Sho sometimes woke up in the middle of the night.

Sometimes he had to pee, sometimes he was thirsty, and sometimes there was no reason at all for it. This was not one of those no reason at all times, no, there was a very good reason that he had gotten up at…he checked the clock…eleven fifteen at night. Yes, there was a very good reason for him to be up at this crazy late time. Hey! It was almost tomorrow! He wondered what happened when the day changed. When the year changed there were fireworks, that had happened last New Year and the New Year before that, and he hoped that there would be fireworks again. Actually maybe there wouldn't be any fireworks at all. They would have woken him up, probably, if there were fireworks that went off every time one day turned into the next.

The sound of fireworks hadn't been what had woken him up.

Fireworks sounded like 'bang, bang, bang' this sounded like 'creak, creak, creak'. That was a whole different sound entirely. The creaking wasn't that loud, not loud enough to wake up big sis anyway, but Sho had heard it. He had good hearing, Fukuda said so, and that was why he wasn't supposed to pick his ear with his finger or he'd ruin it and go deaf. Fukuda had said so and he knew a lot of things about everything. He had come over tonight, again, to help them make dinner. Well to help mom. He and big sis just helped stir rice and make sure that nothing boiled over. They were still too little to help with real cooking, Fukuda had said, but he had picked them up so they could see what was going on.

Sho wished that he had been less careful.

Fukuda had picked him up so that he could see the miso soup cooking. Miso soup with pork because big sis liked pork. The cooking hadn't looked that cool, the fire had been much cooler, but Sho had still appreciated being picked up. It was nice. Dad never picked him up unless it was to throw him or to push him or something. Mom asked dad to pick him up, too, sometimes but he liked to pick up big sis better. He just plain liked big sis better….but that was ok because mom liked him. He got mom and big sis got dad. He didn't know which of them got Fukuda. He didn't even know if Fukuda was a person who they were expected to share. He mostly just came around them one of them was sick or hurt.

Sho wished that he hadn't been so careful when he held Sho up.

Because then if he fell into the soup and the fire, even if it would have hurt, then Fukuda would have had to stay and make him all better. Sho didn't think that he would have minded the pain, he was five now and was used to getting hurt, and it would have been worth it to get Fukuda to stay. It was harder and harder and harder to get Fukuda to stay these days. Just getting him to stay after the dinner dishes were cleaned up took hours and hours of wedeling. He always went home every single night, too, though Sho wasn't sure when. His bedtime was at eight thirty and he had a lot of trouble staying up past nine. Sometimes he and big sis even fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV and they woke up in their beds. Big sis said that she could tell by the energy around them that Fukuda had put them to bed.

Sho wished that Fukuda would just stay.

There was plenty of room in the castle. They had rooms that they weren't even using! He could have lived in the room full of chairs or the room full of dusty boxes or the room with the tree outside of it that made a scary shadow when the sun started to go down…or maybe not that room because that was a very evil room. He knew it to be true. Big sis said so, too, even though there weren't any evil spirits. Dad said that there were no evil rooms and if there had been something dangerous in the house he would have gotten rid of it before he and big sis were even born.

Maybe that was why dad was always away on his trips.

Sho didn't want dad to leave forever but…but things were a lot more fun when he was gone. Sho knew that it was his fault that he got punished. He didn't have any powers like big sis did. He wasn't good like big sis was. He was just…he was this collection of wrongness that was himself and that…he should have tried harder to make dad like him. When dad was home he had to try harder but when he was away it was a whole different story all together. When he was away then Sho could run and play and just be…happier. It was hard, sometimes, to be happy when dad was around. It was easier to be happy when mom and big sis and him were all alone in the castle…also when Fukuda was there, too.

It was easy to be happy when Fukuda was around.

So it would suck, then, when he had to leave.

