There was no reason to call it a grapefruit.

It may have been a fruit but it neither looked nor tasted like grapes. At least Sho figured that it didn't taste like grapes. He didn't really like fruit all the much, he'd eat it when he had to, but citrus fruits were the worst. The worst things on this entire world to eat. That was why he didn't have a grapefruit. It smelled like citrus so it must have, therefore, also tasted like citrus.

"You wouldn't like this, Sho, it's a citrus fruit." Said Mob. Sho had been staring at her breakfast all morning. She didn't know why. He had waffles. Waffles with chocolate chips and powdered sugar. She wanted some…but dad was having a grapefruit so she would too.

"I know it's a citrus fruit and I don't want any. I'm not dumb." Said Sho. He stabbed his food with his fork. He wouldn't have eaten that even if someone paid him all the money in the world. Why people ate citrus he didn't understand. It just tasted bad and made your mouth itch. Who would want to eat something like that?

"I wasn't calling you dumb, I would never call you dumb, I just saw how you were looking at my grapefruit and I thought that you might want to try it." Said Mob as she dug her spoon into her grapefruit half. She didn't much like this but dad did. Sho would hate this. This was not sweet. Fruit was meant to be sweet and this was not sweet but it was a fruit…a grapefruit…even though it neither looked nor tasted like a grape. Maybe it was just named to confuse people, like apple jacks cereal which did not taste like apples or was shaped like jacks.

Things had weird names, sometimes.

"You should. It's good for you." Said Suzuki. He didn't know why he subjected himself to meals with the children. They were so quarrelsome even at this hour of the morning. Or maybe Son was just being ridiculous again.

"I don't care if it's good for me. It's still gross." Said Sho. He never ate things that were good for him and he was fine. Besides, if he ever got sick then Fukuda could just fix him up. He didn't see why he needed to eat gross stuff like that just to be healthy, anyway. If things were meant to be good for you then they would taste good. Things that tasted good wanted to be eaten and things that did not taste good did not want to be eaten. That was why he wasn't supposed to eat the green berries that grew at the park with the ducks. Mom had told him that a while ago. If it tasted bad then it wasn't meant to be eaten…but then she went and tried to make him eat an orange.

"It's not that bad." Said Mob as she picked at hers with her fork. She'd eaten worse things before. This wasn't bad it was just….unpleasant. The color was too red, like blood, and it smelled too….citrusy? Maybe she had that in common with Sho. If this were sweeter then maybe it would have been better…but dad liked it so it was ok.

"Nobody's making you eat it now are they? They are not." Said Suzuki. He didn't really care what the children ate just so long as they didn't bother him about being hungry. They could eat sugar ten times a day and he wouldn't have cared. He got the feeling, though, that this was something that he should have cared about. Masami had always tried to make them eat food that could be classified as something other than sugar. His own mother had always been on him to eat what she wanted him to eat, too. As a child he had been content to live off of white rice, pickles, and nato. That was all that he would eat for every meal for a time. It had been before his parents had been afraid of him…he had been younger than the children were now. He wouldn't have minded if they decided to live off of white rice, pickles, and nato. He wondered if he should have. Maybe he gave the children too much freedom…though he did not want to deal with them when they were upset.

They could barely follow the rules that they were given as it was.

They didn't need new ones. They had enough of them. Besides, it was best to pick his battles with Son. Daughter…there were so few battles when it came to Daughter. Son was a whole other story. He wondered if he had been as contrary and willful as Son was as a child. He could only reflect on his own behavior through his own eyes, of course, and it wasn't like his parents were around to answer any questions.

