Even on the other side of the country Suzuki Touichirou was surrounded by idiots.
"I'm surrounded by idiots." Said Suzuki as he glanced through the latest…he didn't even have the words for what was flooding his messages and inbox. He was surrounded y idiots, plain and simple. He had thought that he at least could have trusted Shigeko, even at her young age she had proven herself to be a somewhat competent leader before, and Nozomu was…a person who could be trusted with small amounts of power in the short term. Tadashi, of course, had always been his right hand…but as of now he was completely surrounded by idiots.
Either idiots or saboteurs…for now he was going to go with idiots.
"You had better not mean me." said Shiori as she raised her head from her pillow. This was their day to sleep in…so why in the hell was Touichirou on his phone? Clearly bad news. His aura said as much. She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
This was going to be one of those days, wasn't it?
"What? No, of course not." Said Touichirou as he skimmed through cancelled meetings and…and he wasn't even sure what. Transportation logistics. Something that, yes, he did in fact normally take care of himself. However, with as many people as he needed moved around for the rapidly approaching uprising he had delegated this task to Tadashi…Tadashi who wasn't answering his phone.
Tadashi who wasn't supposed to be an idiot.
"Then what's got you up so early in the morning?" asked Shiori
"I'm surrounded by idiots…excluding you. You're of comparable intelligence to me." said Touichirou
"Comparable?" asked Shiori, giving him a look that clearly said 'so you think you're smarter than me' but, of course, she didn't know why she even bothered. He didn't seem to notice. He glanced at her and then right back to his phone. She forgot, sometimes, how direct you had to be with him. Sometimes it was annoying and other times it was endearing.
It was too early in the morning for this to be endearing.
"So you think you're smarter than me?" asked Shiori as Touichirou scrolled through his phone, his eyebrows increasingly taking on more and more caterpillar like qualities as he got further and further incensed.
"I do not know….possibly. I've been told I'm a genius, before, when I was young. You may be a hyper cognate as well, I've never met anyone who knows more about the oceans than you do…but we can compare intelligences later. Right now I have to deal with this." Said Touichirou as he quickly tried to get to the bottom of the transportation crisis…and there it was. Most of the pilots and drivers were on vacation thanks to Shigeko…Shigeko who wasn't answering her phone…
What, did people not answer their phones anymore.
"Well you figure that out, I'm going to go make some coffee." Said Shiori as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She waited a moment for him to either join her or pull her back. He didn't even seem to notice, no, he was still buried in his work. She didn't have room to be throwing stones, of course, when people messed up badly it was always the person on top who had to deal with it.
She missed dealing with it.
"You want a cup?" asked Shiori as she stood up. She smoothed out her nightshirt, it had ridden up as she moved, not that he noticed. She wondered how badly it must have been…though this was what happened when you put a teenage girl in charge so, yes, Touichirou had maybe dug his own grave with this one.
"Tea." Said Suzuki as he tried his best to figure out who was still around. Nozomu would have been better to have around for this, especially since he wasn't picking up his phone either. Something had either gone terribly wrong or he was being purposefully ignored. He knew his children. Those phones were practically parasitically attached to their hands.
They better not have been ignoring him.
"I'm putting a pot of coffee on. If you want tea then you're welcome to come into the kitchen and make it yourself." Said Shiori
"You're already up and I'm very busy right now." said Suzuki. He heard Shiori scoff…he knew that scoff. He may not have been the best at reading people but he didn't have to be a telepath to know that he had angered her. He didn't know what he had done to anger her but that didn't matter now did it? She was angered and he…well, now he had something else to deal with.
As if he didn't have enough to deal with today.
"I'm not a maid, a cook, or a servant. If you want tea then come and make tea. You're a grown man, you can put the kettle on. Honestly!" said Shiori before she threw her hands up and left. It wasn't as though he was the only person in the world with important work to do. She had things to do as well…not as much as she used to, not as much as before she showed the entire city of Osaka and possibly the entire esper world weakness by getting captured and then subservience to Claw by being rescued by them…but she did have things to do!
Her work mattered too. He didn't see her ordering him to put the kettle on.
She made her way to the kitchen and put some coffee on. The electric kettle sat miserably alone on her kitchen counter. She eyed it. It felt like it was calling to her…she was maybe being something of a bitch right now…no, she wasn't. She reminded herself that he wasn't the king in this castle. She knew him, she loved him, and she had been with him long enough to know that for every inch she gave him he would take a mile.
