"Sho, be careful with that."

They were in the Treasure Room again. It was the most fun room in the house. Well the third most fun room. It went their bedroom, the TV room, and then Treasure Room. The Treasure Room went fourth if you counted the backyard as a room. Which Mob did not because it was outside but which Sho did because it had high walls all around it. They had fought, well had words, about that before. They didn't fight. Not really.

Mob hated fighting.

Almost as much as she hated that sword.

"I am being careful." Said Sho as he swung his sword around again. Big sis had followed him to the Treasure Room. They had been in dad's office but then dad kicked them out because he had to talk meanly at people in Mandarin. Sho didn't know what he was saying but he knew that tone. Someone was going to get it.

At least not Sho this time.

He had gone to the Treasure Room because mom said that she was too exhausted to play. That was normal for her. She was always super tired…and Sho had no idea why. All he knew was that this was life now and also he wasn't supposed to call Fukuda because there was nothing that he could do about mom being tired. Dad had said so and Sho did not want to be the next one in for it so he did what dad said.

"No you're not. You almost hit me." Said Mob as she tried to pop the arm back on one of the robots from dad's old toy box. At least she thought that this was another one of dad's old toy boxes. They had found another with a lot of boy's toys in it. These were made out of metal and didn't have Suzuki written on them. They must have been dad's, though, because mom would have played with girl's toys when she was a kid.

"Almost isn't the same as actually hitting you." Said Sho. He swung his sword near to her but not hitting her just so she could see the difference between him hitting her and him not hitting her. This was a very heavy sword, she would have noticed if he'd hit her.

"You should still be careful." Said Mob. She gave up on the robot and tried to scoot away so she didn't end up getting hit. That was a kendo sword, a real one, and she'd seen kendo before. Dad said that it was the only sport in the entire world worth following and they had stayed up late and watched some together. She liked staying up late with dad even though she was always super tired in the morning. It was nice being with dad….sometimes. Not all of the times but sometimes. Plus if she was spending time with dad then dad wasn't spending time with Sho and then Sho was safe for a few more hours at least. She would always do whatever she could to keep her little brother safe.

Even if he could be very annoying sometimes.

"You're not the boss of me." Said Sho

"I know that I'm not the boss of you, Sho, I just don't feel like getting hit with that sword." Said Mob. That thing looked heavy and dangerous. She had seen kendo on TV. Those guys wore all of that protective clothing for a reason…though if she got hurt then she could see Fukuda again…but then she would have had to bother mom and dad and Fukuda, too, and Mob did not want to bother that many people…or anyone, for that matter.

"If you don't want to be here then go and hang out with dad some more." Said Sho. She and dad were best friends now, it seemed, so she should have gone back to him. She was his favorite after all. He let her stay up all night all the time even on school nights….it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all.

"I can't. Dad told us to get out. We should always do what dad says. That way he won't punish us." Said Mob. It made sense, perfect sense, but Sho just would not even start to listen to her….

"Yeah, like he'd ever punish you." Said Sho. Big sis punished….the thought was crazy. Dad had never punished her in the whole seven years she had been alive. He wasn't going to start now. Why would he? He had Sho there, already, to punish as often as he wanted.

"He doesn't punish me because I don't give him any reason to." Said Mob. She wished that Sho could have just understood that dad only didn't like him because of how he acted. All he had to do was be the person who dad wanted him to be and then dad would like him just as much as he liked her and they could have all been happy again like they had way back when she had been little.

"No, he doesn't punish you because you're his favorite. He's always hanging out with you and stuff…it's so dumb." Said Sho. Dad only liked her best because she was boring, like him. It was important to like people for who they were, mom said so, and dad should have listened to mom. You had to like people for who they were, not who you wanted them to be.

"You get mom and I get dad. We decided a long time ago." Said Mob. That was how it worked in their family. In other families it was different but that didn't matter. They were this family and they had to do things the way that worked for them….even though it wasn't fair that Sho only got mom and she only got dad…it wasn't fair at all.

"I know we did…and it's not fair!" said Sho. It had been a lot more fairer when mom hadn't been tired all the time…but now she was. She was tired all the time and she didn't want to play nearly as often as she used to but dad was always wanting to hang out with big sis…and it just was not fair!

"No, it's not. I wish that dad liked you as much as he likes me, Sho, I really do…but he won't like you if you don't do what he says." Said Mob. She wished that she were better at talking, she really did. She wished that she knew that secret combination of words that could make Sho listen to her and listen to dad and just….just listen….

