Mob was used to making dinner.

Dad was used to eating dinner.

Sho was used to skipping dinner.

So, of course, this was a normal night. Mob had made dinner, Dad was eating it, and Sho was off playing with his hamsters. He would have stayed, maybe, if Dad had let him keep them in the house. But Dad hated pets, and was afraid of rodents even though he wouldn't have ever admitted it, and Sho hated Dad…and was afraid of him though he never would have admitted it, so here they were. Mob on one side of the table, Dad on the other, and Sho's chair empty.

So pretty much a normal meal for them.

"This really is very good, Shigeko." Said Dad, like he did at every meal. She shrugged.

"I didn't do anything different. It's the same as we had a couple days ago." Said Mob. For each and every time she made this Dad said that it was good. Maybe because eggs were his favorite meal or maybe because he wanted to keep things normal. He didn't like it when they fought anymore than she did, he had said so once himself, though maybe the solution would have been to stop fighting instead of pretending that everything was normal between the two of them.

It wasn't and she didn't know when it would ever go back to being normal.

"Well, it's still very good." said Dad. Mob shrugged and made her way to her seat, her omelet floating beside her. She took a moment before she sat down. Dad did nothing, he just kept on watching her. Maybe now she could finally start dinner. The sooner she started eating the sooner she could be done and then the soon she was done the sooner she could be away from Dad.

Sure, Sho wasn't there, but she would rather have been away from Dad and all alone than with him and not lonely.

"Do you need anything else?" asked Mob as she drew a cat on her omelet. She had just sat down. Dad always needed something when she sat down. It was like she had a bell on her that rang when she sat down and Dad, when that bell rang, got thirsty or needed salt or pepper or something. Like that documentary that she and Shimazaki had watched once about dogs, well it had looked like it had been about dogs, but instead it had been about psychology with very little about dogs.

Such false advertising.

"Ketchup, if you would be so kind?" asked Dad. Mob didn't bother finishing her cat, she just passed Dad the ketchup with her powers. It wasn't very good anyway. Sho would have done much better, he was a great artist even with ketchup, but he was gone. The ketchup bottle drifted past his empty seat. She sighed. It would have been nice to have been able to eat with him.

She hardly ever saw him.

Well…it was and wasn't true. She saw him before she went to sleep and when she woke up, they were back to sharing a room since Serizawa had sleepover with Fukuda basically every single night, but what she wanted for them to spend time together like they had…like they had before. Back when they had been little. Back before everything had happened. Back before they had decided to…to take down Dad.

Together.

"Anything else?" asked Mob as she cut into her omelet with her fork. She suddenly wasn't hungry. Dad was looking at her. She didn't want him to look at her. She didn't want him to be anywhere near her. When he had fired her it had hurt but…but what had hurt more was that fact that he had come home like nothing had happened. Expected dinner like nothing had happened. He always just…just pretended that nothing had happened.

Everything had happened.

"As far as this dinner goes, no, but there is a matter of great important that I would very much like to talk to you about." Said Dad. Mob nodded but didn't look up. She just kept on cutting her omelet.

"Are you firing me from the family, too?" asked Mob

"No. With all the trouble it took to acquire you I'm certainly not going to…disown you." said Dad. Mob looked up, she had no choice, Dad's aura had flared there as his voice got kind of small there at the end as he'd trailed off.

"Sho's the one that mom had trouble having, not me." said Mob. Dad's aura flared again. That was probably because she had mentioned Mom…though maybe because she had mentioned Sho, too. Dad liked to pretend that neither of them existed and he didn't like it when she brought reality into his pretend world…his dreamworld. Maybe that was the main difference between them. She had wanted nothing more than to get out of her dreamworld while he was trying to make the whole world reflect his.

She couldn't let that happen.

