Mob liked to help mom out.

Mom was happy with her when she helped out. She didn't even use her powers even though they would have made a lot of chores a lot easier. She wasn't allowed to. Not in the house when dad wasn't home. Well she wasn't supposed to use her powers in the house when dad was home, too, but dad wanted her to use her powers and when dad was home it was best to focus on making him happy. He punished Sho was he was unhappy and Mob didn't like that at all.

She had to keep her little brother safe.

"Shigeko, be careful near the stove. It's not safe." Said Masami. Shigeko was helping her make breakfast. They had gotten a late start. She had gotten a late start. She had just…she just could not get out of bed that morning. Shigeko had been a big help, though. She had gotten herself dressed and gotten Sho dressed and gotten her school bag all packed up. Masami had only gotten out of bed as Shigeko was climbing up on the counter to get the cereal.

They didn't have enough time but Masami was going to make them a proper breakfast.

She was a good mother.

"I know, mom." Said Mob as she stirred some eggs. Mom called this whisking. Mob could have gotten it done a lot faster with her powers but mom didn't like it when she used her powers. Maybe that was why Sho had stopped trying to use his powers. He was making breakfast the usual way, too, though his job was a whole lot easier.

"Is this enough bread?" asked Sho as he held up the plate of toast that he had made. He made half the loaf because mom had gotten the thin slices. They only got the thick kind when dad was home because that was the kind he liked best. Mom didn't like the thick kind, she liked the thin kind, and also the kind with all the little seeds. Sho didn't understand why she liked bread with seeds, and he didn't like it much himself, so he made half a loaf of the thin white slices.

"Sho, honey, that's more than enough. Come away from the toaster now." Said Masami. She walked over and put the toaster away before Sho made any more toast. He was smaller, that was why he got the easier job. A full breakfast. Eggs, toast, bacon, and fruit. A full western breakfast like the kind she had grown up. Touichirou, too. He preferred a western breakfast to a Japanese one, something which Masami was grateful for. She was not staying up all nice preparing miso and natto and slicing fish and making salads. Too much work and not enough payoff. He agreed. That had been one of their first dates, actually, to a breakfast place he liked…

"Mom, are the eggs mixed, I mean whisked, enough?" asked Mob. She held up the bowl so that mom could see. She had that far away look again, the one that Mob wasn't supposed to ask about.

"What? Oh, that's fine. Now we'll add the sweat cream." Said Masami. She went over to the fridge and looked for the sweet cream. Almost out. She'd have to order more groceries later. It was easier than walking to the store. She ordered most things these days.

"Sweet cream? Like sweet milk?" asked Mob, her eyes wide. She knew that mom put milk in the eggs but she never would have guessed that it was sweet. She eyed the container in mom's hand. She had never paid much attention to the stuff that mom cooked with…but now she was and she could…she could read the carton. Happy Farms Sweet Cream. She wondered if the cream was sweet because it was made by happy cows…or maybe they just fed the cows a lot of sugar. Either way sounded good to her.

"Like a milkshake?" asked Sho. How cold mom have put sweet milk in the eggs? They never tasted sweet. He would have tasted it if they were sweet. That was the kind of thing he would have noticed.

"Those have ice cream in them." Said Mob helpfully. She kind of wanted a milkshake then. One that mom made. She knew that there were places that made milkshakes but they mostly just ate what mom cooked. They never ate out and hardly ever ordered in. Only when mom was too sick to cook.

"Not all the time. Sometimes they have frozen yogurt." Said Sho

"Frozen yogurt is just like ice cream, though." said Mob. Sometimes mom got it because it was healthier than ice cream. Mob didn't get what Sho complained about. It was just as good as ice cream. It was different but not as bad as he made it seem.

"No it's not. You just don't know about food." Said Sho. Big sis could be so weird sometimes. Frozen yogurt was not ice cream no matter how many times mom said that it was almost the same thing and much healthier. Sho didn't care about healthy food. If he wanted to eat healthy then he'd go to the refrigerator and eat a carrot.

"I know about food. I just think that frozen yogurt is the same as ice cream. Well not exactly the same because one is ice cream and one is yogurt. They both taste good though. Especially with sprinkles and strawberry syrup and-" said Mob

"It's not the same and you know it. You're just deluging yourself." Said Sho as the butter and jam were placed in front of him. He heard mom laugh and when he looked up he got head touches. Mom sure liked to touch his hair.

"Deluding, Sho, your sister is deluding herself…and no she isn't. You're both entitled to your own opinions." Said Masami. She ran her fingers through her son's hair before getting back to the stove. She took a quarter stick of butter and tossed it into the pan. It melted slowly. She glanced at the clock.