"I do! I do what he says!" said Sho. He lived under dad's rules and he followed them! He didn't bring any animals inside of the house and he never hung out with his friends outside of school and he was always quiet and out of the way when he was home! What more did dad want from him, anyway!?

"No, you don't. He doesn't like loud noises or running around or liking things that he doesn't like or being around him when he doesn't want you to be around him. You just have to like everything that he likes and be very quiet and then he'll like you as much as he likes me." Said Mob. There. That seemed like the right combination of words…though maybe not. She could see Sho's colors, his aura, and maybe…maybe she should have chosen a different combination of words entirely. Dad said that you should always say what you mean and mean what you say…but that only worked if the other person understood what it was that you were trying to tell them…which Sho did not…

"That's stupid. Why should I have to change who I am for him to like me? I'm not a doll. I'm not you." Said Sho. That had hurt and not he had to hurt her. She didn't just get to hurt him like that! She didn't! She didn't! SHE DIDN'T!

"I never said that you were a doll." Said Mob trying her best to be as clear as possible. How she had managed to call him a doll with what she said she did not know but she really was sorry…and she just wished…she wished that this were easier. This was hard. This was so hard….

"You want me to act like one. You're such a doll, you know that? You're like that doll you have with the string in it's back. You only talk when someone-someone makes you and you-you only do things that dad wants you to do. It's like you're a doll…and I'm not. I'm not a doll!" said Sho

"Sho, I never called you a doll…and I don't think that you're a doll…and I don't think that I'm a doll either. We're people, Sho, and people are not dolls." Said Mob

"Fine. Not a doll then. A robot. You're like a robot." Said Sho

"I'm not a robot either." Said Mob

"You are too like a robot. You walk and talk like a machine. It's creepy and weird and people say that you're creepy and weird. That's why they call you Mob, because you're creepy and weird. You're just like dad." Said Sho

"Sho…you're saying a lot of mean things to me right now and you're really hurting my feelings." Said Mob tying to use her big kid words like mom was always telling Sho to. She just…she had to make herself as clear as possible. That was all. She had just not been making herself clear enough this whole time.

"You and dad are like a couple of robots. No wonder he likes you so much better than me." Said Sho

"Little brother…you're being mean and I…I want you to stop. Come on, you can swing the sword at me as much as you want to and I won't say anything." Said Mob even though she did not want to risk getting hit on the head with a heavy kendo sword. Well better hit in the head then having her heart broken because her little brother wasn't acting like a little brother was meant to act. He was meant to be her friend…and they had been friends since the day mom and dad had brought him home from the hospital. He had been so small…and his hair had been really spiky. It had felt good under her hands. He had smiled when she touched his hair…

"Why don't you just go away? I'm busy in here. You go off and be robots with dad while I stay here and do fun stuff." Said Sho. He didn't know why he was saying all of this…why he wanted to hurt her…why he wanted her to feel as bad as he did every single day…she was his sister and he loved her but…but he just felt so bad all the time….

"Brother…please. You know that I get scared if we're separated….and so do you. This is the scary part of the house." Said Mob

"Liar." Said Sho

"I am not." Said Mob

"Yes you are. You're a liar. You're a liar a million times over. You don't get scared if we're separated and you don't care if I get scared either…which I don't because I'm a big kid now." Said Sho

"Yes I do. I care so much about you and if you get scared. I love you and I am not a liar. Don't call me that." Said Mob. He did not get to call her that. She had never once lied to him in her entire life. She did so much to keep him safe…and now she was having mean thoughts. Bad thoughts. Thoughts that she should not have been having about her little brother and how he had no right to be mean to her and how he needed to talk to her nicely because she did so much for him….

"Yes you are. You're Shigeko….you're Mob. You're Mob the amazing lying robot doll girl." Said Sho

"I am not!" said Mob. The stack of boxes next to her toppled over. A dusty pillow flew out of the box and knocked over the block tower she and Sho had made before…back when they were friends. They weren't friends anymore….why weren't they friends anymore?

"Yes you are. You're a lying robot doll girl named Mob. You don't care if I get scared if we're separated. If you did then you wouldn't leave me alone in our room all night so you and dad could go hang out and watch boring TV in the living room together like a couple of boring robots recharging their batteries so they can be boring in the morning." Said Sho

"You…you can hang out with me and dad too, if you want." Said Mob even though she didn't want Sho to be there. Well she always wanted to spend time with her little brother but she didn't like spending time with her little brother and her dad at the same time. Dad…it was hard to keep dad's attention off of Sho when he was in the room. Plus Sho was bad at staying still and Dad liked it when you stayed perfectly still and listened to him talk…and it could get very boring very fast but you couldn't show it or say so.