Well, she didn't have a mile to give.
She watched the coffee drip into the carafe. One drip, two drips, three drips. She counter thirty two drips before her bedroom door opened. Another ten before he was standing in front of her. Ten more after that before he was in her cabinets hunting for that tea he liked. She smiled and gently used her telekinesis to nudge the cabinet beside him opened. The one she had unofficially dubbed the 'Touichirou Cabinet'.
They'd been together for years now, it was just easier to contain his things to the fewest number of spots possible, otherwise he would have taken over her whole house.
"I got you a box of that tea you like." Said Shiori as she urged it from the cabinet with her telekinesis. He caught it with his. Somewhere she heard her cat hiss and run away. It had never gotten used to him. Well, it was going to have to at some point. They were going to merge lives…as some point. When they were both ready, when business had been taken care of, and when…when the time came.
And yes, it would come, just…later rather than sooner.
"Thank you…and I'm sorry. I don't know what I did to anger you but I am sorry." Said Suzuki. He meant it. She liked it when he meant it and he liked it when she was happy. She was his, after all, and it was his job to keep her happy. Otherwise she wouldn't be his anymore. Otherwise he would wake up and she would just be gone and he would be…
That wasn't going to happen again.
"How can you be sorry when you don't know what it was that you did?" asked Shiori. Touichirou put the tea down on the counter and shook his head.
"It's complex." Said Suzuki
"Is it? Or do you just think that I'm not capable of understanding?" asked Shiori
"No, no, you'd be capable of understanding if were capable of expressing myself." Said Suzuki. Shiori smiled. He had no idea what he had done to make her smile but he would take this beacon of success in the sea of failure and headache that he had been so rudely awoken to this morning.
"Try me." said Shiori
"Alright then. I am…sorry that I upset you because I am simply upset with myself for upsetting you and…and I don't know what it is that I did but I know that if I ask you'll only get more upset with me and I worry that if I upset you enough that you will no longer wish to be with me and…and the thought of not having you as mine pains me in ways that I haven't been pained in many years." Said Suzuki. He felt physically sick, like he had just finished vomiting, and in a way he had. All the emotion that came up, emotions he hadn't even known he was feeling let alone that he'd had to express them, had been too much. It had all been something that he knew should have stayed locked away inside where it belonged. It should have stayed hidden, concealed, but now it was out there and part of him…part of him expected her to be as disgusted with him as he was with himself…and then she would leave or…or ask him too since this was her home after all.
He awaited her judgement.
He got tea.
"Here, let me do that. You always scorch the tea, you know, no matter what kind you're making." Said Shiori as she used her powers to fill the kettle. She walked past him and put it on, feeling the trill of his aura against hers. That had been a lot for him, better than he'd done in a while, and he deserved a reward. She supposed that she could let him be the king in the castle just this once.
He'd given her a lot, after all, and who was she to take more?
"Thank you, your skill in the subject of proper tea preparation does exceed my own." Said Suzuki as he felt her brush past him. He let his aura pass over hers. She felt…better. Warmer. In a way safer, though as powerful as she was she of course posed no threat to him. He allowed himself to feel her aura in ways he wished he could have felt her body….well, he could have, but he knew better than to push her now. She was receptive to this and this was enough.
He had done something right, there was no need to press his luck, not when so much was going wrong today.
"Well that's just because you haven't had a lot of practice." Said Shiori as she leaned over his shoulder. His phone was vibrating again. She caught a glimpse of several exclamation points. That couldn't have been good, both for the terrible punctuation and the fact that his underlings were addressing him so disrespectfully.
"I haven't had much time to practice…and I doubt I will today." Said Suzuki
"What's happening today? Don't tell me that they started the uprising without you." said Shiori. Part of her hoped that they had. She knew Touichirou, she believed in him, but she also knew what the government was capable of. If Touichirou failed he either had a hanging coming to him or, worse, a bomb in his chest and a leash. Dead or a dog of the government…or he could have succeeded in this crazy dream of his and then…
Well, she didn't even know what would happen then.
"No, no, no, they wouldn't dare…at least I think that they wouldn't. I clearly have no idea what these idiots are capable of." Said Suzuki
"Well, you did put a teenager in charge." Said Shiori
"I know how old Shigeko is and I have put her in charge before, when she was much younger, so I have no idea where any of this is coming from…I mean I expected Nozomu to do poorly, passably at best, but from her I expected…more." Said Suzuki
"She's just a kid, cut her some slack here." Said Shiori. She still wasn't that girl's biggest fan but she did have to admit that the kid was only thirteen. Touichirou looked at her and saw a small adult. Shiori, of course, knew better. If that had been her daughter she would have been at some boarding school far away or something, not running Claw and getting up to her vices…not to mention what had happened between her and that body guard…yes, if Shiori would have been in charge that man would have been fish food.
