He preferred the children when they were asleep.

They were certainly much quieter when they slept. Much more peaceful. No quarreling, no shouting, no conversations that somehow went nowhere but also went on for hours. They were still and they were silent and they were perfect. Well they were mostly still and mostly silent and mostly perfect. Son kicked in his sleep. That was why Daughter had chosen to sleep so far away from her brother.

And why she was rested against him.

Apparently flying had lost much of it's adventure. They said that human beings could become accustomed to anything, even hurdling through the air at thousands of kilometers an hour with nothing to protect them but what was essentially a cylindrical piece of aluminum. Not that he hadn't lived through much worse than a place crash. Still, though, he did not much like to be in them. Hence the reason why he didn't dare use his powers to move Daughter.

She was very warm.

Her head was resting against his side. She had pressed herself close to him. For comfort and safety, most likely, things that she could not have gotten from her younger sibling. Also there was the fact that said younger sibling kicked in his sleep. A bit like Masami. She moved in her sleep, too. She tossed and she turned and she kicked their blankets off, sometimes, too. Those were annoying times. She also found herself wrapped around him, too, but those times were less annoying. Much less annoying. Those times…

Those times were over and he needed to come off of this.

He had missed this, it seemed, without even realizing it. The warmth of another human being beside him. Who would have thought that he would have missed it? This whole thing…he did not like the person who this whole thing had turned him into. Maybe that was for the best. He had done something to make her leave. He had done something wrong and now she was gone and he-

He exorcised that emotion.

She was a traitor plain and simple. She had left him and that was nothing more or less than an act of betrayal. She should have counted herself lucky that he had other things to do with his time than chase her to the ends of the Earth. He had work to do and a new world to make. He also had to raise their two children on his own….but that was not so very difficult. They could be left to their own devices, mostly, and they didn't need so many things. Food, water, shelter, and clothing…as well as education and entertainment and guidance and all of those things that fell under that annoyingly imprecise term called 'love'…how he hated that word. He didn't love the children.

He was happy that they existed, even Boy.

He was proud of the people that they were becoming, though to a lesser extent with Boy.

He was invested in their continued existence, even Boy's.

He never wanted any harm to come to either of them.

He would murder anyone who laid a finger on them. That should have been enough. There were billions of other people on this planet but these two were the only ones that he was attached to. Girl, Daughter, because she was amazing and actually very good company and Boy because he was half of his genes…and the only bit of Masami he had left…

He had loved Masami.

If he were to use her word for it. He had loved her. He had enjoyed being with her, even sought out her company, and when they were together he just felt so…good. He thought of her often, more so than any other human being on the planet, and when they had been apart he longed for her. Not just physically. She had been the only woman he wanted to share himself with, physically, too. The only woman who he ever wanted to be so vulnerable towards. He wanted nothing more than to have her again. To have her by his side and in his arms…what else could he possibly want from her?

She may have betrayed him but she was still his wife. He still loved her.

Even though the word was too overused and overblown. He cared for her. That was a more precise word for what he felt. He cared for her emotionally and romantically and in every other way a person could care for someone. She was always telling him that she felt the same way…so why had she left him? Where had she gone to? When would…would he ever see her again?

He saw her everywhere.

Every single light haired woman was Masami, for a moment, before he realized that no she wasn't. He wondered if the children felt the same way. He wasn't going to ask. The children….they missed their mother. They needed their mother. They spoke of their mother to each other and they tried to speak to him, too, about her…and he was not going to talk about her to them. He didn't want to talk about her to anyone.

It hurt.

Did they feel that pain too? Or were they more resilient than that. She had always said that they were resilient children. She had always spoken so highly of them, even Boy, actually after a while he was the only child that she spoke highly of. Their Son. Their children. Daughter….he wondered why she had seemed so distant from Daughter. She was a wonderful child. Calm and obedient and intelligent….though she could be aggravating too. She was so constantly clinging to him. She held his hand and wrapped her arms around him and she was forever telling him that she loved him. Every day at least a thousand times a day she said something along the lines of 'I love you, Dad' or something like that.

She was her mother's daughter.

