Thank God for theme parks.

Children needed constant stimulation. That was just their natural state of being. He had been no exception as a child. He remembered constantly exploring, trying to make sense of the world around him, and of course his children would do the same. The only difference was that when he was young he had enough sense to stay out of danger.

And also his parents never took him outside of their city let alone the country.

He did not blame Son and Daughter for wanting to leave. He was angry with them, of course, but it was in their innate nature as children to be afflicted with a wanderlust and a desire to explore the world and he could not punish them for that. Well he could but it wouldn't have done anything at all to correct their behavior in the long term. Instead of fighting them on their innate nature as children it seemed that a better course of action was to simply find a place to let them get all of their excessive energy out.

Once he took over the world he was going to have more Disney Parks built.

That is if the children were still young when he reached his goal, his lifelong goal, of taking his place as the ruler of the world. It certainly seemed as though his goal would be coming sooner rather than later. Of course he had always had feelings like that whenever he found a new esper of some skill and talent. It got even worse when he managed to get this esper onto his side. He had his ways though the best way to really test them, to see if they were worthy to stand in the shadow of what it was that he was building, was through good old fashioned tests of strength and tenacity and-

Fighting.

A lot of fighting.

There really was no other way. It had nothing to do with the sense of enjoyment that he got from fighting, nothing to do with that at all. And he certainly did not need any reassurance that there wasn't a single being on this Earth who could challenge him. No, none of that at all. This was just the best way. That was all. The only way.

He always won.

Though they weren't always divisive victories. Such as now. Such as why he had a gash down the side of his head. Hence the blood ruining one of his favorite shirts. They were all the same but some were more comfortable than others. Softer. More worn. Blood stained. This shirt would become unwearable and now he had no choice but to throw it away and get another, on his own because while he had people to shop for him Masami was the one who had always known what he wanted, and maybe even at this point he had no idea what it was that he even wanted and he wanted to keep this shirt and Masami would have known how to get the blood out but she was not there anymore and he had no idea where she was and-

"Sorry, Boss." Said Fukuda as he wiped, maybe too hard, at the blood crusted to Suzuki's head. Another esper had tried to 'prove' themselves and now there was another set of wounds for him to mend. Just another day in paradise. Part of him wanted to tell Suzuki that maybe, just maybe, getting into brawls wasn't the best way to realize his dream of ruling the world or whatever. The last thing he needed were any more of his underlings filled with stewing resentment. Fukuda hadn't had to fight him…though now he sort of wished that he'd had. He wished that he had the strength to do…something…anything. Something beyond fixing the cut on this bastard's head.

Calm down.

And stay calm.

Good.

"Huh? Oh, yes, of course." Said Suzuki. His mind had gone to her again. She had been gone for weeks, now, and the feelings he carried for her had become irrational. She was not dead or injured or wandering around with amnesia, he had looked for her extensively, she was hiding. She was hiding herself from him…and that was fine. Well, no, it wasn't because her departure had torn a hole through his very soul and he had no idea when it would ever heal….but those feelings were irrational. She was gone.

And there was no reason to harbor any more emotion towards her.

He had exorcised it.

He really had. She wanted to leave. Fine. She was nothing to him. Just another person on the street. She had never been worth his time, anyway. He could have had literally any woman in the entire world. She was just another woman in a sea of women. There had been lovers before her and there would be lovers afterwards. That was all she was to him, an old lover, someone who had been tired of anyway. He'd simply wanted to go to bed with her and he had and now…and now he had moved on. Moved on to…where was he? Shanghai…no, that had been last week. He had moved on and now he was in…the skyline looked like Hong Kong, He had put distance between them, a lot of it, and he would not have been able to do that if he still cared even an iota for her.

He was fine.

"Alright Boss, you're fine." Said Fukuda as he finished. There was no point in being full of seething resentment towards this man. There was no point in any of it, really, because nothing would change the outcome. He was still there, trapped, with Suzuki. It didn't matter if they were in Japan or China or wherever else was on their travel itinerary. There was no way out.

For him at least.

Masami was safe. She was safe and sound and that was what mattered. She had an apartment and a job and nobody had been even close to finding her last time he checked in. Of course he would not be checked in too often for obvious reasons. He was not going to compromise her. Fukuda saw first hand what Suzuki could do to people who challenged him. Fukuda wondered what he would to his own wife…after she had been the one to…to betray him….

Thank God Suzuki couldn't see what was right in front of him.

