Sho kicked in his sleep.

Mob hadn't minded, before, when they had been little. That was just how Sho had always been. There had been more bed to go around when they had been little. Not like now. Now they were bigger and there was less bed to go around the way he kicked, not just that but turned too, kept her up. She knew that she was big enough that she had to sleep in her own bed. She knew that she was going to be eight, soon, and eight year olds did not need to sleep next to their little brother when they had bad dreams.

No, not bad.

Lonely. She had a lonely dream. Not a scary one, not one that left her awake with her heart pounding and the room trying to turn itself upside down. No, this was a dream that left her waking up with a feeling inn her heart that was somehow both heavy and empty at the same time. The kind of feeling that, when she had been little, she used to just climb into bed next to her little brother and sleep next to him until she felt better.

There wasn't enough room now.

Because they were bigger. Maybe because she was bigger she was lonelier. Being bigger…no, not about being bigger. Being more alone. She was more alone now. She was always with someone but she always felt alone. Even when she was surrounded by people, even when she was with her own little brother, she felt alone. She didn't know why. It wasn't like she had ever had that many friends. There had been people she had gone to school with. There had been people who she had talked to and played with at school but they hadn't been real friends, not like regular kids had friends, and not like she and Sho were friends.

They were best friends.

Because there wasn't anyone else for them to be friends with. So of course they were best friends. Even if he could be kind of mean sometimes. Even if he had spent the whole plane ride poking her in the back because…she didn't even know why. He said that he was sorry when they landed and he even let her have his tablet when hers died. That meant that he really was sorry. She just wished that he had been sorry enough not to be mean to her in the first place.

Maybe that was why she felt so lonely.

Maybe she just felt lonely because he, her own brother and only friend, could be mean to her sometimes. Dad could be mean sometimes, too, without even trying. That must have been where Sho got it from. Mob wondered why she wasn't mean. Maybe she just got more of mom than Sho did. Mom had always been so nice…and now the feeling is getting worse. The feeling always gets worse when she thinks about mom.

The bad feelings always got worse when she thought about her mom. When she was mad at something, which happened sometimes despite what Sho thought, the mean feelings that came with being mad at something or someone got worse. When she was sad, like she kind of was now, then tears came when she thought about mom for too long. Mom…mom had just gone. She had just gone and…and then everything had changed…and now there was no way to go back and mom was gone and Mob…she didn't know why mom would just leave like that…she really didn't.

She did.

Mom left because of Mob. Because she had powers. Because she had powers and she couldn't control them all the time…and dad was always saying that power was nothing without control. He said that her greatest fault as a human being was her instability. He said that her control was constantly slipping, which was why her hair floated when she got too happy and the room shook when she got too mad and other such things, and that she needed to be able to control her powers or she would be nothing. Unstable. Dangerous to be around. She needed to exorcise her emotions, he said, all of the strong ones until she could control herself.

And that was why mom had left.

She had always said that normal people would be scared of her powers. That was why she could not use them in public. Dad even agreed. He said that there was no need to show the normal people what they could do just yet. He said that showing off their powers would only make the normal people mad at them and scared of them and that would not be advantageous to their goals. His goals.

Mom had been a normal person.

And she must have been afraid. That was it. Because Mob had such bad control. Nobody in the whole world knew what it was like to be her. To have so much power and so little control…and to have everybody being afraid of her. She knew that the copy paste aura guys were afraid of her. Sho had said so and he was very good at reading people like dad. Dad said that they were right to be afraid of her because she was so powerful, more powerful than most adults. Even the other espers, the ones that worked at the Divisions, were afraid of her. There had been a big snow storm, before, so instead of going outside dad made some Division guys come to him…and when they saw her their auras got all close like they were protecting themselves.

They had been afraid of her.

And if even other espers were afraid of her then mom must have been super afraid. Ashamed, too, maybe. Dad always said that it was shameful when she lost control of her powers. She was his Daughter, Suzuki Shigeko, and she had to control her powers or she was nothing. She was his daughter and he expected more from her, he had said, and maybe Mob wished that he expected a little less from her. Maybe then she wouldn't feel so bad, sometimes, about not being able to stop herself from losing control sometimes. For having so many big feelings inside of herself that she could not control…

The room was full of her energy.

She could see her aura now, she could see things starting to float, and she knew that she needed to get out of the room before she woke Sho up. They hadn't been here for very long, their body clocks weren't used to this place yet, and getting back to bed after getting up while your body clock still thought it was in a whole other country was hard. She didn't want Sho to be up all night and then sleepy and grumpy in the morning. Dad would not have been happy with her if she let that happen.

Dad.

