Touichirou was happy to be home.
That last trip…how had he chosen such incompetent...he didn't even….
It had been a lot.
But now he was home. He was at the gates of his home where his wife and children and bed were. He could just lay down and relax. Not sleep, no, because his body expected it to still be daytime. Goddamned jetlag. People were not meant to travel as quickly as he had across the world. As powerful as he was he was still human and his body still had trouble adjusting to a new time zone so quickly.
It didn't matter. He didn't need to sleep.
He could just lay beside Masami for a while. Yes, he had been looking forward to that for a while. He had grown accustomed to her face, her presence, and this trip had been unusually difficult. Well, in the sense that it had been unusual for him to miss her. He thought of her often but those thoughts had never come with that bitter sort of ache in his chest. It was irrational. He knew that he would come home to her again. No matter how many attempts were made on his life he would always come back to her.
And the children.
He felt Daughter's aura before he even reached the front door. It was late, well past the hour in which people could reasonably be expected to be awake, but there Daughter was. Awake. She was moving closer to the door. Son was…considerably harder to see….but still asleep. She was still asleep, too, Masami. She had no aura but he knew that, at this hour, he could reasonably expect her to be asleep. He wanted her to be awake, to wake up and make him breakfast and chatter on about the comings and goings of the household while he ate and listened. He just needed to hear her voice, that was all.
Weak.
You're weak, Suzuki Touichirou.
And you're letting her make you weak.
He would not be waking her. Even though he wanted to, even though it would have been so easy, he would not be waking her up at this ungodly hour. He was not one of the children. He did not need to cling to her to feel a sense of security. He was secure. He was secure in that fact that he was Suzuki Touichirou and that was more than enough for him.
He opened the door.
"Daughter. I know you're there." said Suzuki. Daughter needed ten hours of sleep a night at her age. Either to ten hours for optimal development. She had to get up early for school. This was a school night, he assumed, though he confessed to himself that the exact date had gotten away from him at some point. Dealing with all of this. So tiresome.
"Hi dad." Said Mob. She had been hiding around the genkan corner. Dad was there. He was taking his shoes off with his powers. His suitcase was hovering behind him. She knew that she was supposed to be in bed. She knew that dad would not be happy with her and then he'd tell mom what she did and then mom would be upset and then everyone would be mad and she might even get her tablet taken away or her TV time…but it didn't matter.
Dad was home.
"You're awake." Said Touichirou as he faced his shoes the right way. It was good to model proper behaviors. It was good to engage in proper behaviors in general. He was sick and tired of people keeping their shoes on when they should have taken them off. When he ruled the world the first thing he was doing was breaking Americans and Europeans and whoever else of the inarguably revolting habit of keeping their shoes on while inside. Simply revolting.
"Yes." said Mob. She waited for dad to tell her to go to bed. Sometimes she was allowed to leave on her own and sometimes she had to wait for him to tell her to go. It was hard to tell with him so she just decided to be careful. It was best to be careful with dad. Sho was never careful, that was why he got punished so often, and for some reason he refused to learn to be careful, too. Maybe because he was younger. She was older and it was her job to act right. That way he would learn to act right, too.
"Why?" asked Suzuki as he crossed the threshold into his home. He missed it. The smell of it. The feel of it. He had been away for so long that his own energy, the energy which saturated the house, had largely dissipated. It had been replaced by Daughter's energy. Bright, far too bright for a child, so bright that it eclipsed anything that Boy was capable of…
"Because I felt you coming and I want to see you." Said Mob. She held eye contact, stood up straight, and spoke clearly. Dad liked all of those things. She had to make dad happy. She was already doing something wrong so she had might as well try and make him happy. She was his daughter after all and that was what good daughters did, they made their dads happy.
"From what distance?" asked Suzuki. Her range may have grown since he was away. A good thing and a bad thing. She was almost seven years old. Girls could begin puberty as early as nine. He had gotten a significant power boost when he had hit puberty, around twelve if he remembered correctly, and that had been when he had his first true explosion. Daughter…she was a mirror into his past. A feminine mirror. Himself reborn into her flesh…well he could have seen her that way had she actually been his actual daughter. She was not. There was no possible way that she had been his biological child.
Fate could be cruel and kind at the same time, it seemed.