They were going to be late.

But being late once in a while wouldn't kill them. It was elementary school, not university.

"Even if they're wrong." Said Sho quietly as he started to butter the bread. The bread kind of came apart in his hands….but it was the bread's fault for being so thin. He liked the thick kind better. The kind that was so thick and warm that the better just sort of melted in. Then you put the jam on and the jam was cold and the bread was hot and the butter was all melty….that was good breakfast.

"We're both allowed to think whatever we want. We're different people and we have different thoughts and feelings. That doesn't mean that your opinions are any better or worse than mine, Sho. We're allowed to disagree about things." Said Mob as mom took the bowl from her and put the sweet cream in. She wanted taste it, the milk not the eggs, well it was cream but cream was a kind of milk…whatever it was she wanted some. But that was not for her, that was for the eggs, and if you didn't put the milk in the eggs then they wouldn't be as good. Mom made the beast breakfast food, dad even said so, and Mob was not going to mess with mom's cooking. Mom was the very best cook in the world, dad had said so. He said that out of every meal he had ever eaten in his life mom's meals were the best. She was better than any cook in any other country in this miserable world, dad had said. Mob wondered why the world had to be so miserable…and also she wondered why dad had to call the world miserable. It was like he couldn't say anything nice without following it up with something mean. Even when he was talking about mom. Mob hoped that if a boy ever liked her he said nice things without following up with mean things.

"Very…mature….Shigeko." said Masami. That was…that did not sound like something a six year old would say. Her tone, there, and her delivery….that was almost word for word what Touichirou would say during those rare times in which they argued. She could think whatever she wanted to, he didn't care. That was the gist of it. He didn't care how she felt. Once he decided how he felt then nothing else mattered.

"Very mature Shigeko…" muttered Sho. Big sis had dad, what did she need mom for too? They had agreed a while ago that they would each get one parent. She got dad and he got mom. What else did she need? She got dad and she got good powers and him…well he got mom…even if he didn't have her right now…

It wasn't fair.

"Thank you." Said Mob as she watched mom fold up the eggs into the pan of butter. The butter was important. While she folded with one hand she reached over and took the salt with the other. She shook it twice, put it back, then she grabbed the pepper and shook that three times. Mob committed it all to memory. She couldn't wait until she was old enough to use the stove on her own. Then she could make the family breakfast, all of their favorites, and then mom could rest. She had gotten up late because she was tired and she was tired because she was sick. Well when Mob got older she would take care of her mom and also Sho. Dad, too, if he was still around.

He had been gone for a long time.

He had said that he would try to make it a short trip but that had been weeks ago. He wasn't back yet. He sent mom and E-Mail that said that he had some things to take care of in another country, a different one than the one he had been in before, and that he would be back when he was back. Mob missed Dad…and she also…things weren't better or worse when dad was gone. Things were just different.

When dad was there they had breakfasts like this for dinner. Not just breakfast.

When dad was around she was allowed to use her powers.

When dad was around mom was a lot more tired. Maybe because she had another person to take care of.

When dad was around Sho cried more at night. He always pushed her away when she tried to make him feel better.

When dad was around they had to be a lot quieter. Mob didn't mind, she could be quiet, but Sho minded a lot.

When dad was around….a lot of things were different. But that was ok. Mom was like ice cream and dad was like frozen yogurt. Both had their good and bad points. Both were equally good desserts…well parents. Both of her parents were good parents and that was…that was the truth. She loved mom just as much as she loved dad…though dad was for her and mom was for Sho. That was the way that it was and Mob did not mind one bit. Just so long as Sho was happy. She loved Sho and when you loved someone then you did whatever you could to make them happy.

Mob just wanted her family to be happy.

"You've always got to keep the eggs moving, Shigeko, or else they'll burn on the bottom. Always use a lot of butter, too, real butter. Salted butter is the best but you can use unsalted too…or sweet creamery butter if you don't have any sweet cream. You want to get the eggs as light and fluffy as possible…but make sure that you aren't under cooking them, too. There's a balance." Said Masami mainly because she felt that she had to say something. She had always enjoyed cooking with her mother when she had been young…and she had hoped to share in that experience with her own daughter someday.

When she had been young she had dreamed of the day she'd have a daughter to teach things to.