She leaned more into him. He propped her back up onto her seat. The ocean beneath them was nothing more than an expanse of black. He wondered if she, and her brother too, would like to see it during the day. Son drew marine life sometimes, colorful fish from a film he watched, and Daughter seemed to have an interest in mermaids…though those did not exist. He had looked, when he was younger, back when he realized his own mortality. Eating mermaid flesh seemed like a gamble, worth it in every way, and had found no mermaids and no mermaid flesh. So he resigned himself to dying someday and decided to achieve immortality instead by having many children and leaving a long legacy. Well he had one child and adopted another…and he knew that he was free to have as many as he wanted to, now…

But he didn't much want to.

Because that would have been a lot. He already had the two children and they were enough of a handful. Yes, that was it. He just did not have the time. Even now he did not have the time. Even though one of the Awakened travelling with them was a woman, and she seemed nice enough, and she had light hair…but he just did not have the time for all of that. Yes, he was a very busy man and this completely illogical feeling, every completely illogical feeling, that he had towards Masami had nothing to do with it.

He still cared for her so much.

And he hated himself for it.

"Dad?" asked Daughter. He had propped her back into her seat by hand. He must have woken her up. He wondered if he should have kept her up. That was better for the jet lag…but then Son would wake up, too, and then they would both feed off of each other like some sort of perpetual motion machine. He did not want to deal with that, with them, right then and there.

"Go back to sleep. We're still in the air and will be for some time." Said Suzuki. He reached over and took her tablet off of her seat just in case she decided to wake up and watch more of whatever it was that she had been watching. Something else from that studio she liked. He so wished that she would have watched more Japanese media but he was not about to get into that with her just now. Not at this hour.

"How much time?" asked Daughter with a yawn.

"Hours. Now go back to sleep." Said Suzuki. She nodded, closed her eyes, and attempted to lay back down onto him. He reached over and sat her back up.

"Dad, why do you keep on pushing me?" asked Daughter

"I've done no such thing." Said Suzuki. He'd pushed her before. She knew that he had pushed her before. Neither of them had enjoyed it. He hated correcting her because of the constant threat of her losing control. Also he felt a sort of pain when she cried. Probably because she was small and female.

"You did. I tried to lay back down and you pushed me away." said Daughter

"If you want to lay down then do as your brother has done and find a row of seats to sleep in. We're the only passengers on this plane besides the Awakened and they know not to bother us. Find somewhere to sleep if you're so inclined to recline." Said Suzuki

"I don't want to sleep next to Sho. He kicks in his sleep and also sometimes he picks on me, too, even though he still loves me and stuff." Said Daughter with a yawn.

"Then sleep on your own." Said Suzuki. He wondered at which age it would be appropriate for the children to sleep on their own. They had shared a room since the day he had brought her home. It had been surprisingly easy. Son still woke up in the night but instead of complaining she would climb into his crib and sooth him. She had called him 'Ritsu' too, for the longest time, and he had been worried about that. Masami hadn't been. She had said that she had been separated suddenly from her family and it would take her time to forget them. She forgot them relatively quickly. He was grateful for that. He wondered, sometimes, if she still remembered her biological parents. She never gave any indication that she did. He hoped that she didn't. He was her father, no one else, and he did not need her loyalties being tested….and he did not need her to leave him, too. Not that she was in any position to…she was only seven years old. Eight years old next year. Then nine and so on and so forth until she was a grown woman. He wondered what she would be like as a grown woman.

Another Masami?

Not his Masami, of course, because instinctively he knew that no matter how old she got he would always recognize her as his child. Those were the same sort of instincts that would keep Son and Daughter from doing the logical thing and getting together when they hit adulthood. There wasn't a drop of blood between them but….since he had no plans of telling him that then the most logical option for their adult lives was off the table. Daughter would meet some man and get married and then he would be replaced in her life….

As was nature's way.

And then one day she would wake up and find that the man she had married was gone and that she was all alone in the world with whatever children that union had produced and…and then he would hunt down whoever hurt her like that and he would end his life. Slowly. Painfully. Daughter did not deserve that sort of pain. Neither did Son. If Son's wife ever left him…same thing, though perhaps not by his hand personally.

Nobody hurt his children.

They were his.

"But I don't want to. It's scar-I don't like to sleep on my own. It's not comfortable for me." Said Daughter. He heard her censoring herself. They children got scared when they were separated. They were small and the world was big. He wondered when they would grow out of it. He wondered when he would be expected to force them to grow out of it. They would have to separate one day. Son was going to inherit the world. There were things that he would have to learn that would take him away from his sister.