She wanted mom. She wanted to be with her mom but she didn't have a mom anymore. She was gone and they weren't even supposed to speak her name. She was gone and now all she had was a dad…and dad was there…and he liked her. He cared for her. He said that he cared for her. He said that he cared for her more than anyone else in the whole world. That had felt nice, when he said that, even though it shouldn't have because Sho was his kid too and he should have liked them both the same…even though there was only one of dad and two of them.

One parent could not be divided up by two kids.

You couldn't divide up one into two. Well you could and you got one half…but how were they supposed to cut dad in half, exactly? Back when they had a mom and a dad Sho had gotten mom and she had gotten dad and it had been perfectly fair. Now they just had dad…she just had dad. Dad didn't hate Sho, he had said so, but he just liked her better…and sometimes she liked that. Sometimes she liked being liked.

She wanted to be with dad.

Because Sho kicked in his sleep, she didn't have a mom, and she was much too upset to sleep on her own. She just wanted to be near him, even if he got mad at her because her aura was like this, she just wanted to be near him for a little bit. Maybe he was still up. He had trouble sleeping sometimes, too, and sometimes they hung out at night. Those were fun times. They would watch documentaries about things, the last one they had watched was a documentary about rats and how they lived in cities but did not know how to cook or have little cities, and dad had let her lay her head in his lap and he touched her head a lot like mom had always been touching Sho's head. Other nights they played Chinese checkers or ate late night dinner or they just talked. Well he talked and she listened. She listened to the things that bothered him. How dumb the people working for him were, how he couldn't find powerful enough espers, how much better Japan was than the rest of the world at everything…though mob didn't much agree with that last one. The fries in America were better. England had very good candy. Australia had kangaroos which were very nice even though you couldn't ride around in their pouches and they also hated it when you tried to do that…well when Sho had tried to do that. Trinidad had all of these little lizard running around and they were so cute. Korea, the South, had pretty dresses and kimchi which was not at all gross. The Labrador place was nice even though it wasn't filled with Labradors like she and Sho thought that it would be. China, the parts they had been two, had two Disney Lands and also there was a panda sanctuary they went too and pandas were so cute…but they also didn't like it when you tried to pet them. When Sho tried to pet them.

The world was a big place and Japan may have been where she had been born but there was a lot of other stuff to experience and enjoy, too.

But she was not about to argue that with dad. No, he hated arguing. If he wanted her opinion then he would ask for it. He always asked her when he wanted her opinion. Sometimes he said that she was fascinating and other times he said that she was just a child and had no idea what she was talking about. Mob never argued with him when he said things like that to her even though those were mean things to say to anyone.

She never argued with him.

She was his Daughter. Her place was not to argue with him. He had said that, before, that they had no reason to argue because she was his daughter and it was not her place to argue with him. Also he was not going to argue with children. So they just never argued. She and Sho argued sometimes even though she hated it when they did. Sho picked fights with her more than they just…disagreed…but that was ok. Even though said that he hated it when they fought. It was annoying and aggravating, he said, and he did not need any aggravation from his children when he got enough of it from the people who worked for him.

Mob had no intention of aggravating dad.

Even now. He was asleep. Sometimes when she came into his room in the middle of the night he was awake. He either told her that he wanted her to go away or they went to the living room and watched TV or something like that. Usually when she came in and he was asleep she just went back to her room or she went to watch TV on her own or something like that. She knew that she should have just left him alone but…but she just did not want to be alone.

She laid down on the floor.

This floor was carpeted. It was clean. It was soft. It was warm in here, warm enough, though she did have to tuck her feet into her nightgown. This one was another Elsa one…though she was starting to get kind of bored of Elsa. It was still nice, though, even if it wasn't very warm. Of course it wasn't warm, the cold never bothered her anyway. The cold never bothered Elsa anyway because she had ice powers. Maybe Mob's feelings shouldn't have bothered her anyway because her powers were centered around her feelings…or something.

She still felt lonely.

And her aura was still being all weird. She could see her colors, see her powers, and she could see that she was so close to losing control and making things float or even worse. She couldn't help it. She just wanted to be near someone. She wanted to be near her brother but he just kicked and pushed her away in his sleep. She wanted to be near her mom but her mom had run away, far away, and she would never see her again for as long as she lived. The only person that left was her dad but he was asleep and if she climbed into bed with him he would be upset with her for not only waking him up but also being incomplete and weak and whatever other words he felt like calling her.

There was a shift in the energy around her.

"Daughter. Explain." Said Dad. His voice was low and scratchy, but not mad, she could tell by his aura. She knew exactly what his aura looked like when he got mad. She knew at this point in her life that he was not mad…but also how quickly he could go from being normal to being mad and then going right back again.