"Right, right, your brother was born by cesarian…but enough on the subject of your brother's birth." Said Dad

"You're the one who brought it up." said Mob

"Yes…but that was then and this is now and now, Shigeko, I really must bring a matter to your attention and no, I am not disowning you." said Dad

"That's not what it feels like." Muttered Mob

"What was that?" asked Dad

"What is it, Dad? I'm trying to have dinner." Said Mob quickly. That had come out wrong, mean, but…but she was going to have to fight him for the world so maybe it was a good time to get used to it, being mean, now. Maybe if she started practicing being mean now then by the time her birthday came around she'd be mean enough to beat Dad into submission. Either that or kill…

Hurt him so badly that he gave up before she had to do anything drastic to him…anything that she couldn't take back…anything that she couldn't have lived with herself if she had done.

"I spoke to…to Serizawa earlier." Said Dad. Mob cut completely through her omelet. She cut through her plate. She even cut through the table. A sliver of light was cutting through the wood of the table and cutting right across her shoe. She had lost control. She fought to get it back. She couldn't lose it, not now, not ever…she had to stay calm and…and try not to think about what happened when Dad talked to the people who liked her.

"Did you beat him up?" asked Mob, trying t stay calm. If Dad had beaten him up then being with Fukuda was the best thing for him right now. He was probably fine, she told herself, and healed up…but there was no way to heal the way you felt on the inside after Dad hit you. How you felt like nothing would ever be right again, how you would never be right again, how you felt so sad and just…just…

Bad.

"No." said Dad. Mob sighed and sat back in her chair. The fork in her hand bent in half as she sat back. She put it down, she didn't trust her powers right now.

"Did you yell at him?" asked Mob

"No, I never once raised my voice to him." said Dad

"Then can you please tell me what mean thing you did do to him so I can go to Fukuda's and make him feel better?" asked Mob

"I did nothing 'mean' to him as you have said, Shigeko, I simply spoke to him. I don't know where you're getting this idea that I've done something to him." said Dad

"Because you beat Shimazaki up back when he liked me and I figured that you knew me and Serizawa liked each other. I mean I don't know why else you would have talked to him…maybe about videogames since you both like them, now that I think about it…" said Mob. Maybe she had jumped to conclusions there. Dad loved hurting people, yes, but that wasn't the only reason he spoke to them…and now she had probably given everything away. She looked up and braced herself for whatever was coming. She knew how Dad was when people liked her, how he was all the time actually, and she knew that they would probably end up having a fight…

She didn't want to fight with him but she would if she had no choice but to.

"I punished Shimazaki because he…well, yes, because he had feelings for you but also because he's beneath you and wrong for you in every way." Said Dad

"And because you like beating people up." said Mob. Dad took a moment before he nodded.

"Yes, I do suppose I was also getting some enjoyment from causing him pain, but I also suppose that I was simply inflicting the pain that he had caused me back upon him." said Dad

"Dad, you're you. I don't know if anyone besides…if anyone could hurt you." said Mob

"I really am glad that you think so highly of me but, yes, I do feel pain both physical and…and nonphysical. It pained me to know that you had lowered yourself to being with him in any way. I had thought so much better of you, higher of you, and to know that you could have let yourself be taken in by someone like him based on…I don't even know. Physical appearance, perhaps? It doesn't matter. What does matter is the fact that you are on longer with him and my work is done on that front." Said Dad

"I don't know why it hurt you. You're not me and I'm not you. None of it had anything to do with you." said Mob. She hadn't even liked being with Shimazaki but what she liked even less was the way that Dad was talking about what had happened. No part of what had happened had anything to do with him. She hadn't been trying to hurt him. She could like whoever she wanted to like, not that she had liked him, but if she had it would have been none of his business. Dad liked people too, he'd had Mukai with one woman and he was going to marry Shiori and try to have more babies with him. She had more reason to be hurt than he did. She wasn't the one bringing someone new into the family and trying to replace Mom. Not that she cared about Mom.

She had already replaced Mom. What Dad was doing was trying to replace her.