"Why would I want to do that?" asked Sho even though he really wanted to. He wanted to be there so bad…and he wanted to be big sis so badly…because then dad would like him. Dad was a boring jerk but he was still…dad.

"Because…because you're acting like you want to. I don't think that you would like it…dad doesn't like it when you act like…you…but if you wanted to come and watch TV with me and dad-" said Mob

"No. I don't want that. I don't need to hang out with you and dad. Leave me alone. Leave me alone all night. I don't want to hang out with you and dad and be boring." Said Sho

"Now you're the liar." Said Mob. That was mean but…but she was losing control…and she was not supposed to lose control. Especially not at her little brother. Things were floating and her powers were prickling at her skin and her colors were showing and now she was saying mean stuff….no wonder dad didn't want her to be the one to inherit the world. Not that she wanted to be the princess of the world or anything…she just didn't like it when dad talked about how because she was a girl she could never be as much as Sho could be because he was a boy.

"I am not! I am not a liar and you don't get to call me names!" said Sho

"But you get to call me names?! Sorry…sorry. You can call me all the names you want. It's ok." Said Mob. She had to be a good person. She had to be a good daughter and she had to be a good big sister and she had to be a good Suzuki. She had to be….good.

"See? You're such a doll. You won't even fight with me." Said Sho

"I don't want to fight…I never wanted to fight. I love you and when you love someone you never want to fight with them. I'm bad at talking, Sho, you know that. I just meant that it didn't seem like you were telling the truth when you said that you didn't want to spend time with dad and I." said Mob

"I was…" said Sho. What did he want to spend time with them for, anyway? They only did boring stuff together. They watched boring shows and talked about boring stuff and just were…boring! So boring…the most boring. Yeah, he didn't want to hang out with them anyway. He didn't care if he got up in the middle of the night and he was all alone…..it didn't matter one bit!

"It's ok if you want to but I just think that you wouldn't have a good time at all. I have to hang out with dad because if I don't then he'll get mad at you or he'll notice something about you that makes him mad and then-" said Mob

"I get it! He likes you better!" said Sho swinging that sword dangerously close to her head. He almost lost his grip on it. It was big and he was small. It was heavy and he was weak….like dad was always saying.

"But he can like you, too, little brother. He can like you just as much as he likes me." Said Mob

"Will you just stop talking already, doll girl? I'm not pulling your string." Said Sho. He did not need her to rub it in his face…how she was born right and he was born wrong. She had powers and he barely…and dad liked her because she knew how to act and he didn't…the list went on and on and on…and he wished that it would end…that it would all just end and that she would just leave him all alone already so he could do…something. He didn't know what but he knew that he wanted to be left alone.

"Sho, dad would like you a lot more if you just stopped doing…all of the things that you do. If you acted more like me, more like who he wanted you to be, then he would-" said Mob

"I said shut up!" said Sho. He didn't know what happened. The sword was in his hands. It was heavy. He swung it at her to shut her up.

He didn't mean to hit her in the face.

He didn't mean for her to end up on her back.

He didn't mean for her dress to fly up so her underwear showed.

He didn't mean, also, to make her face all bloody.

"I-I'm sorry! I-I-I-I didn't mean to! I-" said Sho. He pulled her up until she was standing. She had her eyes closed and she was closing her hands into fists…and her colors were showing worse than ever…and the room was shaking…and there was so much dust in the air…and it was hard to breath…and now all of the boxes were floating….

"Conceal, don't feel. Conceal, don't feel." Said Mob over and over again. She was saying it out loud and in her head. She wished that she had gloves. Elsa had gloves and they helped…but there was no way to externally control psychic powers. Dad had said so a million and one times. She wished that there was some way to stop this…she felt like she was going to explode…she could see her aura and feel her powers reaching out everywhere…

And then they weren't.

She felt like her energy was being sucked up like the time she got her hair stuck in the vacuum robot when she was three. It was quick and it hurt a little…but things were calming down. She opened her eyes. Things were setting themselves down on the ground….and the windows opened on their own…and there was a lot of red around…

Red like Sho's aura.

Red like dad's aura.