"I don't know. Far, I think. I felt you coming and it woke me up so I stayed by my window until I saw a car dropping you off." Said Mob
"How long was that?" asked Touichirou
"The clock said seven minutes." Said Mob
"I see." Said Touichirou. Well now. That had been some distance. He was bright, he knew that he shone the brightest of all espers, but for her to have seen him at that distance and at her age. She was not yet seven, at least he thought that she was not yet seven. Her birthday was after White Day and he knew that it had not yet been White Day. He still had not given Masami and Daughter their obligation chocolates. Chocolate from Germany this time, not that repulsive American chocolate that he had sent before. He regretted sending them American candy before he had tried it himself. He did not care for sweet foods, he had never cared for them even in his youth, but there was something especially disgusting about American sweets.
To think that had been the country of his mother's origin.
He understood why she chose to uproot herself to Japan.
"Do I have to go to bed now?" asked Mob. Dad hadn't said anything to her in a while. He might have been done with her. He might have been in one of his rare good moods, too, and he had no plans at all of waking mom up in the middle of the night and telling her that Mob had gotten up and left her room. She was only allowed to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, that was it, not play or watch TV or even greet dad when he had come back for the first time in months…
Well mom had never come out and said that last part but Mob could only assume.
"Do you want to go to bed now?" asked Suzuki. He needed human contact. Just a bit of it. Just a small amount to take the edge off of this feeling, this irrational and unpleasant feeling, that had settled within him weeks ago. Sycophants and cultists and mutinous traitors grew so tiresome after a while. He needed someone on his level. Masami was asleep and he was not going to wake her. To wake her would have been to admit weakness….
Though wasn't this admitting weakness too?
No. His Daughter had no power over him. She had sought him out. She was his Daughter, he had power over her, and he could even think of her as something of an…an employee. Yes. Something akin to that. Someone who existed to fulfil a particular job within the organization. She was…she was his child and she would someday be his…
Second?
Perhaps. She was second only to him after all. She was female, fate could be both cruel and kind, and she would one day find herself as consumed with her own household as Masami was…or perhaps not. Perhaps in ten or so years' time he would have enough espers at his disposal to serve as a sort of staff for her. Daughter may have even been more amenable to having staff to take some of the burden of running a household off of her shoulders. Yes, she would both serve Claw and secure the next generation.
Ten years, or so, could not come fast enough.
Or maybe even fewer. When did girls hit childbearing age? He'd look it up later. He needed to secure the next generation as soon as possible. He still had so little hard data on how the gift of ESP was passed down…especially between two espers. She was female, she could have had a lover in every country, every prefecture, if she wanted to. He did not care who she took to bed when she got older, who she chose to secure the next generation with, so long as they were espers…powerful ones.
The years could not go by fast enough.
"Do I have to?" asked Mob. She wondered if this was a trick of some kind. She had to be in bed right then. Mom had rules and in the house they had to do whatever mom said. Dad said so. Dad said that they had to listen to mom…and Mob was doing such a poor job of it…and then mom would be mad…but she also wanted to see dad. She wanted to be with him. She wanted to her about how his trip was and also…and also she wanted to be with him and know things about him. Things that other kids knew about their dads. What games he had played when he was a kid. What shows he had watched. Who he had played with. What his school had been like. Things like that. She knew so little about her dad…and according to the other kids in her class that was not normal at all…
What was dad LIKE?
When he wasn't working or in a bad mood?
What did he do for fun?
Did he even know what fun was?
And other such pressing questions.
"No. You may be here in my company for some time. Not the entire night, of course, because I know you have school in the morning." Said Suzuki. If he kept Daughter awake for too long her academic progress would suffer and then it would reflect badly upon him and Masami as parents. He didn't care, he knew that Daughter stood head and shoulders above all of the other children, but Masami would. Why she did not just educate them herself, she was a very intelligent woman, Suzuki did not know.
"Ok….what do you want to do?" asked Mob. She didn't want to just stand there by the genkan all night, that would have been so boring and also her legs would have gotten tired…and also she had no idea what it was that dad did besides work. It would have been nice to see what he did besides work, what he did after everyone went to sleep….