"It had everything to do with me. I'm your father." Said Dad

"And you…you trying to replace Mom has everything to do with me. I'm your daughter. You bringing new people into the family has everything to do with me." said Mob

"You're thirteen, nearly fourteen. In a few short years you'll reach the age of majority and then, legally, you won't be a child anymore. Mentally I'd imagine you haven't been for some time…at least I would have if you hadn't been so irresponsible as to-that is neither here nor there. What I do in that facet of my life is none of your business." Said Dad

"And who likes me and who I like is none of your business, either." Said Mob

"That statement is false, I am your father and anything you do in that facet of your life requires my approval." Said Dad

"That's not fair! You don't get to-to treat me like a kid sometimes and an adult other times!" said Mob, The fork in front of her twisted again and again until it was shaped like a pretzel. She didn't mind. Better the fork than anything else. She was getting close to losing control in a more serious way…she didn't like it. Dad could see that she was getting close to the edge but he wasn't stopping! She had to…she had to stop herself.

Or at least try to.

"I don't care if you don't like Serizawa, I like him and he likes me and anyway it doesn't matter because you're going to try and take over the world and I'm….I'm not going to matter anymore." Said Mob. She stopped twisting her fork and tried to calm down. She wasn't going to let herself lose control. She couldn't.

"Shigeko…Daughter. You will always matter to me. Even if you've failed me, even if you've proven yourself unfit to stand in my place as leader, and even if you've seemingly devoted your entire adolescence to driving me insane you will always matter to me." said Dad

"Don't say things like that…" muttered Mob. She knew that he wasn't lying, Dad didn't lie. He always told the truth even if it hurt you and he hurt you even when he was saying nice things. Like now. If she had been younger she would have thought that Dad was saying all of this because he loved her…and maybe he did, but in a Dad way, not a normal way. Not in the way that she wanted, needed, someone to love her.

So it didn't matter what he said or how he said it. It would never mean what she wanted it, needed it, to mean.

"And, incidentally, I just so happen to approve of Serizawa so this entire conversation is a moot point." Said Dad before he started eating. He just starting eating like what he had said was normal…like he had just told her a normal thing, like he liked his omelet or that they were low on ketchup, and she was just supposed to, to what? Sit here and pretend that what he had said was normal?

What he had just said wasn't even in the same universe as normal.

What he had just said was…she didn't even know what to call it. Weird. Abnormal. Not right. Wrong. Dad didn't approve of people who liked her, Dad hurt them, and he hurt them because….she didn't even know. When she had been little Dad used to talk about how they were supposed to be together forever. Now that she was older, and had been replaced by Shiori, he had stopped talking about their future together, about how he always wanted to be with her. He didn't want to be with her at all, actually, since he didn't like her.

He loved her but he didn't like her, he had said, and it had felt even worse than if he had told her that he'd hated her.

"I don't understand." Said Mob, keeping calm. There was probably some weird Dad thing going on right now, some way his mind was working that she couldn't see, he did have a long history of being weird like that after all.

"A moot point means that-" said Dad

"No, I understood that part. I don't know why you said that you approved of Serizawa. You don't approve of anyone." Said Mob

"No, normally I would not, but he's perfect for you. He'd die without you. He has no means of earning his own living, the outside world terrifies him so he can never run away, he has no outside social support so nobody will help him if he ever does try to run away, he has complete and total devotion within himself towards you, and he feels no sexual attraction towards you. In short he has so many social and emotional problems that he wouldn't be able to survive on his own if he tried. So, therefore, he is perfect." Said Dad. Mob took a moment to take it all in. She ignored the part where Dad said that Serizawa didn't like her like…that. Like her like he wanted to be with her the same way that she wanted to be with him, because of course he did but he just knew not to talk to Dad about that because it was a gross thing to talk to Dad about. What it sounded like Dad was saying was that he liked Serizawa because he was kind of a fixer upper…which made sense.

You could fix a fixer upper up with a little bit of love after all…but Dad didn't seem like he wanted her to fix Serizawa up.