Not that he didn't go home to his own home every night. He did but he was coming over almost every day. It was nice. He played with them and taught them things and never called them names or looked at them like they were gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe with all of the flavor gone already and also covered in germs. He made mom smile too, she smiled a lot when he was over, and Sho was torn. On the one hand he liked it when the people he loved were happy but on the other hand mom had been getting better, lately, and if she got all the way better then Fukuda would stop coming over…

And it sounded like she was all the way better.

But he needed a second opinion. He was five, so he was smart as five year old, but he needed a six year old's opinion. Sho was awesome, he knew that he was awesome, but he was only five. She had an extra year of being alive to her so she would know better than he did.

"Hey! Big sis! Wake up!" said Sho as he shook his sister awake. He knew that he wasn't supposed to wake her up, she didn't like it, but this was important! This was so important that there was no way that he could possibly wait until morning!

"No. I'm asleep." Said Mob as she pulled her blanket up over her head. Sho sometimes woke her up in the middle of the night for no reason. Last time it had been to ask her what would happen if they made a car small enough for a cat. Nothing, obviously, because cats didn't have thumbs so they couldn't drive. Also cats wouldn't want to drive because they could climb and stuff.

"No, you're awake. If you were asleep then you wouldn't be talking to me." Said Sho

"I'm talking in my sleep." Said Mob

"No, you're lying." Said Sho

"I am not. I'm half asleep." Said Mob

"There's no such thing." Said Sho

"Is too. Remember how mom keeps on saying that she's half asleep until she gets her coffee?" asked Mob. She hadn't been lying at all. She really was half asleep and she did not feel like being all the way awake at…wow, it was past eleven. That was pretty late. She wondered if anything cool would happen when the day changed. Probably not, if something cool happened then Fukuda would have told them about it already.

"That's mom and mom is a grown up. We have so much energy that we don't need stuff like that, Fukuda said so." Said Sho

"Ok, ok, ok, fine….but I am really sleepy. Why did you wake me up in the middle of the night? Is this about another weird dream you had? If it is can we please talk about it in the morning? After the sun comes up?" asked Mob

"The sun is up in…um….America." said Sho

"Yes, that's true, but this is Japan and in Japan it's night time and when it's night time that means that we have to sleep. Remember from the book? We have to greet the sun before his lovely daughter the moon?" asked Mob

"Yes, of course I do, I was there when mom read it to us." Said Sho

"Then you'll let me sleep?" asked Mob hopefully. She wondered if all little brothers were like this or if this was just a Sho thing. Her friends at school, the ones with little brothers and sisters, said that younger siblings were a pain. Sho wasn't a pain, not really, but sometimes he could be kind of annoying. Like now. He was still her best friend though. Nothing in the whole wide world could ever make them stop being friends with each other.

"In a minute." Said Sho as he climbed onto big sis' bed. Mob sat up and stared at him. What was so important that it couldn't wait until the daytime?

"Sho….please just tell me what it is. It's late and I want to go to sleep before the sun comes up." Said Mob

"Shush! Just listen!" said Sho. He put a finger to his lips for emphasis. Mob stopped talking and listened to…what was that? It sounded like someone was jumping on the bed. But that didn't make sense. She and Sho weren't allowed to jump on the bed…and they weren't even jumping. She looked around. There was energy in the house…not spirits, but they almost never came into the house…oh! She knew that energy! That was….that wasn't old energy, that was new. Happening right then at that moment.

"Well?" asked Sho

"Fukuda's still here." Said Mob simply. Well then that was actually something that had been worth waking her up over. That was good…though she would have liked to have been invited to the sleepover. She had never been to a sleepover, of even a friend's house before, but she would have liked to have been invited to one at least. Besides, it was one thing not be invited to a sleepover…..it was quite another not to be invited to a sleepover in your own house!

"What!?" asked Sho jumping to his feet. The bed groaned as he moved too fast and some of big sis' stuffed animals fell to the floor. Maybe Fukuda had finally decided to stay forever! This would be great! Then he could play with them for every single moment of the day and night! They could be friends all the time! They could even stop sleeping and just play and play and play and play until they passed out! This was the best thing to happen to him since the last best thing that had ever happened to him!

