Sho's room was starting to get cluttered.

Masami needed to stop buying toys. She knew it, her wallet knew it, and the spare room in her apartment knew it. She had bought birthday presents, Christmas presents, and just because presents…she had never spoiled her son this badly before. She knew that he would need playthings when he came to be with her again, every child needed playthings, and she knew that it would be a big adjustment for him and that toys would ease it….

But she knew that his room was becoming cluttered.

That didn't stop her, though, from stopping in at the store again after work. Every time she came in here it was a different excuse. She needed dish soap, a loaf of bread, a carton of eggs, a bottle of shampoo, a box of tampons, a stick of deodorant, to get out of the cold…she was using the 'get out of the cold' excuse today. She needed something to warm her up on the walk home and what could be better than a cup of burnt, convenience store, hot chocolate. It wasn't like it was come great expense, one hundred yen a cup, and it wasn't like this was an every day occurrence or anything. No, yesterday she had gone straight home, and the day before that she had gone to the see the ice sculptures with Hirai from work, and the day before that…well she had been running low on bread….

She couldn't help it if the convenience store also sold toys, a good stock of them, too.

They always had something new, something that she couldn't say no to, something that she knew that Sho would love. This time it was a set of magic markers. Not permanent ones, Sho couldn't be trusted with those, but a set of markers in white tubes that wrote in mystery colors. Sho would have loved that….Shigeko too. She would have loved the set of glitter ones…or the Hello Kitty drawing pad….or the princess crowns that were next to the art supplies. She grabbed the markers. Sho…Sho was the one who would need things to play with, to draw with, when he came to her. Shigeko…she was with her father…and she was fine. She needed to be with Touichirou. He understood her and he knew how to best take care of her. They were two of a kind after all.

Shigeko took after Touichirou despite not sharing a single strand of DNA with him.

Sho was more like her…she prayed that he was alright. He had always been such a sensitive boy and Touichirou had always been such an insensitive man. She had checked her phone that morning, and all throughout her working day. Nothing new…not a single word from Fukuda…but he might have been busy. She hadn't heard from him in a while but Touichirou always had him running around and around…the kids were fine.

They were in good hands.

Better hands than hers. She had…Sho would understand. Once he got to her, once she could talk to him, once she showed him his room and how much she loved him then he would understand. He would understand how much Masami loved him and how hard making this choice had been and how she had only doe what was best for him…he would understand, too, why Shigeko…where she had come from. She would tell Sho the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth….when he came to her. Right now she needed to get home so she could put these markers in his room with the other art supplies. Right now she needed….

It wouldn't hurt to check her phone…just for a minute.

She reached into her pocket and grabbed her phone. She was just going to check and see if anyone, not just Fukuda, had messaged her or emailed her…aside from having a ten percent off coupon to the rice bowl place there wasn't anything of note. That was…she was fine. No news was good news. News…it could have been bad…something like Touichirou had punished Sho or Sho had been acting up again or…or Sho and Shigeko missed her or…or something of that nature. No news meant that everything was going well. No news meant that nothing of note had happened. No news meant that she could just go and grab her hot chocolate already-

-no news meant that she could be completely blind and bump into someone.

"I'm so sorry." said Masami. She nodded and started walking…but was stopped after just one footstep.

"Masaoka-san! What bring you here?" oh. She knew that voice…the coat was new, though. Underneath the pea green coat, the cornflower yellow scarf, the bright red hat…underneath that riot of color was her desk mate and best work friend, Hirai. She straightened out her coat and tried to clutch the markers to her chest. He pulled his scarf down…just as happy as ever.

She smiled too. As far as anyone could know she didn't have any reason to be upset.

"Just getting some shopping done. What about you? Picking up some things for your kids?" asked Masami as she motioned to his basket. Junk food, the kind that she hadn't been in the habit of keeping in the house. Cotton candy balls, chocolate filled lollipops, extra cheesy potato chips, and a few toys too. A setoff small dolls, a plastic tank. He had a boy and a girl too…

She looked away.

"Yeah, my ex is finally letting me have a weekend with them. What about you? Something I don't know about?" asked Hirai

"I'm just…thinking of getting into art, that's all." said Masami quickly.