"Dad, do you just like Serizawa because he's a fixer upper and you don't think that I can fix him up?" asked Mob

"Yes, though I have no idea why you would want to improve upon him. With every improvement you make, with every tool you give him, you're giving him a greater and greater ability to leave you." said Dad. Mob crossed her arms. She could feel her braids trying to float away. She crossed them too. She crossed them with her powers and pulled her hair in the process. She was being too…too…she was losing control. She was going to have to keep calm even though Dad had just insulted her and the person she loved in the same sentence.

"That's not true, Dad, he'd never leave me." said Mob. Serizawa would never leave her and she would never have picked someone who would leave her. She knew to be picky about who she was with. Just loving someone wasn't enough. She had loved Teru, real life Teru, and he had slept with her and then kicked her out. She was older now, nearly two whole years older, she knew better how to pick a good boyfriend.

And she knew Serizawa was the best boyfriend she ever could have had and they were going to have lots of love and happiness together.

"You don't know that." Said Dad

"You think that I'd pick someone who I knew would leave me." said Mob

"No, I'm saying that…that you need to insure that-" said Dad

"You think that I don't know how to pick someone and that I'm just going to go with anyone who loves me, anyone who makes me feel loved, because…because that's just how you think I am!" said Mob, jumping to her feet. As soon as she did Dad did, too. Their aura were both pulsing and flaring, the table flew to the side of the world and into the wall, and the smell of ketchup filled the kitchen. She was breathing heavily, he was breathing heavily, and for a moment she thought that this was it….this was going to be their big fight…everything was going to end with this.

It didn't.

"No, Shigeko, I'm saying that you can never predict who will and will not leave you and you have to mitigate risk sometimes! Do you think that I predicted, when I married your mother, when your brother was born, when you were acquired, that she would leave me in the night? That I would awaken one morning and find her gone, vanished, and myself alone in the world with two children and no wife? I did not and I am trying to spare you the pain that your mother put me through! It has nothing to do with you!" shouted Dad. Mob gasped and sat back down, pulling her chair over with her powers. Dad did the same. The table flipped over and was dragged in front of them.

The food that had been on it was ruined.

"I apologize, I seem to have lost control. Forgive me." said Dad simply. Mob nodded.

"That's…that's ok. I lost control too." Said Mob

"Yes but…but I am the one who should be modeling proper control for you…emotional and metaphysical. I have failed and I am truly sorry…and now I must retire for the night. I wish you and Serizawa the best. Good night." Said Dad as he got up. He bumped his knees on the table. She moved it out of the way. He didn't say anything, he just kept walking. She listened to his footsteps, felt for his aura, until she heard his bedroom door close.

He wasn't coming back.

She didn't know what to do or say or think. Dad had seemed so…so sad, there, when he had been talking about Mom. She didn't know why he still cared about that. She didn't. She knew what life would have been like if Mom had stayed and she didn't want to live through that again…but Dad hadn't. She hadn't known, though, that it had bothered him so much now. He had Shiori, he'd had a whole other kid, he'd even stopped looking for her.

But it did bother him.

She didn't like thinking about Dad like this, as someone who was bothered by these sorts of things, as someone who got sad. She knew that he had feelings, she'd seen him before, but him being a person with feelings like sadness and love and pain made it harder and harder to just…to do what she had to do. She knew that the best thing for the world would have been for her to run Claw, the best thing for her and everyone she loved, was for her to beat Dad but…but when he got sad like that it was just so hard to…to steal his dream…

Even if it was the right thing to do.

The right thing to do was to stop Dad, but that would come later. The right thing to do right now was to clean up the kitchen. She wasn't going to fight with him anymore tonight. She reached out with her powers and picked up whatever broken pieces of plate and little bits of food that she could find. She threw them out. There was still so much ketchup on everything. It felt like every centimeter of the kitchen was covered in ketchup.

So it was time to get to work.

It didn't take as long as she had thought that it would, maybe because she was mainly using her powers, and maybe because she was only half paying attention to what she was doing. Her aura was still out, her focus was still split, but not towards Dad. She could feel everyone else. Sho next door with Shimazaki, Minegishi asleep in her bed, Hatori hiding in his room, Serizawa…next door. She had thought that he had been with Fukuda by now, but no, Fukuda was alone.