"Are you hungry?" asked Suzuki. He was. He hadn't eaten since departing from Berlin. Crossing the world was both tiresome and hunger inducing. Normally Masami would have had breakfast for him. Normally it would have been warm and waiting for him as soon as he crossed the threshold and entered the house. But he had not told Masami that he was coming back. It had slipped his mind. He had just been so grateful to be headed back to Japan, back to civilization, that he hadn't thought to E-Mail his own wife his flight details.
And now he had to deal with his own mistake.
"Kind of." Said Mob. She had heard the expression midnight snack before, and sometimes she and Sho got up in the middle of the night to get to the snacks, but she had never gotten a midnight snack with dad before. She hadn't even known that he was a midnight snack sort of person. That was something that she had learned about him.
"Has your mother taught you to cook yet?" asked Suzuki. What he really wanted was some of Masami's cooking. He had been served meals by some of the best chefs in the world but none of them could possibly compare to her skill. That was the sort of thing that mothers passed down to their daughters, right? He recalled Masami telling him stories of her own mother teaching her how to cook. Was Daughter old enough to cook, even?
"Mom shows me how to cook sometimes." Said Mob. So had Fukuda but he hadn't been around in a really long time. Nobody had gotten hurt in a really long time. A new record for them. Mom was still sick, though, but she called it being tired. She had some kind of sickness where she was tired all the time…though it had been getting better lately. She had been getting dressed more often and cooking all the time and sitting out in the living room with her and Sho…and Mob didn't even mind that sometimes mom fell asleep on the couch and she and Sho had to remind her to make dinner and give them their baths and stuff like that.
"Good." Said Suzuki. He made his way over to the kitchen. Daughter followed a few paces behind. Good. He didn't like to cook. He could make a few things for himself, porridge and rice and such, and he did not care to learn how to do any more. The process of cooking was tiresome to him. Masami enjoyed it, she had said years ago that she found it fulfilling, so he left the cooking to her. Perhaps it was one of those male/female things. Women did seem to enjoy domestic tasks more than men did. Though he could not say for sure, having lived his entire four decades of life as a man and all. Daughter was female, though, so she was better suited to this task than he was.
She knew what she was doing.
"Ok. And then mom said that when the eggs were whisked until they looked like this you were supposed to add in sweet cream. That's a type of milk." Said Mob. She was cooking all on her own! Well dad was there to make sure that she didn't burn the house down but she was cooking! She was standing on a chair in front of the stove and cooking on her very own!
Mom said to never touch the stove.
But she was not touching the stove.
Dad was teaching her how to multitask, he said, which meant doing a lot of different things with your powers at once. Power was nothing without control and she had very good fine control, he had said, which meant that she could break eggs and hardly get any shell in the insides. She could also toast and better bread and whisk eggs and melt butter all at once.
And she wasn't touching anything.
But she was using her powers in the house…but dad had said that this was ok. Dad said that she needed to learn how to control her powers. He said that mom said that she couldn't use her powers inside the house when dad was away because mom had no powers of her own. Dad said that mom was afraid that there would be an accident or something and then she would have no way of fixing it because she had no powers of her own. Dad also said that he would talk to her. This rule was bad for Sho's development, he said, and Mob agreed.
They both wanted Sho to be the best that he could be.
"Good. Don't deviate from your mother's recipes." Said Suzuki. He was sitting at the table on standby should Daughter begin to lose control. He was also syphoning off some of her excess energy in order to keep her from losing control. She had remarkably good at this. As good at this as he had been at her age. He hadn't cooked, no, though he did have a small lightbulb oven that he occasionally made cakes in. He used his fine control to stage grand space and mech battles. Also the Mach Five had been involved on occasion. In those days he saved the world instead of ruling it as he was meant to. He hadn't known that he had been meant to rule the world in those days. Back then the latest installment in the Gundam franchise, his laser disk of the Galaxy Express 999 film, and his Famicom had been his greatest joys in life….huh. He had almost forgotten about that. What he had done at her age. Being seven years old…
He wondered if he still had his laser disks or his famicom or his toys…
To give to the children, of course, not any irrational sentimentality.
"I won't, dad. I can do this." said Mob. She could, she really could. She wasn't used to using her powers like this but she could feel dad helping her keep control. Like when mom used to push her on the swings or keep her hands under her stomach when she had been learning to swim…it was like that. Dad was teaching her how to control her powers and he wasn't making her throw things or try and break through his bubble and he wasn't trying to break through her bubble…
This was nice.