"I know that I don't have to eat it I just don't know why you guys want to eat it. It doesn't look or smell like grapes. It's like an orange but worse. I don't understand it at all." said Sho

"I don't understand it either, really. It's just…it's like you said, an orange but not. It's not bad, though, just different." Said Mob

"It's better than an orange, it's less sweet." Said Suzuki. The children had the palettes of, well, children. He didn't understand them and never would. He hadn't even been able to understand the other children when he, himself, had been a child. They had always been so strange to him. The way they spent all their money on candy and arcade games….it had never made sense to him. Candy was too sweet and arcades were much too crowded and noisy. Maybe he had just never been a child. That made sense. He had never once felt like one…that he could remember, anyway. His memories of his early life were not terribly clear.

"Yes, it is. Much less sweet." Said Mob. This was definitely less sweet than an orange…but she asked for it and she was going to eat it. She wished that she had some milk to wash it down with…or maybe not. Milk and orange juice were a terribly combination so maybe milk and grapefruit were a terrible combination too. She wondered what the point of fruit that was not sweet was. Mom said that things that tasted good were good for you and things that you weren't supposed to eat tasted bad. That was why they weren't supposed to eat those green berries that grew in the park with the ducks. Sho ate them once when she was little, still little enough to ride in a stroller, and he ended up getting sick. She wondered if people were meant to eat grapefruits. They didn't taste like they were meant to be eaten.

"You guys are so weird." Said Sho. He ate his own breakfast. Dad and big sis were so weird. Mom understood him. Well she sort of understood him. He wondered if she still understood him…he hadn't seen her in so long. He wondered what she was eating for breakfast. He wondered if it was even breakfast time in Japan. He wondered if she was even still in Japan. He wondered…he wondered a lot of things about mom.

He wondered about mom.

He missed mom.

Dad was not a good substitute for her. He was….sometimes he would be nice to them. Sometimes he could be ok. Like on his birthday…or big sis' birthday….he gave them a lot of stuff and he took them a lot of places….but he never did the stuff that mom did. Not to Sho, anyway. He never played with him, just big sis, and they never watched TV anywhere or went anywhere and he never did that thing that mom did when she reached down and patted him on the head and told him that everything was ok without even using words….

Dad was never like that with him, only big sis, but he was getting better with that.

Accepting that. Dealing with that. The fact that big sis had dad and he had mom…but he didn't have mom…but he at least had still had mom for a little bit. That was enough…not really. He just told himself that it was enough. He just told himself what he wanted to hear, like how big sis was always telling him what he wanted to hear, but in telling himself what he wanted to hear he was actually making it all worse…

He thought about something else.

"Really. It's like the worst parts of all citrus fruits came together to make that." Said Sho

"You haven't even tried it." Said Mob. She wondered how many more bites it would be until it was enough. Mom had a rule where she had to at least taste what was served to her. The rule at school, back when they'd had school, was to clean her plate because there were people starving in other countries and somehow instead of sending them the food they made it better by eating all of the food. Their tutors let them eat if they were hungry, only not ice cream ever again because Sho had left a whole box of popsicles on the table and their English primers had gotten ruined. Also not peaches because their math tutor had a deathly peach allergy. Also not chips because their Japanese history tutor hated the sound of crunching. Dad had the least amount of rules about food. They could ask for whatever they wanted but he wanted them to eat everything they got so they didn't bother him about being hungry.

"I don't have to try it to know that it'll suck." Said Sho

"Don't complain about food that you're not being forced to eat…and don't use that word." Said Suzuki. At some point his Son had discovered the word 'sucks' as a substitute for worse profanity…and he was getting to that age, now wasn't he? The age when he would curse at everything….and other such adolescent annoyances. He wished that there was some way to skip the children ahead through adolescence. They'd had more birthday, he had an eight year old and a seven year old now, and he did not want to deal with the in between years. The last gasps of their childhood. Soon they'd be teenagers and then adults and then he could finally have a minute of peace.

"But it does suck." Said Sho. Sometimes things sucked. Sometimes it sucked when you woke up and your dad told you that you were moving again. Sometimes it sucked when your sister chased you around with a bar of soap and made you take a bath. Sometimes it sucked when you went to your drawings because you didn't get a chance to finish them all but a lot of them had gone missing. Sometimes it sucked when you wanted to spend the day digging holes and seeing what was in the ground but instead your dad called someone to teach you something dumb like math or history or English or Japanese or whatever. Sometimes stuff sucked and Sho was not afraid to say when it sucked. It wasn't like he was saying any bad words…and he knew a lot of them.

