"There you go, pretty as a picture."
Mob touched her nose. It wasn't crooked anymore. It didn't hurt. Nothing hurt. Nothing but her stomach and her heart. This had all been her fault. She shouldn't have made Sho hit her on accident and she should have done more to convince that dad it had been an accident. Now Sho was being punished and it was all her fault….she was such a bad big sister.
"Shigeko, what do you say?" asked Masami trying her best to keep her voice level. She had left then alone for ten seconds and now this happened. This was all her fault…mostly her fault. She had been selfish again, lately, but the children were six and seven years old…and they knew how much their father hated it when they fought. They knew how much it hurt their mother when they fought. But they still carried on like cats and dogs.
"Thank you for fixing me up, Fukuda." Said Mob. She sounded like a robot there…just like Sho had said. She hadn't been mean he had been right. There was that saying about how the truth hurts. Well Mob knew the truth and it hurt a lot. A lot, a lot.
"You're welcome, Little Lady. Always happy to help. There anything else I should take a look at? Any more concussion, contusions, or abrasions you'd like to get fixed up?" asked Fukuda. She had grown so much…both of the kids had. Probably. He still hadn't seen Sho. He had been away from all of them for so long…he reminded himself that this was not his family. Masami was not his wife and Shigeko was not his daughter and Sho was not his son and this was not his life. He was there to do a job, that was all, and now that he had done it he had to get a move on before the President started to suspect anything or just got pissed off. Whichever came first.
"No, I don't think so. I mean I don't know if Sho is ok or not. He was ok when I left but…but I don't know." Said Mob softly. Sho was probably not ok and it was all her fault. Next time she got hit in the face with a kendo sword she was going to keep quiet about it and keep her powers under control.
"We're fine." Said Masami. She didn't…she didn't want him in the house. She did and she didn't. She wanted to hold him and never let him go…but she also wanted him to head back to wherever it was he went when he wasn't patching one of them up so she could go back to being exhausted in peace. This was exhausting. Her daughter, her husband, they were both so exhausting. So draining.
"Mom's been tired a lot of the time, too, and Sho and I are worried about-" said Mob. Mom was still in her night clothes. She was so tired she didn't even match her top and her bottoms even though you always had to be matching so you looked nice. Mom had said so. Mom was in her sleeping clothes and her hair was all frizzy and she didn't have any makeup on, which mom said that adults had to wear all the time to look nice, and it was just…she was worried about mom. She was worried about mom and Sho and the worry was making it feel like she had a rock in her stomach. She knew that this wasn't the sort of thing that Fukuda could fix. He was a healer, not an exorcist, and she needed someone to exorcise all of these bad feelings from inside of her.
"I said that we were fine. Now go and play, Shigeko, you're all healed up now. No need to take up more of Fukuda's time than you need to." Said Masami. She knew the look she was getting. She knew that she had spoken too harshly. Shigeko had been through a scare and she needed her mother…but her mother needed her space. Shigeko had almost lost control of her powers again…and once again it had been her husband who had to fix it….and once again she had lost control because she was young…and also because of Sho. She knew that it was Sho she should have been upset with. He was six years old, now, and he knew not to hit his sister. He also knew her rule about toy weapons…and that the rule also extended to real weapons, obviously. She knew that she should have been angry with her husband, too, for leaving a real kendo sword…which her six year old son had somehow managed to lift….out where Sho could get to it and accidentally hit his sister in the face.
And it had been an accident.
It had to have been. Sho…he could be a little…much….sometimes but he would never have intentionally hit his sister. Even if Shigeko had provoked him…she could be a little 'much' too sometimes…that still hadn't given him the right to hit her in the face hard enough to break her nose and give her two black eyes. She still couldn't believe it…they were only six and seven years old and already they were fighting like this…
And there was nothing that she could have done, anyway, if she had been there.
"But I don't want to play anything." Said Mob. She didn't want to go back to the Treasure Room and look for new toys to play with. She didn't want to go to her room and play with the toys she already had. She didn't want to sit on the floor of dad's office and pretend to play while she watched him work. She didn't want to sit in the living room and watch TV.
She didn't know what she wanted to do.
But she knew that she didn't want to have fun. How could she? Her little brother was being punished and that…it had all been her fault. How was she ever supposed to have fun again knowing that she was responsible for this happening to Sho. He was her little brother and he did not deserve it…even if he had hurt her…but it had been an accident so she couldn't have been mad…but he had also said all of that mean stuff to her… but that mean stuff had been stuff that she needed to hear….