But she wasn't in charge of Claw so she kept her mouth mostly shut. Touichirou could run his own circus.
"She's driving Claw into the ground." Said Suzuki
"Yes, because she's only thirteen." Said Shiori
"She's nearly fourteen, a few more weeks now. I haven't forgotten her birthday, I'm timing it so that the uprising is a gift to her." said Suzuki. He intended to give her a future but if she insisted on ruining it in the present she'd have no future. Then she'd have the life he had. She'd grow up feeling as though she were a visitor to this planet, not a native, and a feeling of aloneness would cling to her no matter what she did or where she went. There would be no fixing it until she met someone else and…and he was conflating his life with hers, wasn't he?
That had been wrong of him.
"Yes, Touichirou, she's thirteen going on fourteen. She's not thirteen going on thirty, you know, she's a teenager." Said Shiori
"I know what stage of life she's in but the point is that she's proven herself before. Now she's…she's gone and let everyone have time off and she isn't picking up her phone, which I know is in her possession since it's always in her possession, and neither is Nozomu and Tadashi-" said Suzuki before the whistling of the kettle cut him off. Shiori moved past him again to deal with it. He let his aura pass over hers again.
This time she wasn't nearly as receptive.
In fact it felt like she was attempting to brush him off. That…made no sense. A moment ago she had been happy and now she wasn't. Women. Why did they have to be such complex creatures? Men were simple, he knew, he was one and he had been with one. He and Tadashi were largely of one mind. They understood each other on most things and they hardly ever had any conflict. Tadashi had also never been so…this! Tadashi had never been so…not that he thought about Tadashi often, of course he didn't. Shiori had made herself very clear.
It was either her or Tadashi. He had chosen her.
"Your daughter is just a kid, you're adopted son is mentally still a kid, and as for your right hand man…well, I don't think that you're capable at looking at him objectively after what the two of you did together. Your tea's done, by the way. You don't have to leave green tea for as long as you normally do. That scorches it." Said Shiori as she reached past him, grabbed a mug, and poured herself a cup of black coffee. It was too early for this, too early to confront these kinds of feelings. When it was just the two of them she could block out the outside world to a degree. The things she feared, the things she wanted, the things that troubled her, the things…so many things. It could just be the two of them. She didn't have to worry about when it all could come tumbling down.
When Touichirou would make it all come tumbling down.
Her life…she had made her own choices. She knew what getting involved with Touichirou would bring to her but she did it anyway, and she had gotten herself kidnapped, and she had lost much of the power she had cultivated over the years since leaving Jodo, and now…well, these were the things she had done to herself. Touichirou was planning on taking on the whole world with nothing but his children and whatever espers he had managed to drag out of nothing by his side. If he lost then everything was over and if he won…
If he won then the world would be his and everything she had done with her life would have been moot, anyway.
"Thank you for the tea but I must confess that I…I feel as though you're being hostile towards me right now." said Suzuki, his tongue trying to roll down his throat and into a lethal bath of stomach acid and bile with every word he spoke. This felt wrong, this was wrong, and any moment now he expected something terrible to happen. Her to shout at him or insult him or hit him…he didn't know where that last one had come from, it wasn't as though she was even capable of landing a blow, but in the moment he felt very small and…and vulnerable.
He hated feeling this was but he loved her with all of his being…a strange and difficult to understand dichotomy.
"You think?" asked Shiori as she brought her coffee to her lips. It was much too hot but she drank it anyway. No sense in showing weakness, not now, even though she didn't exactly have much left to protect now did she?
"Yes, I do think so and I would like to know what I've done to deserve this…though I am fully aware that asking you what I've done wrong is only going to serve to make you feel more hostile towards me." said Suzuki
"Well, you sure learn fast, you might actually be the genius you say you are." Said Shiori
"But that's not what this is about, is it?" asked Suzuki. Yes, he did catch on fast, though normally not to matters such as this, matters of emotions that is. But for her he would try.