"You haven't even tried it…and don't say sucks." Said Mob. Even though 'sucks' was not a bad word in the least bit. Sho had said worse words, a lot worse words, when dad wasn't around. Not that Mob was ok with Sho talking like that. She wished that he wouldn't. She wished that he would…be a lot better than how he was…a lot of the time. But she still loved him. She would always love him. Even if he was kind of a complainer sometimes.

"I don't have to." Said Sho crossing his arms. He hit the table on accident when he did that but big sis caught his fork with her powers before it could hit the ground. He wished that she hadn't. He wished that she hadn't shown off like that. She showed off sometimes even though she totally said that she wasn't.

"Do too." Said Mob. She knew this fight. They could get stuck in this for what felt like hours. She knew that she and Sho were not supposed to fight…but he was being kind of ridiculous. Kind of very ridiculous. Dad did not like it when he got like this…and neither did she.

"Do not." Said Sho. She could hold this up for hours or even days. Well so could he. She did not get to win at this, too. She won at everything. She won at having powers and she won at staring contests and she won at finishing her breakfast first and she won at having a dad and she just…he was tired of her winning all the time!

"Do too." Said Mob. She wished that he would just come off of it already. He could be so…so…she didn't want to say it. Mean, sometimes, but not now. Now he was being kind of….annoying. But she didn't even think to call him that. He was her little brother. She was his big sister. He could call her bossy and annoying and all of that stuff. She could not call him that back. Dad said those mean things to him all the time. He did not need that from her too.

"Do not." Said Sho. She did not get to win. He did not have to try something to know that it was gross and he would complain about whatever he wanted to! Even food that he had never tried before. She did not get to tell him what to feel or how to feel it and neither could dad. Dad could not tell him that his feelings were wrong and that he needed to get rid of them. Neither did big sis. She never said it to his face like dad did but she was always telling him how to act and how to be. That was the same as telling him that his feelings were wrong and everything about him was wrong and…and stuff….

"Do-" said Mob. She did not like this one bit. She did not like the way he was being and she did not like the way she was feeling because of the way that he was being. She was annoyed and she felt like he was being annoying and she was mad at herself for even feeling like that. She did not like this and she wanted their fight to end and also she wanted to be done with breakfast and just…back to normal. Back to the way she and Sho were meant to be. Back to being best friends because they were brother and sister and brothers and sisters were supposed to be best friends.

"Son, stop complaining about foods that nobody is making you eat. Daughter, stop encouraging him. Both of you find something else to talk about because this is becoming tedious and draining." Said Suzuki. That was quite enough. He hated it when they were quarrelsome and he hated their debates even more. Not the fascinating ones, no, the ones like this. The ones they went around and around and around. He hated it when they went around and around on that ever spinning wheel. He did not need the annoyance, not today, not when he had all sorts of idiots to sort out. He did not want idiots at home to deal with too…not that this was his home, no, just a place to stay…and not that his children were idiots…no….they just acted like that sometimes. Even Daughter…and he had expected something better than that from Daughter.

"Yes dad. Sorry dad. We won't fight anymore." Said Mob. She did not want dad to be mad at them. Dad had enough to be upset about. He had been telling her, before, that the people at the third division were really bad at their jobs. He didn't say that it made him super upset but Mob could tell that he was. In his aura and the way he talked to her. Sometimes he told her about his troubles. When they were watching TV late at night or sometimes even when he let her sleep next to him. Those weren't super often, he was a lot more likely to kick her out of bed than let her stay, but sometimes she laid next to him in bed and he just started saying stuff.

Like that she needed to pick her people wisely or they would be useless and just drag her down.