"I didn't know you drew, but then again I don't know a lot about you. The mysterious Masaoka-san." Said Hirai

"I'm really not that interesting…anyway, I should be going. It was nice bumping into you." Said Masami. She gave a little bow and made her way up to the counter, aware of the footsteps following her the whole way. She got it, they were work friends, but he didn't have to be so…so friendly. She didn't want to put down roots here, especially not after she had done so much to uproot herself from this place…and her own life. She wasn't going to stay here forever, she didn't want to. If it had been up to her she would have taken Sho and gone far away, to some place where none of Touichirou's men could ever find her…if such a place even existed. But it wasn't up to her.

Very few things, it seemed, were.

"…drew cars, mostly. Cars I wouldn't ever have a hope of seeing let alone driving, and not just because I was a kid…." Masami nodded as she stood in line…why did there have to be a line? And didn't he have more shopping to do? She kept her smile up. There was no need to draw any more of his attention. She would just smile and nod, nod and smile, like she had for Touichirou. Back when he spoke to her. He had done that a lot in the beginning. He used to speak, well lecture, about the things that interested him. Things that nobody in the world cared about. Like math, specifically the math by which outer space operated. He hadn't given a damn what she'd had to say. He had done the same thing when she had spoken to him, just smiled and nodded, nodded and smiled. She could have told him anything, that she was from Mars, and he would have just smiled and nodded and then looked for a way to go back to telling her which stars were visible in the sky that night or the names of the different craters on the moon….

After dealing with THAT for nearly seven years she could listen to someone pontificating about the time he drew a car back in year two.

"…..sort of like a Cosmo and a Civic." Said Hirai

"I didn't know that you could cross a Cosmo and a Civic. That's really interesting….wait…how do you cross a Cosmo and a Civic? One's a sport's car and the other is what your Mom drives to the temple in." said Masami. She had been about to just go on her way when her brain computed what he had said. That was crazy….but not Touichirou crazy. A fun sort of crazy…a light sort of crazy. Not whatever her husband…her ex-husband…Touichirou had been on about.

"You get the performance of a Cosmo with the safety and affordability of a Civic…it's complicated and, alright, I fully admit that I didn't think that one through. Though to be fair I was only-" said Hirai

"Next!" said the cashier. Oh, right, they were holding up the line. Masami put her markers down on the table…and then they were joined by Hirai's basket.

"Getting a little close there, aren't you?" asked Masami

"It's alright, I've got you." Said Hirai

"That's…" said Masami

"I owe you for talking your ear off earlier. I know how I can be, the manager was very clear about how I can be." Said Hirai with a laugh.

"Yeah, he can be a real s.o.b….but you don't have to-" said Masami

"I wan to." Said Hirai. There was something in his voice….a certainty…but a sweet certainty, a warm certainty. Not like the certainty Touichirou had spoken with. When he said that something was going to happen then it was going to happen because he was going to MAKE it happen. The universe bent to his will, in his mind at least. Hirai…he spoke like he knew what was going to happen, like he had a sneak preview of the future. He said that he wanted to…which meant that he was going to….because he wanted to….

Masami loosened her scarf, it was way too warm.

"I was going to get a hot chocolate, too." Said Masami

"Two hot chocolates, too, in that case." Said Hirai. The hot chocolate may have been too hot. That was why she had come in today, the excuse that she'd given herself. It was January in Sapporo, it was cold, and therefor she needed something to warm her up on the walk home. She must have been coming down with something. A sudden warmness overtook her. She had to completely undo her scarf completely. She felt…light headed and….

And she knew how she felt.

"….told the kids that they could have any color they wanted but they couldn't agree and now…." Said Hirai. Masami smiled and nodded. Apparently he walked this way home now…and apparently he was walking home now, too. He matched her step for step, never once stopping to take a breath. No, his monologue went on. This one about how he put his kids in charge of picking the color of his car. She didn't want to hear about his kids…she didn't want to think about his kids. Thinking about his kids and hearing about his kids made her think of her own kids…and that was even worse than what she had been thinking before.

He looked cute in the pea green coat of his.

Men had always been a weakness for her. She blamed the steady diet of daytime dramas and love stories she had been fed as a child. There had never been a time in her life when she hadn't wished for someone to save her. From what she didn't know. From the humdrum existence of her life. Days and nights spent all alone. No brothers and sisters, only her parents for company…some company they'd been. She'd always wanted to escape it, the feeling of loneliness that would always cling to her…even when she was surrounded by people….

Even when she had someone walking right next to her.

