had a half dozen just like her. Her as the person she was now, not the person she would become.

He didn't know what he would have done if he'd had to deal with two Shigekos….and worse, another Sho.

"Maybe not from your thirteen, sorry, from your twelve year old either. I mean that's not her job and God knows she already thinks that she's grown. Maybe just…I don't know. Figure it out on your own?" asked Shiori

"That would be very difficult…but if you want me to then I will." Said Suzuki

"No…I'll….I'll help you, but not tonight. It's Constitution Day or whatever. There's got to be some law against cooking on Constitution Day. It's unconstitutional." Said Shiori

"It isn't." said Suzuki

"Well then when you rule the world you can make it unconstitutional." Said Shiori

"For you, if you want…if it makes you happy. I only want to make you happy, that's all, and I am truly sorry that I made you upset." Said Suzuki. There. That was…he felt weak admitting his fault but she didn't mind. She had told him so many times before that she didn't mind…and he believed her. She wasn't Masami and he didn't know why his mind constantly thought that she was. Masami was gone, now, from his life and she needed to be gone from his mind too. He had Shiori now and she was thrice the woman Masami was.

"No, Touichirou, it's….it's my fault. I shouldn't have been…like that. I guess that I just…saw our future together or something. I just had this idea or vision or whatever that I was going to have to spend the rest of my life taking care of you and I don't want that. I want to be with you, I want to be your girlfriend…and your wife, but not your mother or your caretaker." Said Shiori. She ran her hands through her hair. Why was this so hard? Why did he have to make things so difficult? Or maybe she was the one who made things difficult….or maybe these sorts of things were just difficult on their own.

"What do you want me to be?" asked Suzuki. It was an odd question, even to his ears, but….it was one that he had wished that he'd asked before. It would have made things easier for him over the years.

"My partner." Said Shiori. She hadn't even had to think about it. She wanted a partner. Not someone who was dependent on her and not someone who she was dependent on. She wanted to be there with him at her side.

"I can do that." Said Suzuki. Finally, a role that he knew how to fill. He had never worked well with others and he hadn't completely gotten it down, the way men and women were supposed to be these days, but he could try. For her he could try. For her he could be whatever she wanted him to be.

"And how about we get some Chinese and then, tomorrow, we work on some meal prep together?" asked Shiori. She hated meal prep, she really just liked to get it over with at once, but she liked…she loved him. She had been too hard on him, maybe, or maybe he had just been too frustrating….or maybe she just needed to let it go and order the Chinese already.

She didn't think that it counted as making dinner, for either of them, but tomorrow it could be Touichirou's turn. Tonight they could just…rest.