She knew that he wasn't just giving her advice but also that he was telling her what was bothering him. She had trouble reading people, most people, but not dad. Maybe because dad was the person she spent the most time with besides Sho. Sho…she didn't even know if Sho understood himself. She figured that she had to be able to understand someone in this world so she had might as well be able to understand her own dad. Even if he didn't understand her much, too, it seemed. She was an enigma, he called her, because she was a girl he said. He said that her thoughts were operating from a completely different place than his was. Because she was little and she was a girl.

He said that when Sho got older they would understand each other better but because she was a girl she would also be very confusing to him and he would always be confusing to her.

Even though not only did she understand him that wasn't a fair way to think, either. She was a girl but being a girl didn't make her an alien or something…did it? Boys were so confusing sometimes. They were loud and they fought and did dangerous things like that time when they were at a theme park but not a Disney park and Sho got yelled at in English because he and another boy were walking, well trying to walk, on the railing for the lines and they could have gotten hurt. Sho did stupid stuff, dangerous stuff, when other boys were around sometimes. Boys were just like that when they got together…so maybe girls and boys really were so very different.

She didn't know.

She also didn't know why Sho reached across the table, took her grapefruit off of her plate, and then took a bite out of it. His eyes went wide when he took a bite out of it, and he looked like he was going to throw up maybe, and he also looked like he was going to spit on her…but he didn't. He threw her grapefruit rind at her, he had taken a bite out of it for some reason, but he did not throw up.

His mouth was super red.

"There. Now I can complain about it for as long as I want." Said Sho. His mouth was itchy. His throat was itchy. The inside of his mouth tasted like what he would imagine death would taste like. He stuck out his tongue but the air just made his mouth itchier. He wondered what would happen if the itching never went away. He was about ready to pick up his fork and start scratching the inside of his mouth until there wasn't any skin left to itch.

"You're ridiculous." Said Suzuki. He got up from the table and left the children to the work of being children. He could not wait until they were no longer children. Adults. If things were bad now he did not want to think about what their teenage years would be. Maybe he should just wait it out in some sort of bunker…on the North Pole….beneath the Arctic Ocean….totally cut off from the world. He would weather the worth of their years and then they would become adults and they would become something better than what they were now.

On his way out he picked up one of Son's drawings off the floor.

There was dark blue and then light blue. This was an underwater picture. In the picture were two domes. One of which was pink and had what looked like a representation of Son himself, the red hair gave it away, and the other one had a representation of Daughter. The triangle body was the universal symbol for female. There was pink, too, a lot of it. Domed in under water cities.

That was his Son.

He wondered what the world would look like when Son inherited it. They would build something together, maybe, something worthy of them. Of what they were. Something…perhaps. One day. When he grew up and grew out of whatever amazingly annoying phase he was stuck in right now. The phase that made him quarrel with his sister, act ridiculous, and spit so loudly that he could be heard down the hall.

"Sho, stop spiting. Come on, today after classes we were going to-" said Mob

"I can't stop spitting!" said Sho. The itchiness and the bad taste in his mouth were not going away. If anything the itchiness was spreading across his face and down his neck. He was crying a little, too, because of how itchy he was. He scraped his tongue across his teeth hard. He chewed the inside of his mouth. That didn't help either.

He heard the sink turn on.

"Here. Maybe some water will help." Said Mob. He hated citrus fruits. He would not even taste citrus gum. That didn't mean that he had to spit all over the table and make dad leave. She wished that dad had stayed…sort of. She liked being with dad when he was in a good mood…and there was a higher chance of him being in a good mood if he was with her. Dad was in a bad mood sometimes when he came back from work. He would be in an even worse mood than normal when he got home thanks to Sho and the ridiculous way he was when it came to citrus….no. She could not be mean to him even in her head. She was his big sister, she would not let herself think mean thoughts about her.