They would be separated eventually.

And he would be separated from them. As annoying as they could be…as aggravating as they could be…they were still his children. There was more of that irrational pain at the thought of being left alone. That made no sense. He was a full and complete person all on his own. For his entire life he had been all alone. There hadn't been anyone else in the whole world like him. Now there was. One person who he had made and one person who he had found….and that must have been it. He saw himself in the children and that was the thought of them leaving him hurt him so….

That must have been it.

"Fine. If it'll help you sleep." Said Suzuki. He raised his arm and let her rest her head on his chest. He lowered his arm around her protectively. Though he had no idea what it was that he was supposed to be protecting her from. If their plane went careening into the ocean, perhaps? They would be fine. Daughter could put up a strong barrier and Son…Son would be fine. Not that he had any plans of them careening into the ocean….though he never planned on that happening. It just sort of happened.

These attempts on his life were so tiresome.

"Thanks Dad….I love you." Said Daughter as she shifted to get comfortable. He wondered how she could have slept like this. Maybe it was a female thing. Masami had fallen asleep on his chest countless times. Usually when they had been watching television together after a long day. Sometimes just because she wanted to be near him. He enjoyed being near her, too, though he never fell asleep on her chest or anything like that.

It looked like it was hard on the spine.

But she seemed comfortable. She was small and warm. He patted her on the back. How this child could have been so warm, like a little furnace, he did not know. Maybe it was all the sugar she ate. The body burned fuel and sugar was a very good source of it. They lived on things that were sweet and deep-fried and he wondered if it was worth it to argue with them so they would eat a healthier diet…that was his responsibility, now, even though he did not like to argue with them. It was always so draining.

"I know." Said Suzuki after a moment. He wondered why she kept on telling him over and over again. She knew that he had heard her the first time. He always replied when she told him this. She was his Daughter, of course she was attached to him. He had been the only father that she could remember. Her life depended on him. Her life was in his hands and of course she would love him, that was basic evolution, and of course he cared for her as well. She may not have had his genes but his instincts still recognized her as his child.

"You know?" said Daughter

"Yes. I know. You say it often enough." Said Suzuki

"Ok." Said Daughter. She had a tone, there, and her aura was…different. He wondered if he had said something wrong. She probably wanted to hear it back, like her mother had, because she was just as much her mother's child and she was his.

"I care for you, don't ever forget that. I just don't like the word love. It encompasses too many concepts. I care for you, if you were to die I would be unhappy, and I will do everything in my power to keep you alive and to make sure that your life is the best that I can provide for you. That is how I feel about you, Daughter." Said Suzuki. He wondered if maybe he should have said that to Masami. Maybe then she would not have left him. Maybe she left because she thought that he didn't care for her…

Even though that was truly absurd.

"Oh. I feel that way about you too, Dad. I care about you a lot. You and Sho and-I care about everyone in my family. I just want everyone to be happy." Said Daughter. She was so small and warm and…there. He reached up and put his hand on top of her head. Her hair was soft. A bit like petting a cat but without the cat. He didn't usually care for human contact, it threw him off kilter, but this was…nice. Alright. She was small and harmless. Because she didn't ask much of him. Nothing that he didn't understand. Not like Masami. He had always liked that about her, how difficult it was to understand her, how there was always something new to learn…

He hadn't learned fast enough.

Maybe.

And then she had left….

That was on her. She had been the one to choose to leave. She had been the one to betray him. She had made her choice and he had no way of getting her back and that was just the way that things were, now, and he was fine anyway. He had…he had a lot in his life. He knew that he had a lot in his life. He had everything, almost everything, everything but the world…and he did not need her.

He did not need Masami.

"As do I. There is nothing I want more than your happiness." Said Suzuki. They were his children. Of course he wanted them to be happy. Unhappy children were something that he would not have wished on anyone. Besides, it wasn't like it was such a difficult thing, making them happy. Just give them whatever they wanted within reason. Not complicated at all.

"Just mine?" asked Daughter

"What do you mean?" asked Suzuki

"What about Sho?" asked Daughter. She looked up at him. His eyes met hers. His aura met hers. She was troubled…and he had no idea what could have been troubling a seven year old girl.