"I can see his colors. He's in the house." Said Mob

"Come on! Let's-" said Sho grabbing big sis' hand and trying to pull her. She didn't move.

"We're not supposed to be up right now. If mom finds out that we're awake and not planning on going back to sleep then she'll probably send Fukuda home and put us in time out or something. I want to see Fukuda too but if he's here this late at night then he's probably going to be here in the morning, too, and we should wait." Said Mob even though she didn't much want to wait. She had to be responsible. She was the older sister, not the younger sister, and it was her job to tell Sho when something was not a very good idea at all.

"….fine….but it would be wrong for her to punish us! She can't tell us that we're doing something wrong when she's doing something wrong, too!" said Sho. He was tired of rules and stuff. What did it matter that he was messing up his sleep schedule? He could always just fix it again later. This was more important than sleep, anyway, and mom should have understood that. Besides, she was the one who had woken him up, anyway, and she shouldn't have been jumping on the bed in the first place, too.

"What's she doing wrong? Did she forget to separate the recycling again?" asked Mob

"No! Well, maybe, I didn't check…but she's jumping on the bed! How can she jump on the bed even though she keeps on telling us that jumping on the bed is wrong because we could hurt ourselves or break the beds or annoy dad with the noise?" said Sho

"Maybe it's different because she's a grown up and they're the ones who can make the rules." Said Mob

"That's dumb. When I grow up and inherit the world then I'm making a rule that everyone can make their own rules." Said Sho

"Dad probably wouldn't let you do that. Even if you inherited the world after he got old and died his spirit still wouldn't let you do that." Said Mob

"Then you can just exorcise him." said Sho

"….I can't exorcise our dad." Said Mob after a moment. She loved dad and she knew that he would die someday, he talked about it a lot, she didn't want it to be any time soon. She hardly got to see him as it was and after he died…well then he'd be gone forever if he passed on…and then Sho would be the one to inherit the world. Not her, she was a girl, and her job was to get married and have babies. Dad said so. It wasn't fair, not really, that girls couldn't inherit the world…not that she wanted to boss the whole world around. She just didn't like that the option was closed to her just because she had long hair and peed sitting down. It didn't seem fair, in her opinion, but dad said that her job as to be like mom and get married and have babies so that was what her life would be.

When she grew up and got married and had babies then she would let them jump on their beds whenever they wanted to.

"Yeah…I guess you can't…"said Sho even though a lot of stuff would have been easier without dad. He was so mean all the time…but he was still dad. He loved his dad and dad would love him, too, if he was better. That was all that he had to do, be a better person, and then dad would love him and stuff. When he ruled the world, after dad died like he was always promising to, he would be a lot nicer to everyone…and he would let them jump on the bed whenever they felt like it. It seemed unfair that mom could make a rule for them but not follow it herself.

Sho wasn't going to be like that when dad gave him the world.

"We should go to bed. If mom figures out that we're still up she might tell dad when he comes back and then we'll be in for it." Said Mob even though Sho was the one who would have been in for it. Dad would have just ignored her for a long time, Sho was the one who was always getting punished.

"Yeah…he'd get mad at me…and maybe you too." Said Sho

"Maybe." Said Mob

"And he might get mad at mom, too, if we told him that she'd been jumping on the bed." Said Sho

"I don't want dad to be mad at mom. You're right, we shouldn't say anything." Said Mob. She pulled her blanket to the side and Sho laid down next to her. He was warm, so warm that she didn't need her blanket, but she wasn't comfortable without it.

"And don't tell dad that we slept next to each other, too. I don't want him to call me…or you…names or talk about how weak we are." Said Sho

"I won't say anything, don't worry Sho." Said Mob. She and Sho weren't supposed to sleep in the same bed anymore, either, because they were five and six now and had to be big kids.

But if mom could break some rules then so could they.