Was this what everyone else did with their dad?
"I have complete faith in both your culinary abilities and your control, Daughter." Said Suzuki. Why couldn't this have been Sho? Fate was kind and fate was cruel. Fate had dropped this child, this prodigy, this treasure into his lap but fate had also given him the Boy….and while the boy did show artistic aptitude that was not what mattered. Psychic powers were the only thing that mattered and as far as those went he was little better than one of the Awakened. Suzuki could have just shared his power with the Boy…
But he didn't want to.
That was his Son. His offspring. He should have eclipsed the offspring of two nobodies…but he did not.
"Thanks Dad." Said Mob. She smiled, a little, before she stuffed it down. She had to control her emotions. Everything she was carrying was in a very delicate balance. Like the man on Japan's Got Talent who spun all of those fancy plates on long poles. She had to keep everything in balance or it would all come tumbling down and then dad would be disappointed in her and mom would be upset with her. Mob did not want that at all.
What she wanted was for him to say things like that to Sho.
Because Sho was the one who needed to hear them, not her. Not Mob. Mob was Mob. Mob was a background character. Mob should have faded into the background. Mob should have made room for Sho, not taken all of dad's attention away. Mob should have made Sho look better…
Mob should not have been better at this, at anything, than Sho.
"Something is wrong. Explain." Said Suzuki. He steadied her telekinetic grasp for her. Her control had been so good. Something had changed. What? What had changed? Why did women have to be so very confusing? He hoped that he didn't have another Masami on his hands. He cared for her, he really did, but she was so confusing sometimes…and Daughter may have been following in her footsteps despite having no biological relation.
"I was just think that…that Sho feels bad." Said Mob. She wanted to give dad a piece of her mind, which was a saying that meant tell him exactly what she thought about him and the way he treated Sho. But she could not talk to her father like that. That was not how a good daughter talked to her dad.
"He's asleep." Said Suzuki. Whatever Son felt bad about could be dealt with in the morning. He came bearing gifts after all. The children loved gifts. Material possessions could make anything better, it seemed. That was the backbone of the economy after all. Besides, what could a six year old boy possibly have had to feel bad about?
And why was he wasting his time with irrational emotions, anyway?
"Dad…Sho's been…he really wants to get better, with his powers I mean. I mean he wants to be able to do the kind of stuff that you and I can do. He feels really bad that he can't do the stuff we do. He's always saying things like he was born wrong and I was born right and-" said Mob as she folded the eggs like mom had shown her. You had to fold, not stir, because stirring made the eggs scrambled. These were not scrambled eggs, they were buttered eggs, which was different. Mom's mom had taught her and then she had taught Mob and when Mob had a daughter then she would teach her. She focused on what she was doing. If she did this right, if she did a good enough job, then maybe dad would listen to her and maybe even consider being nicer to Sho.
Or maybe if she did a bad job then he'd be mean to her.
And then maybe he would get all of the meanness out of his system and then they could all be a happy family like everyone else was a happy family.
"He was born wrong." Said Suzuki simply. He felt his Daughter's telekinetic grasp fail her and he picked up where she left off. Thankfully she had realized her mistake quickly and went back to what she was doing. He grabbed a piece of toast out of the air with his power. It was almost as perfect as Masami's.
"That's…dad, why would you say something like that?" asked Mob. No. That was not right. Sho had been born right! He had! He had too been born right and there was nothing at all wrong with him!
"Control, Daughter. I know you have better control than that." Said Suzuki. Now she went to pieces? Why? Because he had stated a simple fact? Boy had been born wrong. He was the reason for that scar on Masami's stomach, the one she refused to let him have Fukuda heal. She wanted the reminder of the greatest thing that they had ever done together. Their greatest accomplishment.
Somehow Boy had been their greatest accomplishment.
"I'm sorry. I just got upset when you said that about Sho. He's my little brother and I love him and it hurts me when…that hurt me." Said Mob. She spoke slowly and clearly and she kept her powers under control. She was not supposed to lose control. She was not supposed to be someone that dad wouldn't have wanted.
She needed dad to love her.