"I wanted to be near you but you were asleep. So I tried to sleep on the floor. I'll go away now." Said Mob. She got up. Dad sat up too.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" asked Dad. Mob shook her head. She hadn't checked the time when she got up. She only knew that it was dark outside.

"No dad, I didn't check. I'm sorry that I woke you up." Said Mob

"You can't sleep?" asked dad even though, obviously, she was having trouble sleeping. Why else would she be up at whatever hour this was? Plus she had just said…well she had only said that she wanted to be near him. Mom would have let her sleep in the bed with her. Mom had always let them do that…but mom wasn't there anymore now was she?

"I was barely asleep…but don't ever disturb me unless it's important." Said Dad

"I'm sorry." Said Mob. She waited to be dismissed. Kicked out. Told to go away back to her own bed and to lay there and wait for tomorrow to happen if she was going to be like that. Or told to go to the living room and wait for him and then they would spend time together and it would be so nice and-

"Do you like that? Sleeping on floors?" asked Dad

"No. Not really." Said Mob

"Then why sleep on the floor without a futon?" said Dad

"Because I didn't want to be in my bed and Sho kicks in his sleep so I didn't want to sleep next to him." Said Mob. She wanted to tell him that she was lonely. That inside of her there was a giant gaping loneliness and it was getting bigger and bigger, like the time she got a whole in her tights and it got bigger and bigger the more that she picked at it. She knew that she needed to control her powers, control her feelings, and that she should have been a complete person on her own like dad was a complete person on his own….

But that was hard.

And she was bad at this and any minute now Dad would tell her how badly she had messed up. She had let herself get lonely and she had woken him up and he wasn't happy with her and then he would tell her so and then all of these bad feelings would get even worse. That was how it always went. She just wished that she could have been better.

"What's wrong with your bed?" asked Dad

"It feels too empty." Said Mob. It took her a moment to find the right words. She needed to tell him that she had felt lonely and sad without using those words. Dad hated it when they had bad feelings like that. He hated it when they had any strong feelings at all. They were both supposed to be better than that, dad had said, and any minute now he was going to tell her that she was being bad and being a bad Daughter and a bad Suzuki and-

And he didn't say anything for a while.

He just stared at her….which was worse than him telling her that he was ashamed of her and to get out of his sight. She almost wished that he would do that, talk to her like she was Sho or even one of the people who worked for him, but he didn't. He just kept on looking at her. With his eyes and with his aura. He just looked at her and looked at her and looked at her and Mob, for a moment, wanted to tell him to just get on with whatever mean thing that he was planning on saying so she could go off and be lonely on her own.

The blanket next to him moved.

"This bed is too large for one person. Rolling over from a warm bed to a cool one is something unpleasant. Come here and warm this side of the bed." Said Dad. Mob wondered who this person was and what he had done with her dad. Dad hated it when she and Sho had asked to sleep with him and mom when they had been little…but mom had been there too. There hadn't been enough room. Also Sho kicked in his sleep and he would have kept everyone up.

That was a two person bed.

And she and dad were two people. So that made sense. She could maybe even pretend that mom was there and she was the one who offered to let Mob sleep in the bed with her and she cared that Mob felt sad and lonely and she was going to make her all better because that was what mom did. She loved them and she made them feel better.

She climbed into bed next to dad.

He pulled the covers up over them. He used his powers to push her more onto her side of the bed. She let him. Even if he was far away he was still letting her sleep next to him. He had never let her do this before. She wondered if maybe he was feeling lonely too…but that was crazy. Dad did not get lonely. He was a complete person all on his own. Still, this was nice. She felt a lot less lonely.

"There. That should be better than the floor." Said Dad as he turned his back to her.

"Yes. It is. Thank you dad. Goodnight." Said Mob. She still felt kind of alone…but it wasn't so bad. Not now. Not that she was near someone…and not if she pretended that he wanted her to be near him. That he was feeling lonely too. That he wanted her to be there with him because he felt like he needed someone, too.

"Goodnight, Masa-Daughter. Daughter. Goodnight Daughter. I'll see you in the morning. Sleep well." Said Dad. Mob rolled over so she was facing his back. Those had been crazy people thoughts. She knew her dad. He was never lonely. He was her dad. That was why he slept with his back to her. Because he wasn't lonely at all. He just didn't like how this side of the bed was cold.

Which kind of made her feel lonely.

"You too dad…sleep well." Said Mob. She still sort of felt lonely…but this wasn't so bad. She was at least near someone…even if his back was to her. Even if he pushed her back to her side when she tried to get closer. That was kind of…lonely feeling….but at least she was with someone. At least wasn't alone. At least she could pretend. Pretend that she was with mom…but she had to stop pretending. But at least…but at least…

But at least he didn't kick in his sleep…at least she hoped that he didn't.