"What about your brother?" asked Suzuki. He was there, asleep, surrounded by his various drawings. Drawings of…the sky? The sky and the ocean. Vast expanses of blue and black. He really was talented, his Son. He reached over and picked up one of his drawings. A feat considering the fact that his Daughter was using him as a pillow. He was careful not to overbalance her. He would have used his powers but he did not entirely trust them right then.

"Do you want him to be happy, too?" asked Daughter. What kind of a question was that? The things that came out of this child's mouth. Such complete and utter ridiculousness.

"Of course I want him to be happy." Said Suzuki. He liked it better when the children were happy. They were a lot less annoying when they were happy. Children always needed to have something to occupy their minds. That was just how they worked. It was easy to make Son and Daughter happy. They wanted for so little in their lives. Of course they wanted for so little, they were his children.

"That's good. I'll tell him when he wakes up. Not now, though, because he always gets upset when I wake him before he's ready to get up." Said Daughter

"He didn't know?" asked Suzuki as he stared at the drawing in his hand. The other hand rested on top of Daughter's head. This really was a good drawing. He wondered if Son would become some sort of artist when he grew up. He could do whatever he wanted when he ruled the world. Well in addition to ruling the world. Daughter…he wondered what sorts of talents that she had. Besides caring for Son. Masami was very good at taking care of all of them….

"No. Sho thinks that you hate him. Even though I tell him that you don't he thinks that you do." Said Daughter. Suzuki looked over at his sleeping son. He didn't hate the child, no, he was frequently annoyed by him and more than once he wondered why fate had decided to torment him with such a child but there wasn't any hatred at all between them. How could there be? That was his son, his child, half of him and half of Masami.

Besides, it wasn't as though he was about to go back to the drawing board any time soon.

"I don't hate him, he's my son. I don't know why he would think that." Said Suzuki. Children could be so dramatic sometimes. Maybe that was it. Everything was so exaggerated with children. It had to do with their lack of perspective and life experience. As terrible as they thought that their lives were they had no idea how bad things could get.

"Because you punish him more than me…and he still thinks that he was born wrong and I was born right. He thinks that because you like me better." Said Daughter. Liked her better…he did…and Son knew why. Daughter was just a less aggravating child than Son. Daughter was just…better….in most ways. But Son shouldn't have felt hated. Disliked, possibly, but not hated.

"If I hated him then I would have left him in Japan and only taken you. I enjoy your company more because you're less aggravating. That doesn't mean that I hate your brother. I don't hate either of you." Said Suzuki. There, hopefully that left no room for whatever other half baked ideas the children had come up with.

"That makes sense." Said Daughter

"Of course it makes sense. Why would I take someone I hated with me? I could have easily just left him, and you, in Japan. I didn't because you're my children and I have to care for you." Said Suzuki

"But….but if you hated us then you wouldn't take care of us anymore?" asked Daughter

"Yes, of course, but there is very little you two can do to make me hate you. I don't hate anyone. Hatred takes a lot of energy and time which I do not have. I'm a very busy man, I don't have the time or mental space for hatred. Mild dislike, yes, but never hatred. You shouldn't bother to hate anyone either. It's beneath you." Said Suzuki. He ran his fingers through her hair. He wondered who a little girl could even hate. A child who was unkind to her? A little boy who rejected her romantically? Wait, was she at that age yet? He'd ask her later. Masami would have known, being her mother and female and all. He wondered if Daughter hated her mother for abandoning her. It would be understandable. Masami had done something unforgiveable after all….

He did not hate her.

He could never hate her.

She was his wife….and he cared for her…even now he cared for her.

"I don't want to hate anyone, it's not a good feeling. I want to like everyone and be friends with everyone." Said Daughter

"You shouldn't do that, either. You can't be friends with everyone. Actually you should have as few friends as possible." Said Suzuki

"Why? That sounds so lonely, dad." Said Daughter. Suzuki kept patting her hair. Lonely. There had been that feeling, before, when he had been young. When he had been too young to realize that he was complete on his own, that he was the most powerful being on Earth, and that the world was his. What did he need other people for when he had the whole world in his hands?

"Because you should try to be as complete a person as you can on your own. Other people…other people complicate things and make you weak. I would never want that for you." Said Suzuki. This was dangerous ground. He wanted her to find a romantic partner at some point. She should have been complete and on her own but she also needed to pass her gifts down to the next generation.