"Why? It's the truth. He was born wrong and that's why they had to cut him out of your mother." Said Suzuki as Daughter finished the eggs. From what he could tell she had done a good job. They looked just like Masami's and smelled just like Masami's. She would be so happy, Masami, now that Daughter was finally old enough to provide some domestic help. She may have just had exhaustion. Fukuda had said that Masami was exhausted and that there was only so much he could do. Masami didn't have powers, she had to do everything in this house on her own with her own two hands. It must have been exhausting. He could recall his own mother often complaining about the effort it took to care for him and his father and their home. Even if Daughter could be somewhat unstable at times…though she was not even seven years old yet. Still so small. She had time to learn…and so did her brother. There was still time for Boy…
And at least he felt ashamed about his lack of progress…which was understandable…though why the circumstances of his birth troubled him Suzuki had no idea.
True, it had been hard at first. He had almost lost control when they said that they had to cut Masami open. That was why he had wanted her to give birth at home. Son had been born in the wrong position and if Suzuki had just had enough time to calm down he could have turned Boy right around…but he hadn't and the decision had been made and Son had been born via cesarean and Masami had been cut open…and that had been just…but she was fine now and Boy was fine and Suzuki carried no irrational feelings about the subject.
Even though Son, apparently, did.
"What do you mean?" asked Mob as she tried to stay calm. Doing things helped. Setting the table helped. Just her special plate, this time, and Dad's plain plate. Just her special glass and his plain glass. She set the table and plated the food, which was what mom called serving, and the whole time she kept herself mostly under control.
Her hair was floating.
She didn't sleep in braids. If her hair had been in braids then she would have been able to hold them down with her hands. Her hair wasn't in braids and it was floating like she was underwater and she didn't know how to get it to stop even though she knew that she needed to have better control than that. Even though she knew that dad would get on her about her lack of control…but that was good. Maybe then he could say that she had been born wrong and that Sho had been the one to have been born right.
Also they CUT babies out of your stomach?!
But then what was the belly button for?
"Your brother had to be cut out of your mother. He was born in the wrong position and he had to be cut out via caesarian section, which is the name of the medical procedure, though your mother and I hold no ill will towards him. He was only an infant and had no control over the position that he had found himself in. It really is not an uncommon medical procedure and he should not hold any ill will towards himself for this. Also you've done a wonderful job on these eggs and I commend you for it." Said Suzuki as he ate. Not exactly like Masami's but better than the slop he had been eating before. Such a talented little girl, his daughter…he'd have to get her something nice for her birthday. Maybe another doll modeled after her...yes…she'd love that.
Who wouldn't want a doll that looked like them?
That was, essentially, what it was to reproduce. To reproduce was to create a smaller version of yourself, a being that was half you and half your most perfect person, a being that had been created in both of your images. Yes, Daughter's love of dolls made perfect sense. She had some very strong maternal instincts. Good. That would be good for the next generation. Grandchildren. He wondered if being a grandparent would be terribly different from being a parent. Maybe it would be easier, he'd have to spend much less time with his grandchildren than he had to spend with his children…though Daughter on her own wasn't that bad. Yes, her children would be very pleasant to be around. Son's on the other hand…well they might have taken after whatever woman he chose as his most perfect person…and he hoped that he did not end up with a female version of himself. No…that would not have been good for anyone.
He was so grateful to himself for finding Daughter.
Though he did not like the level of unbridled emotion that he was seeing from her.
"They…they actually cut you open to take the baby out of you?" asked Mob. She couldn't eat. Not now. Not after she had just learned this terrible piece of information. Wow. She and Sho had been cut out of mom's stomach like…like what? Like they were gutting a fish? The room shakes as Mob gets a terrible mental image. Ick. Mom as one of the fish Fukuda had gutted the last time he came over to help make dinner…ick.
"Daughter, control yourself. It's not an uncommon medical procedure but it is not a common one either. When it comes time for you to have children I'm sure that there won't be any complications. You'll be fine." Said Suzuki. He wondered what it was that she knew about childbirth and human reproduction. Masami said that she had given the children a barebones explanation of what went on in order to alleviate Boy's concerns that he had heard his parents having a fight instead of doing the direct opposite…and hopefully that day had been enough to teach him not to go sneaking around while his parents were trying to have a private moment with one another….
"So then I'll be ok?" asked Mob. She reached down and felt her belly button through her nightgown. Good. Everything would happen in the usual way and the doctor would not have to gut her like a fish. That was good because she was not a fish at all but a person.