When she had been Shigeko's age she had been teaching her dolls how to make tiny lightbulb oven cakes and cookies. She had been so excited to teach her dolls all the things that her mother had taught her…and she had been so excited to learn from her mother. She had been like Sho, underfoot until she had been given some foolproof task…that she would have ended up messing up in her enthusiasm. Like Sho with the pile of bread crumbs that he was intent on buttering. Shigeko didn't need to be kept busy.

No, if anything she was paying too much attention.

Touichirou had been fascinated with her cooking, too. At some point she would have thought that her husband would have offered to help her but that never happened. He just sat there and watched her with unblinking fascination. The same sort of fascination that Shigeko was staring at her with, now. She wondered if Shigeko ever planned on helping her in the kitchen. Not now, no, she was too short even to see over the top of the stove. When she got older. In a year or two or three or four…

Or never.

Why would she ever help? She had a mother to cook for her. Her father certainly never helped. Why would Shigeko cook for herself? She had her powers, she didn't need to concern herself with the petty concerns of the normal people-

No. This was not Touichirou.

This was his daughter.

"You can cook the eggs in the bacon grease, too, but that makes them too heavy. Also it makes them taste of bacon." Said Masami quickly. She was fearful, for a moment, that Shigeko had suddenly gained the ability to read minds…and there would have been no way to tell if she had. She still stared up at her mother with that same, impassive, look. Maybe she should have had Sho help her. She was falling into regressive gender norms…and it was hard not to, in this house. She'd show Sho next him. Even if he would have probably been terribly underfoot.

"I like it when the eggs taste like bacon." Said Sho. He liked bacon even though it was made from pigs and pigs had feelings too. It had made him sad, back when he was little, that they ate animals for food but dad told him that he was being dumb and that there was a food chain and humans were on top. Things ate humans, though, like tigers and sharks and bears, but dad hadn't been amused when Sho pointed that out. He just told Sho to go be annoying somewhere else. Dad always thought that he was annoying. An annoying nuisance, dad had called him once, and he had probably said other things about him but Sho has ran away before he could hear anything else.

Dad was so mean sometimes.

But mom was always so nice.

"I like it when we have ham steak. I think that I like ham steak more than bacon." Said Mob. Bacon went too quickly. Ham steak was slower to eat and also you got more food. Ham steak was a weird breakfast though. At school the other kids had miso and fish and salad and stuff like that for breakfast. They said, the other kids said, that she ate like a foreigner.

Mob didn't see what was so bad about being a foreigner.

Not that she knew any foreigners. She didn't see what was so bad about being from another country, though. One time she saw a man on TV talking about Japan being only for the Japanese. That seemed kind of mean. The country had plenty of room. It was huge, she learned about how big it was at school. It was a really big island…no…archipelago. That was what you called a bunch of islands that were together. Dad had been proud of her for knowing such a big word.

Also he said that Japan for the Japanese was a stupid way to think.

People were alike all over, dad had said. He knew. He had been all over the world, he said, and in his travels he said that people were alike all over. Regular people, he said, not espers. He mostly just cared about espers. He cared about mom, though, and she was not an esper. Mob wished that she could give mom her powers though, so then she could be like everyone else in the family. Sometimes she wondered if mom ever felt left out. She was the only one in the house who couldn't do anything.

Well Sho couldn't either…

But he would learn. Once he got bigger and stronger. Once he learned how to do other things…things that nobody had ever had to teach Mob before. Things that had always just come to her. Well, sometimes she had to watch and learn from Dad but a lot of stuff came naturally to her. She wondered why Sho was so different from her and dad even though they were brother and sister. Maybe he just took after mom more than Mob did…yes…that was something that made sense.

"Well we're having bacon." Said Masami. She was only a short order cook when Touichirou was around. Her children ate what she made or they went hungry.

"Can we have pancakes, too? With powdered sugar and warm syrup?" asked Sho

"We don't have enough time, honey, maybe tomorrow." Said Masami as she reached up to grab a plate. One went to her hand before she could even reach the cabinet…and she almost dropped it. Honestly. She had told Shigeko a thousand times not to use her powers in the house like that.

"Shigeko." Said Masami, warning in her tone. Shigeko usually had a lot of trouble with tones and body language but this was, at least, something that she understood. Probably because she was so well acquainted with it. Honesty. And Touichirou had the nerve to complain about Sho never listening. Sho…you needed to know how to talk to him. Shigeko just sort of did whatever she wanted, sometimes, and there was no correcting her it seemed.

"I'm sorry, mom. I forgot." Said Mob even though she didn't even mean to do that. It just happened. That was so weird.