"It won't go away." said Sho as best as he could. Talking was getting kind of hard, too. His throat was scratchy and his eyes were itchy and watery, too, and it was getting hard to breathe, too.

"You shouldn't get yourself so worked up, it's only a fruit. I know that it was weird and gross and tasted nothing like a grape at all but you don't have to get yourself all worked up and stuff." Said Mob. She was kind of…tired. She was tired and it was only seven in the morning. Well seven forty five…or maybe more like eight, then. Too early to get into this with her brother. They had school stuff to do anyway and she wanted to get done with it so they could go off and do something fun.

"It's….terrible." said Sho. He tried to drink the water but he just ended up coughing it up…and then he just kept on coughing. Big sis hit him on the back. She wasn't helping…and he was not getting himself all worked up. No, this was different. It had always been bad, his mouth had always gotten itchy, when he ate citrus fruit but….but it had never been as bad as this before.

"Sho…you're getting all spotty…" said Mob. She took back all the means things that she had said and thought about him. This was all her fault. She had been much too mean this morning and now he was getting sick. He had…she didn't know what he had but he was coughing a lot and his skin was all splotchy. This was bad and scary and she still wished that dad would have stayed because this was scary and she didn't know what was happening or what she was supposed to do and-

The kitchen table flipped over.

The fridge fell forward.

She didn't know if it was her or Sho and she…she was getting scared….and she didn't care if she got scared and dad saw and got mad because then if dad saw and got mad then….then he would at least have been there. He would have been there and he would have known what to do because even if he was mean sometimes he always knew what to do.

"Call….F-Fu-Fuku-Fukuda…" said Sho. He was scared. He was scared and the kitchen was broken and he didn't know how much of that was him and how much of that was big sis and he didn't care. He just didn't want to die. He wondered if this was what it felt like to die. He wondered if he was going to stop breathing and then die of not breathing…or even he would maybe die of itching if that was something that people could die of.

He didn't know.

All he knew was that he needed Fukuda. He needed Fukuda right then and there…and big sis went off to call him…and left him all alone. The room shook less without her in it…but it was still shaking a little…and then at least that was him shaking it and if he died then he could at least die knowing that he'd had powers….

He didn't die.

But he was not allowed to ever have citrus ever again.

"I knew it. Since you were a little more than two years old I knew it. You're allergic to citrus. We knew it." Said Fukuda as he finished up as best as he could. Sho had been….he had been in a bad way. Thank God that Shigeko called him when she had. How could Suzuki just let his Son suffer like that? Just leave his kids all alone when one of them was like that?

"Was I going to die?" asked Sho. He felt better. He could talk and breath but his eyes were still watery. That may have had to do with how…how it had been so scary…even though he was not supposed to be scared of anything. He was supposed to be brave. He was…he was supposed to be a lot of things. He had failed to be all of those things…

"Nope. You're going to be just fine little guy. No concussions, contusions, of abrasions." Said Fukuda. He said it with much more levity than he felt. He said it like this was all normal. Sho had never gotten along with citrus…and it had never been that bad before. That kid…that poor little kid…he had been all alone…well almost all alone. A seven year old all alone with only his eight year old sister in charge. Shigeko may have been older, now, and she may have been unusually responsible but she was still only eight years old.

He should have been there.

Masami….she would never have forgiven him if she knew….not that he would tell her. She checked in about once every few months to make sure that the kids were alive and to ask how progress on getting Sho to her was going. It had been almost a year since she had made her escape. She was teaching English and living in some nondescript one room. Not the best place for Sho….but any place was better than this. Better than almost dying….maybe and exaggeration and maybe not…he didn't know. He was a healer, he could just heal when something was wrong, he didn't have to know specifically what was wrong and how bad. He just healed.

Poor kid.

"Is he better yet?" asked Mob. They were in the living room now. The kitchen was a mess…and she was not about to leave Sho's side even though she knew that she needed to fix the mess that she had made. She didn't want to be away from Sho. She didn't want to be all alone without Sho…and she would have been if Fukuda hadn't come in time…and it was all her fault for being mean to him…

She would never be mean to her little brother, even in her head, ever again.