"I don't want to be lonely. I don't like being lonely." Said Daughter

"How could you be lonely? You and your brother are always together. You eat together and play together and even bathe together. I would have thought that you enjoyed his company…though I could understand if you didn't. He has been so quarrelsome lately." Said Suzuki. It amazed him how they could go from playing happily together in one moment and then in the next be in the middle of what looked like world war three. Children. He hadn't even understood them when he had been a child.

"I know. I meant….I miss playing with the other kids, that's all, and so does Sho. But don't worry, we won't, because you told us not to." Said Daughter

"That's a good girl. I don't want you or your brother wasting your time…but don't worry. We'll find more children like you. They'll be your companions. You and your brother are very lucky, you know, to have each other. Even if your brother does not possess your skill he does understand you. Growing up all on your own…it's not easy." Said Suzuki. He may not have had the clearest memories of being their age but he did remember, before he learned to exorcise the emotion, how lonely he had been….before he learned that he had no reason to be lonely.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" asked Daughter

"No." said Suzuki. They didn't know that? Well he hadn't exactly been forthcoming about his life…and it did make sense that they would be curious about the time before they had been born. He wondered why Masami, though, hadn't told them that…..

"Oh. I'm sorry." Said Daughter

"Why?" asked Suzuki

"Because you were all alone, dad, I'm sorry that you didn't have any brothers and sisters. I don't know what I would do without Sho. Even if we fight sometimes. Even if he pulls my hair and pushes me sometimes. Even if he runs away when I try and put sunscreen on him. I still don't know what I would do without him." said Daughter

"Don't apologize. It is of no importance or significance. I don't care." Said Suzuki. He twisted a strand of her hair between his fingers. She was so small and her hair was so soft. She liked this gesture, it seemed. He could see her aura. She was very happy….or at least very content.

"Oh….hey dad?" asked Daughter

"Yes?" asked Suzuki. He wondered what other questions she could have had. Wasn't she tired? Hadn't she just been asleep? At this rate she would never sleep and then they would arrive and she would be in a terrible mood. A terrible mood for her, of course, her terrible moods were nothing like Son's terrible moods. Those…those were the stuff of legend.

"Do you think that we would have been friends? If we were the same age?" asked Daughter. Suzuki didn't even have to think about his answer.

"Of course." Said Suzuki. Daughter was so much like him as a child. Not just because her powers were comparable to his, either. She was quiet, as he was, and she enjoyed a lot of the same sorts of games that he did as a child. She was even a pretty decent Chinese checkers opponent, on the rare times in which they'd play, though Go was not her forte. She enjoyed a lot of the same sorts of things that he did. She enjoyed watching very long documentaries when she couldn't sleep at night and she loved breakfast foods as much as he did, too.

If they were both children then they would have been friends.

If they had both been adults, both been the age he was now, then they would have been friends too. She was comparable to him when it came to power and they got along very well. She would be as close to a friend as he could allow himself to have. He wondered what she would have been like, what she was going to be like, when she became an adult. What would grown woman Shigeko be like?

Would she be anything like little girl Shigeko?

He'd know in a few short years. Whenever it was that little girls became women? Menarche, right? That was the demarcation? He had no idea, he was not a woman, and Masami had neglected to tell him when their daughter would be considered a woman. It was easier to tell with boys. Sho would be so much easier. It was easier to guess the ages of boys than girls, anyway. So many times he would catch himself trying to figure out if he was looking at a grown woman or a teenage girl. Not that he saw much of a demarcation between teenagers and adults.

He hadn't ever been a teenager.

He felt like he had just woken up one day a man. He had lost, at some point in middle school, the ability to relate to others his age. He had just…felt like a grown man. Maybe it was the same with girls. Maybe one day Daughter would wake up, consider herself to be a grown woman, and then they could go from father and daughter to father and daughter who were also something closer to friends than they were now.

He would not wait for her to become an adult.

"I think so, too. You and me and Sho could have been such…good…friends…" said Daughter. Her breathing became slower and her aura calmed down. It moved, her aura, always. Pink and blue fractals. They slowed down as she drifted off to sleep. Good. No sense in keeping her up until all hours. No sense in moving her again, either, otherwise she would just end up waking up again and they'd be back to square one. No, he'd let her sleep. He sat back. He put Son's drawing down beside him, carefully, so he did not wake Daughter.

He kept his hand in her hair even though there was no real reason for it.

He enjoyed it when she was asleep but he found himself preferring her when she was awake.