At least this time the loneliness was justified. Well it had always been justified. She'd grown up an only child, the only child of two only children. No siblings or cousins for her. No playmates either. Back then…back when she had been young people like her were rare novelties at best but not friend material. Nobody had given her the time of day…and then it had gotten worse after she'd met Touichirou. Any gains she'd made had been lost for that man. For her own good, he had said, he'd bought that giant house without consulting her. It was for her own good hat she was isolated and alone…the only other adult she could speak to being Fukuda…

Men had always been a weakness.

Touichirou had needed her. He had been like this little lost…pod person…thing. His idiosyncrasies had been endearing when they'd met but soon, very soon, they'd turned annoying. His habit of disappearing for days at a time eventually could not be compensated for with gifts from far away. His ineptitude around the house could not be made up for by how adorable he was when he was helpless. Even the way he slept had gotten on her nerves…and then eventually the emptiness came back as it always did….Fukuda had managed to fix it but that was all that he had been, a quick fix. A band-aid on a gaping chest wound…a good band-aid but still a band-aid….

He had needed her.

He had been both her savior and…and the person she took care of. Not her burden but her…her companion in loneliness. Someone who was just as cut off from the world as she was. Someone who had given his life to Touichirou. They had been working together for years, he had said, and his work hadn't left him with space to do much. To meet people. To build the life he'd always wanted for himself. That was what Touichirou was, a life thief, a life lamprey, someone who sucked the life right out of you until you were a withered husk of yourself. Masami knew Fukuda's pain and he knew hers…and they were each other's salvation from that pain. They had taken solace, just briefly, within each other…

But that part was over now…and she knew better than to start it up again.

"Really? I don't believe it." Said Masami. That fit, at least he kept on talking. She watched him. There was a flush to his cheeks, maybe one not caused by the cold. It had been so long since a man had been interested in her…aside from Fukuda. That hadn't been a blushing and stammering affair coming to life above cups of burn convenience store hot chocolate. That had been a moment passion, of salvation, two lonely people finding solace in each other's bodies….

She hadn't had a man interested in her like this since Touichirou…and look at how well that went.

He had been a blushing, stammering, mess in the beginning. Words were hard for him, he had said, especially when he had been talking to someone as perfect as her. That had been what had gotten her. Perfect. His most perfect person. No man had ever called her that before. No man had ever looked at her and thought that she was just enough as she was…he had gotten her and then nine months later the two of them had gotten an addition to their family…

She could not let that happen again.

"…which really makes me think-" Masami stopped walking. They were headed to her building. He knew where it was, he had taken her home after the work party. That wasn't the fear. No, the fear was…was for herself. That she would make the same mistake that she had made nearly seven years ago. The last thing she needed was to get tied down again, and to another Touichirou too. What she needed to focus on were her children…was her son.

Not herself. Her son.

"So, this is me!" said Masami. She reached for her shopping bag. He had been gentlemanly enough to carry it for her. She hadn't had someone be gentlemanly with her in so long…but that didn't matter. She had to focus on Sho. She had to prepare her house and her life for when he would come back into it. Another man around after everything had been uprooted for him…that would have been too much….

She had to keep on putting Sho first.

"Oh, right, I knew it was…not in a weird way. I just dropped you off here before so…um…here's your shopping, Masaoka-san. I'll see you at work tomorrow…because your desk is right by mine….I'm going to stop talking now." Said Hirai. Masami took a sip of her hot chocolate to cover her smile. He was cute…and she could appreciate that. It wasn't a crime to be attracted to someone. It wasn't like she was going to do anything about it.

No, she was done with men for now….possibly the rest of her life.

"See you tomorrow." Said Masami with a wave…one that may have been a little too enthusiastic. Her stomach felt a little off…this cheap convenience store hot chocolate was coming back up on her…or maybe her steady diet of office snacks, ramen blocks, and convenience store boxed dinners was catching up with her.

She had to get inside. Now.

She slid a bit as she made up the stairs but she didn't fall. She made it home just in time…nearly just in time. She thought that she had been about to throw up bit it passed. It must have just been an attack of nerves again. That was what her mother used to call them, when she'd get herself so worked up she'd throw up. It hadn't happened since she had been a kid…but things had been very stressful lately. Being away from her children would have stressed anyone out. She was fine. She just…she had to get Sho's room ready. Maybe when it was done all of these feelings would finally pass.

If his room ever got done. She hadn't heard from Fukuda in…she was worrying about nothing. Everything was fine…just fine.