"Then go and do something else." Said Masami. She put her hand on Shigeko back and gave her a slight push. Just enough to tell her that she needed to get a move on so the adults…so they could talk. She wanted…she did and did not want to talk to him. He didn't owe her anything. He was nothing to her, nothing that could be said, and it wasn't like she owned him. If he wanted to vanish into thin air well then that was his business.
She hoped that he didn't vanish again.
"Yes, mom." Said Mob. It was best to just do as you were told. That was why dad liked her better than Sho, because she could do as she was told. Mom told her to go away so she went away. Mom told her to go and play so she went and played. She went to her room and laid down on her bed and tried to make her stuffed animals float. She was still so tired….and she didn't even know what from. It was like someone had stuck a straw in her and sucked her powers out….
Which was good.
Because then if she didn't have any more powers then she could have been Mob, not Shigeko. Not Suzuki Shigeko. Mob. Someone who didn't stick out, who didn't have anything that made them special, someone who could be just like everyone else. That way, if she was just like everyone else, Sho wouldn't be mad at her anymore. It would be like he was an only child. He would have been a lot happier as an only child. If it had just been Sho then mom and dad would have had to like him the best because they didn't have any other kids to compare him to. Then dad wouldn't have been upset with the way Sho acted because he wouldn't have had anyone to compare him to. Then dad would have been happy that Sho even had any powers at all instead of being upset that Sho couldn't do the things that he could do…that she could do….
Sho would have been a lot better off without her.
She managed to pick up the doll, the creepy one, the one that looked like her. She picked it up with her powers…which were coming back….and she didn't know why. She wished that she could either give them to mom or give them to Sho or just get rid of them…but they were like this doll. A gift. An unwanted gift. She couldn't give this doll away because it had been a gift from dad and she couldn't throw it away for the same reason.
Her powers had been a gift from dad.
She was his daughter after all. Suzuki Shigeko. She was his daughter and she had gotten her powers from him. A gift from him. Sho's gift from dad had been his red hair and blue eyes. Sho thought that his gift sucked…but they couldn't trade. If there was some way that she could wake up with red hair and blue eyes and Sho could wake up tomorrow with her powers she would have done it. She wished that she could make a deal with God…or the Devil…or someone or something that made deals like that…but she couldn't…
She was stuck with her powers just like she was stuck with this doll.
She put it back down. She didn't want to look at it. A doll that looked just like her…or maybe she was the one who looked like the doll. Maybe she was a doll. Maybe she was a doll just like Sho said. Maybe she was…she didn't know. All she knew was that she didn't like herself at that moment…she turned over and stared at the wall. She heard plastic rustling. Her box of chocolates.
If she didn't even like herself then how could she have possibly expected someone else to like her?
She really should have eaten those. Taro didn't like her like that. Ito had asked him to his face and he had said 'no'. Well he had said 'of course not' which was worse than 'no' and it seemed like he had liked her….well if he liked her then…then he didn't like her anymore now and she should have just ate those chocolates before they got all gross and stale…but she didn't want to…and that was so dumb. Food was meant to be eaten and she wasn't even supposed to have food in her room in the first place so if she didn't eat them then…then mom would find them and throw them away…
She hid them back under her doll.
She didn't want to eat the only memory she had of someone liking her. She didn't want to eat the memory of the only time someone had wanted to hold her hand. She didn't want to eat the memory of her first kiss…even though it wasn't a real kiss she still didn't want to eat the memory. She wanted…she knew that it was dumb but she wanted to save those forever.
Maybe when she grew up she'd end up putting them in a box and putting the box in the Treasure Room and then her son and daughter would end up finding them…and then her son would accidentally hit her daughter in the face with a kendo sword…and it would….it would not have been good…
Mob did not feel good at all.
Which made no sense because that was what mom had called Fukuda for, to make her feel better. She was better, now, her nose and face didn't hurt anymore…but she still felt terrible. She felt like she had swallowed some kind of rock or something and now it was all settled in her stomach and…and it hurt. She wished that this emotion was a spirit so that she could exorcise it.
Or that it was an injury so that Fukuda could heal it.
But it wasn't an injury or a spirit and there was nothing that anyone could do. Not her and not Fukuda. She wanted to run back to him and ask, though, even though she knew that the answer would be no. That was why he couldn't cure mom. He couldn't fix feelings like the tiredness that mom felt all the time, he could only fix ailments…
She wished that he could have fixed mom.
Maybe that was what h was trying to do, now. She could hear his voice though the vent. It was muffled and echoing but it was there. He was talking to mom about something. They were talking really quietly together about something. She got off her bed and laid down in front of the vent even though she knew that listening in on other people's private conversations was wrong.