"No, it's not, you're right. It's about…a lot of things, alright? I just don't think that you should be trusting things that are this important to people who you know are going to fail you, like your kids, and I don't think that you should lean so heavily on kids to begin with and as to your…I don't even know what to call him-" said Shiori
"Fukuda Tadashi, since you don't know him well then you can call him Fukuda, though if you want to call him Tadashi I can order him not to be offended." Said Suzuki
"Fine. Fukuda, your Fukuda. Your…person I know you still have feelings for, feelings that cloud your judgement." Said Shiori. She didn't like to think about him, to talk about him, but part of her just had to. That man was always…always there, in a way, since he seemed to live rent free in Touichirou's mind. She couldn't even name all the stories she'd been forced to sit through starring that man, his childhood with Touichirou, the time they'd spent building Claw together. A lover, a male lover, she could handle since of course she didn't exactly have the same equipment. A male lover who Touichirou had actual feelings for…that was something else entirely. Something threatening.
She had lost nearly everything for this man, she wasn't going to lose him on top of everything else. That would simply be too much loss to bear.
"I do not…know what those feelings are." Said Suzuki. He had been about to lie to her but he knew that wouldn't have done either of them any good. She trusted him and the last thing he needed was to break her trust. He knew what it felt like when the person you loved most in the world betrayed your trust…it was a painful feeling. A painful feeling that left a wound, a wound which never truly healed, in fact it even reopened from time to time…
He would never leave her with such a wound even if it meant that he had to wound himself in the process of saving her.
"But you do have some for him, yes?" asked Shiori
"Yes, I do, and I…am worried, anxious, since he hasn't gotten back to me in a while and normally he is very dependable. If he's out of communication then something must have gone very wrong." Said Suzuki. voicing his emotions didn't serve to dissipate them, no, if anything voicing his emotions simply served to give them greater life. The teacup on his hand began to crack. He put it down on the counter before he could give Shiori something else to be angry with him about. He had to keep it together.
Power was nothing without control.
"We both know that your feelings for him go beyond work, Touichirou, and this anxiety you're feeling…again, maybe you shouldn't be putting children in these positions of power. For all you know everything is perfectly fine and your daughter decided to go to Disneyland or something with her friends." Said Shiori
"That…is always a possibility." Said Suzuki. It was a possibility that he liked, he liked it very much. Shiori was right, Shigeko could be quite flighty. She didn't always listen to him, not when it came to important things and…and it could have been something as simple as wanting to go to one of those amusement parks again.
She was, after all, chronologically still a child even if acted in ways that put her closer to an adult.
"So how about you get on your phone and tell people that if they don't get in communication with you right now you're going to start dishing out some consequences? Because, honestly, if I were you I wouldn't even be entertaining this kind of disrespect." Said Shiori. Touichirou looked like she was getting through to him…good. It was about time he saw some reason. He still had a huge blind spot when it came to his kids, how much power he gave them, how he spoiled them, and how it was always going to blow up in his face. It was a worrying blind spot…one that made her worry about any of their future familiar endeavors…
If it would ever come to that. She was in her forties after all and had made her peace with not wanting or liking children at all.
"I…don't like giving Shigeko ultimatums. She may take the other option and as much as she is a source of headaches and anxiety I do still care for her…despite the person she has become and the things she has done…and the complete lack of judgement she has shown in who she has done those things with…" said Touichirou. Shiori rolled her eyes and shoved his phone into his chest, spilling coffee on the front of both of their shirts in the process.
Very hot coffee, but it wouldn't do him any good to show her physical weakness in addition to emotional weakness.
"We're not getting into that again. Now strike the fear of God, or yourself, into your subordinates like the man I know would." Said Shiori. She needed to get him off of this topic right now. She knew what he had done, she knew what she had done if he had been in her position and how she would have disposed of the body, but Shigeko wasn't her daughter. If they wound up having a daughter together and one of their underlings even so much as glanced in her direction the wrong way well…then Shiori would have to murder them, but as much as it pained her to let it go Shigeko wasn't her child, she was Touichirou's.
And he could parent her as poorly as he pleased.
"I know, I know, and I…I will." Said Suzuki. There was a fear, there, of further losing Shigeko, of further pushing her into the person that she was becoming…but there was the even greater fear of losing everything that he had ever worked for. His dream slipping away.
He needed to speak to her, to everyone.
He sent out a quick message demanding someone speak to him at once…and instantly got a reply from Fukuda. Shigeko and her friends had forgotten their phone chargers and were off somewhere on a trip…Tadashi had been putting out fires all day…and Tadashi had missed him and wanted to know when he was coming back…
He closed his messenger app right then and there.