She didn't know what she would have done without Sho. She would have been all alone with dad…which a lot of the time was just being all alone end of discussion. She had no mom and…and she almost had no little brother, too. She would have only dad…and she loved dad…but she also wanted to have Sho, too.

"Yup. He's all better now. What about you? Any concussions-" said Fukuda

"No. No concussions, contusions, or abrasions. I'm fine. Sho was the one who needed you." Said Mob. She was fine. Fukuda could see that she was fine. Sho was the one who hadn't been fine. Sho was the one who had needed him. Sho. Always Sho. Always think about Sho and…and how wonderful he was…and not how annoying he could be.

She should not have been thinking those sorts of thoughts about her own little brother.

"Hey, that's my line." Said Fukuda. He reached over and patted her on the head. She seemed…closed off. Even for her. It made sense. She'd had a scare. She'd been all alone with her brother when that had happened. He wanted…he wanted to always be there for her. For both of them. He had promised Masami that he would look after her children…and he had been doing a piss poor job of it lately.

He had promised Masami many things.

There was the door. The Awakened were out there….but they had moved. They had moved…he could only tell that they were not at their posts. He did not have Shigeko's range. He wasn't anywhere near her level. She was…she was something else…and she was so bright and…and her aura was so bright…

Shigeko was too hard to hide.

The door was right there. Sho was right there. He was there. He had made so many promises to Masami. He had promised her that he would….and the door was right there…and from what he could tell the door was unguarded…because they had been afraid of an eight year old girl…and it would have been so easy to….

"How about you and I get some air? Shigeko, you hold down the fort." Said Fukuda. He just needed to get Sho out that door. He'd work on the logistics of how to get him to his mother later. He just needed to get his son out the door.

Her son.

He just had to get her son out the door. Out the door and then…and then back to his mother where he belonged. Shigeko….she was such a good kid but there was no way to take her, to hide, her, and there was no way that Suzuki would have let her slip through his fingers. She was his pride and joy. Sho was just the person he had made and then been disappointed by…

Suzuki would be pissed but he'd get over it.

"We're not supposed to leave yet." Said Mob as she followed them to the genkan. Well it was more like a rug they had put on the floor near the door to serve as a proper genkan. She did not want to be alone….and she did not want to give dad yet another reason to be angry with them. If he found out that they missed school…he would not have been happy with them at all.

And also she did not want to be alone.

"Oh, we'll just be out there for a minute. Your brother just needs some air." Said Fukuda. Just out the door. Out the door and then he could figure out the rest later. Out the door and into the city and then-

"We're not supposed to leave yet. It's a rule." Said Mob. She saw her aura, there, and she knew that she should not have been letting it show like that. Power was nothing without control. Conceal, don't feel. All of that sort of stuff. She knew that she had to control her powers….

Sometimes it was so hard.

"Rules are made to be broken, right?" said Fukuda as he slipped back into his shoes. Out the door. Out the door and…and then he could figure out the rest later. Back to Japan. Back to Masami. He had a head start. Suzuki was busy with the debacle that had happened at the division headquarters. Time was on his side. All he had to do was get on a plane…passports…or a boat….passports…or maybe-

"I-I don't know…" said Mob. Rules were not made to be broken. Rules were made to be followed otherwise your dad got mad at you and then he liked you less and didn't spend time with you…and that was sad. That was the sort of thing that made you wake up feeling all sad and stuff….and then he wouldn't even let you be near him when you felt like that because he was mad at you because you broke so many rules….

"Don't worry, we'll be right back. You just hang out here and wait for your teacher, ok?" asked Fukuda. He just had to go out the door and then-

Something held him in place.