"….go…"
"I can't…."
"Help…."
"….where…?"
Mob could only hear every other word of what they were saying…if that. She wanted to know what they were talking about…mostly because she just hadn't seen Fukuda in so long. She wondered where he had gone to, where he went when she and Sho and mom were healthy…and she wanted to ask. She didn't want to be in her room, she wanted to be out there with mom and Fukuda…but maybe it was best that she was in her room. She couldn't hurt anyone from in her room.
She couldn't hurt anyone.
She laid on the ground with her ear pressed to the vent. She could barely hear but…but at least she was too far away to hurt anyone.
"It would hurt everyone." Said Mom. Mob could hear more clearly now…mostly because mom was raising her voice….a sound that Mob did not like one bit. It was…she didn't like raised voices and mom…mom was supposed to be nice. Because she was mom. Mom was the nice parent and dad was the mean parent…that was how it worked.
"Masami…you have to think about yourself. Think about yourself and the kids." That was Fukuda. He was harder to hear because his voice was super deep. She wondered if he was upset that mom had raised her voice to him. She wondered…she wondered a lot of things. She wondered which of these vents connected to the Treasure Room…she wondered what she would have heard if she had pressed her ear to that vent…she wondered if she even wanted to know what she would have heard if she had pressed her ear to that vent…
She didn't want to.
She stayed where she was.
"I am thinking about them. They need…they need their father. They need an intact family." Said mom. Mom was talking about them….why? Well the answer was obvious, because they had been bad. She was mad at them or worried about them or something. Something that was making her talk about them in hushed tones that Mob had to strain herself to hear.
"Is this what they need?" asked Fukuda. He was loud, that time, and it was the first time that Mob had ever heard him raise his voice…and she didn't like that, either. She didn't like that at all.
"What's your plan, then? You and I? If you think that I'm going to-" said Mom. She was raising her voice again. Mob worried. Dad hated loud sounds and if he could get mad at Sho…did moms and dads get mad at each other? She didn't know…and she didn't want to find out. Maybe that was where Sho got it from, the inability to just do what dad wanted him to do and be who dad wanted him to be. It would have made sense. Sho was like mom and she was like dad after all.
"I don't have a plan...it was just a thought. Masami…I care about you and it brings me no joy to see you like this…to see the kids like this…and I just want to help. I want to help you in whatever way I can." Said Fukuda. He wasn't raising his voice then, which was good. She never wanted him to raise his voice again. That was not the sort of person he was…and she did not want to remember him as that sort of person. She wanted to remember him as the nice person who fixed her up when she got hurt and who played with her and helped mom make dinner and was just…nice. She didn't know when he would come back again…and she did not want to remember him as someone else in her life who was mean and stuff…she had enough of that already…
"There is no help…and there is no way out." Said Mom. Mob wondered where mom was trying to get out from. She had no idea what it was that mom could have been talking about…but then again Mob knew that she was the worst at talking. She knew words, she knew their spellings and their meanings, but they just changed meaning so quickly based on who was talking and why….it was hard. Very hard.
"Masami…there is always a way out." Said Fukuda. He said that in a tone so low she could barely hear him…and there was something else to his voice, too, something that Mob had never heard before. Something that sounded kind of gravelly…like when mom had a scratchy throat…but different…
"Easy for you to say. You can walk out that door whenever you want to." Said Mom. Now that made even less sense. The front door worked just fine. If mom had to go out then she could. She could have gone out to the yard to play or gone to the library or the pool or the animal shelter or anywhere else, really, because she was an adult and they could do whatever they wanted to.
Mob didn't understand.
"Masami…so can you. Just…please let me help you. I love you." Said Fukuda…and Mob really did not understand. Mom loved dad….and dad loved mom…because that was what being in love was…but maybe this was one of those times where words didn't always mean what she thought that they meant. Like how she loved milk. She loved to drink it but she wouldn't marry it…but mom was a person…not a bottle of milk…and you couldn't love a person like an object because people were not objects at all…
Oh!
Maybe it was like how she loved Sho! Sho was her brother…and he could be mean sometimes…but Mob deserved it and she loved him the most out of anyone else in the world. Not like she wanted to marry him or anything, he was her brother and that was gross, but she did love him….and that must have been what Fukuda meant…
But he and mom were not brother and sister.
Mob didn't know. She didn't understand anything…but the fact that she should not have been listening in on other people's conversations…so she stopped. She stopped and went back up to her bed and put a pillow over her head so she couldn't listen in on the fractured words that were coming up through the vent.
Besides, she had her own words to find.
She had to find the words that let Sho know that she was sorry.