"Most likely." Said Suzuki as he continued to eat. Daughter's distress seemed to have passed. Good. He did not know how to deal with a distressed child and he was loathe to wake Masami at this hour. The later she was up the later she would sleep. He did desire her presence…and her…but those were not the thoughts to have. Especially not while eating a meal with his Daughter.
"Is that why Sho's not as powerful as me? Because he came out of mom like that?" asked Mob. That might have been it. She wished that it was. Then she could tell Sho that it wasn't his fault and then he could stop blaming himself and then they could go back to being best friends…because they were best friends…they could go back to being the sort of best friends that never fought unless it was important.
"I….your brother is a mystery to me. I don't know enough about how powers are inherited to give you a proper answer…but I will once I have sufficient enough data for a meaningful answer." Said Suzuki. That seemed to satisfy her as she, then, began to eat. He ate as well. He wished that he knew what made the Boy the way he was. If he knew why he was the way he was then maybe he could fix the Boy…
Defy fate.
Fate who had been so cruel as to give him Boy but so kind as to give him Daughter.
"Hey dad?" asked Mob suddenly. She didn't know what she was going to say, exactly, after this but she knew that she wanted to talk about something other than how bad Sho felt about himself. If they kept on talking about this then she might have been in danger of telling dad just how she felt about how he treated Sho…and that would not have been good at all for either of them.
"Daughter?" asked Suzuki
"Um…do you like…why do you like breakfast food so much?" asked Mob. There. That was an ok thing to talk about. Food. She had nothing mean to say about dad's choice in favorite foods so she wasn't in any danger of saying anything that would have caused a problem.
"Hmm? I suppose that I just do. It's efficient and nutritious while still being calorically dense. Always eat calorically dense foods, Daughter, your powers take a lot out of you if you use them." Said Suzuki
"Ok." Said Mob even though she had no idea what 'calorically dense' meant…not that she would tell Dad that. He might have thought that she was dumb if she asked…and he also might have sent her off to learn even more kanji, too, which she did not feel like doing this late at night…or ever since she led the class in reading and writing already anyway.
"How have you been, Daughter? Are your studies going well?" asked Suzuki. Right. He was supposed to be modeling proper behavior. It was proper to have small talk at the table. Masami said that the children's social development was very important…even though when they ruled the world they'd have no need to fit in. The world would accommodate them, they would not need to accommodate the world.
"Yes, school is good. I have good grades in everything but math…but I'm working really hard to be better." Said Mob. Dad would like that, that she was working hard to get better, even though no matter what Mob did math made zero sense to her.
"Ask your mother for help. She's a very intelligent woman." Said Suzuki. Daughter's aura flared. He wondered why. Did she disagree? Well if she disagreed then she would have to be corrected. When it came to intelligence he was the only person who could be her equal. She stood head and shoulders above everyone but him in all ways. She was the most intelligent, most thoughtful, most industrious, most creative, and most beautiful woman in the world and he would end anyone who thought differently.
"You never say nice things about mom…I mean I never hear you say nice things about mom." Said Mob after a moment. That was…that felt weird. It was weird, knowing that her parents were in love, even though of course they had been…having proof of it…that was what was so weird.
"I don't have to say these things for them to be true. Besides, your mother knows how I feel about her. one day you'll find a man who you feel that way about and then you'll understand that you don't need to say it for it to be known and true." Said Suzuki. He was not one for grand declarations of emotion. He was not one for even allowing strong emotion to exist within himself…but there it was. He knew it was there, Masami knew that it was there, so there was no need to acknowledge it.
"Oh." Said Mob. So did that mean that when you were in love you never said it? But then how would you know, then, that the other person loved you? If a boy loved her she would hope that he would come out and say it. This seemed like the kind of thing that you were supposed to say, and often, because otherwise you could forget that the other person even loved you at all….and Mob couldn't think of anything sadder than that even if she spent the rest of her life thinking.
"These sorts of things will become more apparent once you meet someone…and when you're older, as well. You're a child now and these emotions, what they meant and how to control them, are beyond the scope of your imagination right now. Things will become much clearer in time." Said Suzuki as his fork scraped against his plate. Children were so simple in their thoughts and emotions…and there was some freedom in that. Freedom that he has lost as he aged.