"Good. You can return to…whatever it was that you were doing. That will be all." said Suzuki. He waved his hand and his office door opened. He'd have to move offices again, it was a disaster area in there. He hated messes. Masami was always good at cleaning them up. She had always been a very neat person. She had even, on their first date, tried so smooth his hair down. That was before he had cut it this short. It got like Son's when he let it grow out. Masami had always liked it, though, and she had expressed unhappiness when he had it cut short…and maybe if he had left it long she would have stayed…

He exorcised that emotion.

"That's all? No concussions, contusions, or abrasions?" asked Fukuda. He did not feel as light as he sounded but the worst thing that he could do was be out of the ordinary. The last thing he wanted to be was suspicious. Suzuki was self-centered, not blind, even though sometimes it seemed like he really needed to have his eyes examined.

"No. You may leave." Said Suzuki. He had so much he needed to do. So much that he needed to get done with before the children made their way back. They always came back both excited and exhausted. Usually covered in powdered sugar, chocolate, sprinkles, and other assorted debris. He could not wait for them to get old enough to help him out. To be something other than children. But he still had years of this…

Theme parks were a godsend.

"And the kids?" asked Fukuda. He knew where they were. He knew where they were and he had no idea what went through Suzuki's mind sometimes. They were six and seven years old. They could not be all alone in Hong Kong! Even if it was a walled in children's paradise, if Tokyo Disney Land was anything to go by, it still wasn't safe. Forget the fact that they were children. Shigeko was a year and a half older than Sho, that did not give her the maturity or judgement to keep track of another human being.

Forget the fact that Shigeko had so little control over her powers.

And forget the promise that he had made to Masami. The last time they had checked in she had asked about her kids. All he could tell them was that they were in Shanghai and they were fine. He omitted the fact that they were left unattended all day in Disney Land…and also they kept on making themselves sick eating truly obscene amounts of sugar. They needed someone to take care of them…and that someone could not be him…

Not that Masami needed to know that things were anything other than perfectly safe and fine and under his total and complete control.

"They'll be ill again when they get home, most likely. I so wish they would eat something other than confectionary and the like. You'll tend to them when they return. I don't expect them back until the evening." Said Suzuki

"Yeah, they'll do that. Maybe I should head over there with them just to make sure they don't make themselves sick or get hurt." Said Fukuda. People looked at you strangely when you were a single man in a family theme park and they looked at you even more strangely when you hung around two kids who looked nothing like you. He had managed to spin it that he had simply been heading over there on his day off…and he had been believed….but maybe if he made it a regular thing he could bide his time and spirit Sho away. Make it seem like he had just wandered off. Children went missing in foreign countries all the time and, really, it was irresponsible to let the children run wild and free at their age anyway.

He was contemplating on what the best way to kidnap and six year old boy was.

Somehow his life had come to this.

"They're fine. Everything is fine. You are dismissed." Said Suzuki. He so wished that Fukuda would learn to take a step back. Claw was a strict meritocracy. Kissing up would get Fukuda nowhere. He didn't even amuse. He didn't do anything, he didn't gain anything, by overstepping like this. His children were fine.

He knew how to care for his own children.

They had enough to eat and drink and were amused. It was an amusement park after all. The children were fine and they did not need a nanny or a nursemaid or whatever else Fukuda thought that he was to them. If Suzuki hadn't been so in control of himself he would have told Fukuda that if he wanted to spend his time chasing after children then he should have found a woman and had his own family instead of constantly trying to make use of his.

But he did not say that.

"Sure thing." Said Fukuda. If he hadn't had so much control over himself he would have told Suzuki that he had no idea how his children were doing. He had no idea if they were happy or sad, hurt or well, anything. He had no idea that his children probably weren't fine. That Disney Land could only distract them for so long. That they must have been hurt, worried, confused, because their mother was gone and they had been uprooted from their entire lives and their father was doing nothing at all to make it any easier on them-

He said none of that.

He had more sense than to piss off Suzuki. He had more sense than to tell the man that he was terrible, a terrible person, by every measurable metric. He had more sense than to tell him that those children would have been better off raised by wolves than they were by him…if you could even call what he was doing 'raising' them. He had more sense than to tell him that he would ruin those kids, he would ruin them so badly that….that unless Fukuda did the unthinkable and kidnapped his son….those kids would be ruined…that those kids were actually better off being all alone in Hong Kong….

They really were better off far, far, away.

Thank God for amusement parks.