"Not in the house." Said Sho. Of course that had been big sis. Of course. He had glowed red and he had thought, for a minute, that he had been the one to help mom out. He wanted to help, too. It wasn't fair that big sis was the only one who got to help just because she was a girl.

"I know. I'm sorry." Said Mob. Mom didn't say anything, she just started putting food on the table. Mob climbed up on the counter and got their special breakfast plates out the normal way. Zootopia for Sho, Frozen for Mob, and Aristocats for mom. They had gotten these for Christmas from the Disney Store. Well the website for the Disney Store. Mob had never been to the actual store…Mob had never been anywhere. They didn't have to go places, Dad had said, because it was pointless. They could have anything and everything delivered right to their door, dad had said.

Even cool plates.

Dad hadn't gotten one, though. He didn't like Disney movies. He only liked documentary movies. He liked things that had actually happened. He liked to learn things, learning things mattered, and he liked to do things that mattered. Mob wondered if dad ever did things for fun. It was hard to imagine him having fun…

"Be careful, Shigeko." Said Masami as her daughter climbed up on the counter. She could have slipped and hit the floor…or maybe even fallen on the stove. The burners might still have been hot. That could have been a nasty burn. The kind of thing that she would have had to call Fukuda in for…

"Shigeko, get down from there. I'll get the cups." Said Masami quickly. Shigeko, as usual, didn't listen so Masami picked her up and put her in her seat. It was a strain on her back. Shigeko was getting bigger now, she'd be seven soon, and…and that was the normal course of things. Masami was not at all worried about what would happen when Shigeko got to be too big to be picked up…too big to be sent to her room…too big to be punished…

Masami wasn't worried about that at all.

"Ok." Said Mob after she was sat down in her seat. She could have gotten the cups down, too. She could have helped. She was helpful. She could do things. She was not incompetent. She was not useless.

"Don't eat all the bacon." Said Sho as he put some bacon on his plate. They were big enough to serve themselves now, mom had said, and big sis always took too much of one thing. It wasn't fair that just because she was older she got everything. That was not fair at all. Not one bit.

"I won't….actually I don't even think that we have enough time to eat. We're going to be late." Said Mob as she read the clock on the wall. She could tell time now. Well so could Sho but she could tell time better because she was older. She could tell time on clocks with hands and clocks that just had numbers.

"That's fine, Shigeko, you can be late once in a while." Said Masami as she sat down with the children. What kind of a six year old was itching to go to school? She should have been happy to spend time with her family. Especially since she spent most of her day away from her family already. Hours and hours at school….

"But if we're late then-" said Mob. Lateness was not good. When you were late then the teacher got mad at you. If you were late it meant that you didn't value other people's times. Dad said that early was on time and on time was barely acceptable. Lateness was the worst, he said, and if someone was late then that meant that they didn't value him or his time and then they were gotten rid of. You weren't supposed to be late for anything, ever, dad had said so.

"Shigeko, it's fine." Said Masami. She stressed the word 'fine' a little more than she had meant to. She just wanted to have a nice breakfast, that was all. Was that such a bad thing? To want to spend some time with her children? What was Shigeko so eager to leave them for? What was so good about being out there, in the world? What was wrong with her family that she was just itching to get back out there on the road?

"But dad said-" said Mob

"Shigeko! I said that it was fine! If you want to leave then leave. You're almost seven years old, you can walk yourself to school. Your father was walking himself to school when he was your age." Said Masami. She gripped her fork in her hands so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. Sho was staring at her. He looked…she was worried him.

She softened her face.

"Um…ok. Goodbye Mom, goodbye Sho….I'll see you after school." Said Mob. She didn't mean…was she kicked out of the table, now? But she was hungry…and she hadn't meant…she hadn't meant that she wanted to be kicked out of the table…she didn't want to be kicked out…she didn't want that…she didn't want that at all…

Control.

Power is nothing without control.

She reached behind herself and held her braids down.

Dad would have been proud of her.

She got up, slowly, and went over to the genkan. That was where her school satchel and school shoes were…and she had to put them on…and then she had to go to school…by herself…

"Shigeko! Come back here and eat your breakfast." Said Masami. Her daughter had been ready to just up and leave her family…like it was nothing. She had just gotten up and left. Just said goodbye and….and just went to get her shoes on…and just left…

"Yes, mom." Said Mob. She was confused, now, but happy that she hadn't been kicked out of the table. She ate fast, though, because she didn't want to be late. Sho ate slowly, though, so it balanced out. He just would not stop looking at her…and it felt weird being looked at while she ate.

It all balanced out, though, because mom wouldn't look at her at all.