She didn't want to be alone.

She got up. The kitchen was clean enough. She didn't care, she could clean it later, but right now she didn't want to be alone. Dad liked Serizawa. He like him because he couldn't leave, because he was a fixer upper, but she would take it. He was happy, or at least he had been, and that was enough for her. She didn't need another reason to fight with her Dad. She didn't want to fight with him, or anyone, she just wanted to be with someone…she just wanted to be loved.

So she went over next door.

Though, as soon as she made it to the front door, Serizawa's aura disappeared. It reappeared a second later…at Fukuda's house. He disappeared and reappeared as she made it to his front door, while her hand was on the knob, while she was turning the knob and stepping through into the genkan. By the time she was there she was sure that he wasn't coming back. She couldn't feel him or Shimazaki anymore. The closest esper near her was Sho…but Sho was busy…

But she was lonely.

She so kicked off her shoes and decided that, if Shimazaki wasn't going to come back, that she was going to spend time with her little brother like she had when they had been little. She didn't know when Shimazaki was coming back but she knew that she didn't want to be here when he did. It was just too awkward. The smart thing to do would have been to just leave.

But her little brother was there and she didn't want to be alone right now.

"Sho?" asked Mob softly. Sho turned around, a squirming hamster in his hand.

"What's up?" asked Sho. Mob shook her head and sat down beside him.

"Nothing, I just…was kind of lonely." Said Mob

"You weren't alone, though, you were with Dad." Said Sho, turning away from her. She didn't know if he was mad or just putting that hamster back. She would have believed either.

"There was going to be food for you too, little brother." Said Mob

"I have poptarts under my bed, I'm fine." Said Sho. Mob frowned. Those weren't food, they were more like a dessert, and anyway she wanted to be with him. That was the whole point of having dinner with your family.

"It still would have been nice to eat with you-" said Mob

"I said that I was fine! I said…sorry, I'm sorry. I was a dickhole and…and I'm really sorry." Said Sho softly. Mob put her hand on his arm and pulled him close.

"No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have bothered you. If you don't want to have dinner with me and Dad then that's…that's your choice. You're almost my age, you can make your own choices." Said Mob

"I know I can but…but I don't know why you do, why you want to have dinner with Dad." Said Sho. Mob took a moment to think. She loved Dad still, a little bit at least, and it wasn't easy to turn that off. It was easier for Sho, of course, since Dad had been meaner to him…but for her it was different. She had been loved for longer than Sho had and…and because she had been older when Dad had started being mean to her it was harder to lose those feelings…

But she had to if she wanted to beat Dad…if she wanted to win.

"It's not that I wanted to have dinner with him, it's just that we always had dinner together and…and that's just the way it's always been. It's hard to get rid of feelings, habits, if you've had them for a while." Said Mob

"…I got rid of that a long time ago. Feeling like I loved Dad, I mean." Said Sho

"I know, and I'm sorry…I'm just so sorry, little brother." Said Mob

"I don't care if you make dinner for Dad or not, just don't try to drag me home." Said Sho

"No, I mean that I'm sorry for not being there for you when you needed me…for letting Dad be a jerk to you, I guess." said Mob. Sho didn't say anything. She wondered if her apology was too little too late. She should have said this, she got the feeling, when they had been younger. When Sho had been young enough to actually care how Dad felt about him. They were both so old now, thirteen, well she was closer to fourteen but still. He probably didn't give an f-word about Dad anymore or how he felt or-

-or maybe he would hug her.

She hugged him back. He hugged her tighter. She hugged him back just as tightly. She wasn't entirely sure what it was that they were hugging about but she wasn't going to start asking questions. She was just going to enjoy being hugged and enjoy hugging her little brother. She loved him so much and he loved her too. They were together now, if only until Shimazaki came back, and for her that was enough. She didn't feel lonely when she was with him. She felt loved.

Which was all she wanted to feel, really, the more that she thought about it.