And red like the stain on the front of her shirt. That was bad. She liked this shirt. This was her pink shirt with the white bows and it only went with this skirt and mom said that she had to take good care of her clothes because she ordered them from expensive places and also she was a big girl now and she had to be responsible for her own things…

"Ouch." Said Sho. It felt like the time he had gotten his finger stuck in a finger trap and no matter how much he pulled it just kept on eating him. What was that? He had never felt that before in his life. It felt like…not good.

Not good at all.

And then things got even worse.

"Son. Daughter. Explain."

Sho stopped breathing. He let go of big sis and took a step back. Dad may have sounded like a robot but even robots could have tones. He had argued with the robot who lived in his tablet enough times to know that robots could get annoyed. Dad was not even a robot, not really, even though he acted like one. He was a person and he could get mad.

And he was mad.

"Daughter, explain." Said Suzuki when both of his children refused to tell him why he was taken from his work by a small earthquake localized on this room of the house. He knew what he had seen and felt…Daughter had been close to an explosion….and it was all son's fault if her bloody nose and black eyes were something to go off of.

"Sho accidentally hit me with the kendo sword. I'm ok." Said Mob. She took all of her bad feelings and locked them away to where they couldn't get out. She needed to stay calm and not explode. Power was nothing without control. Dad had said so.

"A kendo sword?" asked Suzuki. There, on the ground….Son had been PLAYING with it? He exorcised the emotions that brought to the surface…and there were so many. Son had no right to play with that and he had no right to strike Daughter with it. Striking an unarmed opponent…quarreling with his own sister…striking someone he had no reason to strike…sowing discord in the family unit….

He wondered why the universe tormented him with this child.

"Yes. That one. But I'm sure that it was an accident." Said Mob. Sho was scared, he always made himself small when he was scared. He liked to try and disappear even though it wouldn't work. He wasn't the inviable man. Dad knew where he was and dad….dad's aura looked so mad…and Mob had no idea how she could make this better besides telling dad that it had been an accident.

It had been.

It had to have been.

Because Sho was her little brother and he would never do anything to hurt her on purpose.

"That is a real kendo sword…and it's olden than I am. When, exactly, did that look like a toy?" asked Suzuki. He directed that question at his ingrate of a Son.

"I don't know." Said Sho quietly. He looked down at his feet while he talked to dad. He didn't want to look dad in the eyes. He had very scary eyes sometimes.

"That is not an answer, Boy. Now explain to me how you even managed to lift a kendo sword and why, after you had managed to lift it, you thought that the best course of action would be to harm your sister with it?" asked Suzuki. He was being tried. That was the only answer as to why the universe had given him this child for a son. Fate could be kind and fate could be cruel…and so could Suzuki.

"Dad, it was an accident. It was my fault. I was the one who-" said Mob. Dad was going to hit Sho. Dad was going to hit him and it was all her fault…and she felt like she was going to cry. Something was still pulling on her powers but she didn't even have it in her to worry about that. Sho was going to get hit and it was her fault and hers alone for pushing him to smacking her in the face with the bamboo kendo sword.

This was all her fault.

"Daughter. I don't believe I was speaking to you. Was I?" asked Suzuki. Daughter was trying to defend her brother. He should have punished her, too, for being weak like that…but absorbing her excess energy was punishment enough. She should have been weak, now, weak and helpless like the seven year old girl she was. That was punishment enough. Suzuki couldn't even imagine what that kind of hell was like.

"No, but dad…but you don't have to punish Sho-" said Mob

"Daughter. Be silent. You are the child and I am the adult. You do not command me, I command you. Do you understand?" asked Suzuki

"Yes, dad." Said Mob softly. Powerless. She was powerless to stop this…this thing that she had been the one to cause…this was all her fault. All of this was all her fault…and there was nothing that she could do…she felt like she was going to throw up.

Or cry. Whichever came first.

"Good. I'm glad that you understand. Now go to your mother. Your brother and I have quite a few things to discuss." Said Suzuki. There was a good child. Why had fate chosen to give him the perfect child in the form of that foundling but had given him…that…for a blood son. He could not begin to understand. He could not begin to understand anything but the fact that he had, once again, a lesson to teach his son. Hopefully this one would stick better than all of that others had.

"I…yes, dad." Said Mob. She gave Sho's hand a squeeze as she passed. There was nothing else that she could do. This was all her fault….all of it….

She was the one who should have been careful. Not Sho.