"Don't leave me all alone. Don't go outside and leave me all alone. We can't go anywhere anyway. Thank you for helping us, Fukuda, but we can't go with you. You can go now." Said Mob. She did not want to be alone. She wanted her little brother…and she wanted her dad to love her…and she wanted everything to be ok…and it wasn't ok. She had still broken the kitchen and Sho had still gotten hurt and dad would still be mad at her…and she didn't want him to be any more mad at her then he was most certainly going to be because of all of this…

"Right. I wouldn't want to keep you. Goodbye Sho, goodbye Shigeko. Don't hesitate to call if you need me." Said Fukuda. Shigeko was adopted. He knew that Shigeko was adopted. She had zero blood relation to Suzuki…but in that moment she had looked just like her father. Like she had been dismissing him. Before…she had clung to his leg and begged him to stay…when she had been younger. Now she was…she was ordering him around like she was her father ordering one of his subordinates around…

She looked just like her father.

Her aura was touching his and for a moment he forgot that she was just an eight year old girl. She was as strong as an adult, as powerful as an adult, actually she was more powerful than most adults. Himself included. She could have thrown him across the room. She could have picked him up and thrown him and there would have been nothing that he could have done. He wasn't psychokinetic. He had no way to stop her if she decided to…to be even more like her father than she was now…

She was an eight year old girl.

"Goodbye, Fukuda." Said Mob. He was looking at her like he looked at dad and he was talking to her like she was dad…and she didn't like it at all. She didn't like hearing that from Fukuda. He wasn't one of the weird aura guys, he was someone she had known for her entire life, and she wanted…she wanted to go with him…or she wanted him to stay and play…

But both options would have gotten her in trouble.

And they were in enough trouble.

So after Fukuda left she took Sho to the kitchen, flipped the table back to the way it was supposed to be, and then waited. She sat and she waited and she tried her best to be calm and to keep her aura and her emotions calm. Sho was doing a better job of it than her, though…

"Big sis?" asked Sho. He didn't know what he wanted to say. Maybe he wanted to tell her that he was sorry that he had freaked her out. That he was sorry that he had eaten the grapefruit even though he knew that he would end up getting sick. He also wanted to tell her that it was her fault that he had gotten sick because he had been right, he knew that he would have been right, and that she shouldn't have taken dad's side like that…

"Yes, little brother?" asked Mob. She wanted to tell him that she was sorry that she had let him get sick. She was sorry that she had been so mean to her. She wanted to tell him that she cared about him and that he was her best friend and that she never wanted to be without him. She exorcised the mean thoughts from her mind. Thoughts like the fact that nobody had made him eat the grapefruit and that she had, in fact, told him not to. Thoughts that she knew she was not supposed to have about her own little brother.

She loved him so much.

"Grapefruit sucks." Said Sho. He, for once, did not want to fight with her. Not when she was like that. Not when she was sitting like dad and talking like dad and all of that stuff…and he did not want to fight. He just wanted the day to go on as normal…and not just because he had almost died from eating a grapefruit.

"It does…it really does…but you know what I don't understand?" said Mob. She wanted things to go back to the way that they were supposed to be. She wanted them to go back to being best friends. They were supposed to be best friends. They were brother and sister so of course they were supposed to be best friends.

"What?" asked Sho. He wanted them to go back to being normal. To being big sis and Sho. He wanted her to go back to being big sis, even it meant that she was bossy and annoying, because she was sounding and acting way too much like dad. He didn't want her to be like dad. Dad was like dad and that was enough of a dad to last him for the rest of his life.

"Why do they call it a grapefruit in the first place?" said Mob. She smiled, well she tried to, because his wanted them to be happy again…to be normal again…for things to go back to normal again…or as normal as things could possibly be in their messed up family.

"Yeah….there's no reason to call it a grapefruit." Said Sho. He smiled, too, because…because she was being normal again. She was agreeing with him. She agreed that it was a weird and gross food. Dad liked it but she didn't. That was good. That was perfect.

She didn't know, either, why it was called a grapefruit….and for some reason that was awesome. She was still his big sis.