There was freedom in innocence.
Though there was loss, too…because these emotions may have been trouble in their intensity…but they were not painful as so many other emotions were…well they were but it was a good pain. It was a pain that you looked forward to feeling, the pain of being near your most perfect person, the longer you were away from them…
But Daughter was too young for that.
Romantic caring. Sexual desire. Partnering and the attachment that came with it…all of it was well beyond the boundaries of her imagination.
"What is going on in…here?"
There. The pain. That pain that he loved to feel….maybe he was just some kind of masochist….but he had wanted to feel this for so long…to feel her. To be near her. To hold her and kiss her and debauch her in all the ways she loved. The ways he loved. Those mutually pleasurable ways that he should not have been thinking of while his Daughter sat beside him…unpleasant. Now it was the unpleasant sort of feeling…
Wasn't it past her bedtime?
"Masami. Hello. It's nice to see you again." said Suzuki keeping his voice and his aura as level as he could. Daughter was shrinking back in her seat…and her aura was acting like she was frightened of something…but that was good. She gave him something to focus on. He focused on keeping her powers under control before she broke something…or someone.
"Touichirou….I didn't know that you'd be coming back…or that you were planning on cooking." Said Masami. She had expected to find the kids watching TV or getting into the snacks or something of that nature but instead she not only found her husband but she found out that he knew how the stove worked, too.
"I cooked, mom! I cooked all by myself! Dad said that it was ok and I made all of this! Come here and sit down and have some with us!" said Mob. She was excited, she knew that she was excited and she knew that she should not have been so excited. She should have been calm and in control like dad had wanted…and now he would be mad at her…
But if he was mad at her then he was not mad at Sho.
"Daughter. Control." Said Suzuki. Children, even Daughter of all people, could be so tiresome sometimes. He wondered if his control had ever been this bad…and he remember that it had.
"Touichirou…you let her use the stove?" asked Masami. That…that was…what? What!? In what universe was letting a six, not even seven, year old girl use the stove ok? There was a chair in front of it…she could have so easily fallen and burnt herself…and then they would have had to call Fukuda and that was a thing in and of its self now…
What had Touichirou been thinking?
Only of himself, as usual, most likely.
"Yes. She proved to be quite adept at cooking. Thank you for teaching her, you've taught her well." Said Suzuki. Praise. Everyone loved praise and there was no one who deserved it more than Masami. She was such a good partner to him and mother to their children. He could not have picked a more perfect person to be his wife. His person.
"I…I'm going back to bed. You two have fun with…with this. I…I can't right now. It's twelve thirty in the morning….I'm going back to bed." Said Masami. Nope. Not now. She'd clean up in the morning and then…then what? She couldn't punish Shigeko for doing what her father had asked of her and there was no way that Touichirou would ever even begin to understand that maybe, just maybe, a little girl should not have been allowed to get up after midnight and make breakfast for her father who was a grown man and perfectly capable of cooking his own damn meals!
She was not going to get into that right then and there.
"You're right, it is late. Daughter, go back to sleep. Masami, I'll join you." Said Suzuki as he used his powers to put all the dirty dishes in the sink for Masami or Daughter to take care of tomorrow. He needed to be near Masami, then. He needed to be near her and to just…just be with her. Such irrational feelings…but ones that he had gone far too long without satiating.
"No, you two can keep on doing whatever it is that you're doing. Don't let me interrupt you two." Said Masami. Not that she knew why they needed to bond any more than they already were. Shigeko and her father were already two peas in a pod. Even now, when Masami looked past the differences in hair and eye color, she could have sworn that she was looking at a smaller, more feminine, version of Touichirou sitting there looking more disaffected than any child ever should have….
She needed to go to bed.
It was either too early or too late for this.
"You're right, it is late. Daughter, I trust that you can see yourself to bed. Goodnight." Said Suzuki. Daughter nodded. She was so much easier to deal with than Son. Son always put up such a production when it was time for him to go to sleep. Daughter, not so much.
"Ok. Goodnight mom. Goodnight dad." Said Mob. She didn't stick around once dad told her that she could go. She was happy to go to bed. She was happy to have had spent some time with dad. She was happy that dad had let her cook on her own. She was happy that she had done such a good job.
And most of all she was happy that nobody had gotten mad at anyone else.