He saw the teacup beside him erupt in a spiderweb of cracks. He picked it up and quickly put it in the sink where it promptly exploded…at least the mess was contained. Now all he had to do was contain himself. Tadashi had missed him…had thought of him long enough to want his presence and…and this part was over. He had decided it, this part was over, and he…he wasn't going to have these thoughts anymore.
Shiori was looking at him, shooting him an expression that he couldn't even begin to identify.
"Do I even want to know what you're destroying my house over?" asked Shiori as she took in the mess in her sink.
"No." said Suzuki quickly. The last thing she needed to know about were the emotions he still harbored towards the man he had spent the better part of his life with. He loved her and Tadashi…he may have loved Tadashi too…but he couldn't. He wanted more children and Tadashi, being male, couldn't give him any. Also Tadashi had lied to him before, and about Sho's whereabouts too, as well as very strange comments about having slept with Masami which, really, they were in their forties. Well beyond the age for such tasteless jokes. Tadashi also didn't get along with Shigeko…or just about anyone now that he thought about it…but still, Tadashi had a place within his emotions that was not insignificant…
A place that he knew Shiori didn't need or want to know about.
"But a matter of…of importance draws me back to Tokyo, something which I apologize for. But I must leave...oh! And I'll a teacup sent over to replace the one which I've destroyed." Said Suzuki as he turned to leave. He needed to get dressed and get back to Tokyo…but not because Tadashi had called him back, no, because….because someone needed to be in charge and clearly that someone needed to be him. He turned around but found himself immobilized.
A hand was in his.
"It's part of a set." Said Shiori
"Then I'll have another set sent over." Said Suzuki
"And then what am I supposed to do with all of those spare teacups?" asked Shiori
"You'll have spares. Now please, unhand me. I want to stay here with you and discuss all manner of things, even something as banal as teacups, but I have to go. If I don't go back then everything could fall apart." Said Suzuki. She didn't unhand him, no, she just looked away quickly.
"…we haven't had breakfast yet, you know, and I do buy more food when I know you're coming over. Especially eggs. I mean, if it were possible you'd live on omelets and bread." Said Shiori
"It is possible and I did for many years." Said Suzuki
"So why don't you just stay and help me make breakfast, then you can run and catch the next train or plane or whatever back to Tokyo. Ok?" asked Shiori. She felt like she was begging, she hated it, she hated what she had been reduced to. But she loved him and she wanted him near her…which was natural, even if her life had come tumbling down around them both…
She still wanted to be near him. She still needed to be near him. She still loved him.
"I…I want to but I have to get back before everything falls apart and…and the offer is very tempting but I have to go. We're making our move soon and I can't let us be even slightly delayed." Said Suzuki as he pulled his hand free. She put her hands behind her back and sighed.
"So what then, the next time I see you you'll either be king of the world or…" said Shiori
"Or what?" asked Suzuki
"Or you won't be." Said Shiori. Touichirou looked, if anything, perplexed. It was as if the thought of losing hadn't even crossed his mind once. But that wasn't…yes, it was possible. Suzuki Touichirou did not fail. He had said that once and he hadn't been trying to be cute, he had been speaking with certainty. She wondered what it was like to go through life like that.
"There is no 'or' in this situation, I will rule the world and then we can spend as much time together as you want…as time will permit since I do expect to be busy in the initial months holding onto my power…but then when I am secured we'll have all the time in the world to spend together." Said Suzuki
"Please, be careful and…and come back, alright? Before everything. Just so I can say…" said Shiori softly
"Whatever you need to say you can just tell me now." said Suzuki, genuinely confused. He was confused as to why she was speaking so softly, why she was pulling him close to her with her telekinesis, and why she couldn't tell him what she wanted to tell him. Normally she was really the better communicator out of the two of them.
"I love you, alright, so come back before your uprising so I can say it again." Said Shiori softly before she kissed him. She just needed to say it one more time, once more before he lost everything, since she had already lost everything. Losing him would…would be…
She didn't even want to think about it.
"Alright…but know that I love you as well and that my feelings for you will not change just because I'll be the ruler of the world." Said Suzuki before he pulled her into a kiss he initiated. He didn't know what she was feeling or why but he did know that he didn't like it, and therefore he had to correct it. It was his job to make her happy and someone in his life really should have been doing their job.
He was surrounded by idiots, that much was certain, but that didn't mean that he had to be one of them.