Criticizing a woman's clothing was dangerous.

Not that Daughter could have been considered a woman in any sense of the word. She was female but still just a child. He still knew, though, not to criticize what she wore. Adults or children he knew how sensitive women could be about their clothing. He didn't understand it. In nature it was the males of the species that had to put on a show to attract mates. Women really had the advantage when it came to mate selection.

Not that Daughter was anywhere near that age.

But he still knew not to question her clothing choices. She might not take it well. Masami hadn't and he hadn't even meant anything by it when he had asked her why she wore such uncomfortable shoes on their dates. She had been the one to bring it up, too, how much her feet hurt. He just asked a simple question and that turned into….something. He didn't even know what. She had just gotten very short with him and then ended their date early.

Which made no sense because she had been the one to bring up how much her feet hurt.

"Do you think that it's too late to call Fukuda? My feet really hurt." Said Daughter

"It's never too late to call him, that's what I keep him around for." Said Suzuki. They were on the couch, now, watching television. This was a documentary about the evolution of the common housecat. Something that he had chosen specifically for Daughter. She and son had an affinity for those creatures. They really were useful and fascinating…but they were not getting a pet. Thank God that Son wasn't there to start about how badly he wanted a pet. Son was asleep. This was Suzuki's time with Daughter.

She really was good company.

Even if she did complain, sometimes, though he did not blame her for complaining. Her feet were red, swollen, and covered with blisters. He wondered why women chose to wear such uncomfortable shoes. He knew that shoes that Daughter was walking around in. He had heard them slapping against the ground when she and Son played outside. They were plastic and loud and weren't good for walking if the state of her feet was anything to go off of.

He did not understand the opposite sex and he never would.

"I just don't want to wake him up. It's really late." Said Daughter. She laid her head down against his side. She was tired. That was the first sign. She leaned against him and eventually her head ended up in his lap and she closed her eyes and drifted off. Usually he carried her to her bed when that happened. Sometimes he let her sleep there if she seemed comfortable. The last thing he wanted to do was wake her up and then have her being unable to fall back asleep. It was those nights when he would put a pillow under her head and cover her with a blanket and brush the hair from her face and just watch her sleep for a short amount of time. There were times, rare ones, where he would carry her to his bed. Those were the times when she would try to move but she would wake up, grab him, and ask him not to leave her.

She was good company.

He wondered what sort of night this would be. She had been in some sort of emotional distress, before, due to a quarrel with Son. They were quarreling more and more frequently these days. He had no idea why. Maybe they were getting older. Maybe this was one of those things which preceded their oncoming adolescence. He remembered that period of his life. A lot of anger back then….

And he hadn't had a sibling to direct that anger at.

"That looks painful." Said Suzuki. She reached down and pulled up the hem of her nightgown. Well it looked more like a ball gown to him but all of her clothes looked like ball gowns. He wondered what that was about, too. She had always dressed in those sorts of things but he remembered her wardrobe having more variety. He sort of understood that. He had several copies of the same suit he cycled through. He found what he looked good in so why not have nine of the same suit? Masami had always called him ridiculous.

Daughter understood him.

As much as she was capable of understanding him, anyway. Decades separated them. Gender separated them…though for some odd reason he got on better with her than he did with Son. She was just more like him…somehow. Maybe because she had spent so much time with him…though she had always sought him out. Son used to seek him out but now those times were becoming few and far between. That was both good and bad. He was being pestered less but he also got to see fewer of Son's drawings. He had a real talent for artistic expression.

He got that from his mother.

"It is. Especially the white things." Said Daughter. She poked at one of her blisters. He shuddered. He wondered why she didn't just wake Fukuda up and demand that he heal her. That was what he was for and it wasn't as though he was far away. He had to be near, now, because through some genetic quirk Son had developed a deadly citrus allergy. Maybe Fukuda would have been too drained, maybe, since it had been quite a day.

Lots of new Scars.

"Those are blisters. They come from wearing improperly fitted shoes." Said Suzuki. He patted her on the head. Poor child.

"Oh. So then I guess that I shouldn't have Fukuda fix my feet, then, because they'll just get hurt again." said Daughter. That made sense…in a strange sort of way. There was no sense in doing the same thing over and over again, that was true, but he knew that he would never have been able to live with pain like that. He hated pain.

Pain was hard to exorcise.

"You wouldn't be in pain anymore. There's always that." Said Suzuki. He allowed his hand to meet her hair. Her hair was so soft, so very soft, that he couldn't help it. She was his child. This was not a show of weakness. If you could pet a cat then you could pet a child and since he did not have or want a cat then he had might as well pet his child. Children were kind of like pets. They were small and made messes and were underfoot all the time. Kind of like pets.

Their presence was much more enjoyable than that of a pet.

"There is but I don't want to make more work for him. I don't want him to get too tired to use his powers. Sho might accidentally eat more citrus. If he eats more citrus then he could almost die again…that had been scary…and I know that I'm not supposed to get scared of things but Sho almost died and that…that was scary. I don't want Sho to die." Said Daughter. He could see her aura. That had been disturbing to her.

For him as well.

He expected attempts on his life. He even expected his enemies to go after his children. Even an accident would not have been out of the realm of possibility….but that had not been an accident. It had been a grapefruit. One of the best of all fruits, not sweet at all, and he had enjoyed them….before Son almost died. Before he had almost lost his only child. The only thing of Masami he had left. Her child. Their child. The one that they had made together.

He had taken one of Son's drawings to work with him.

And that could have been the last of Son's drawings that he had ever seen. That he had ever taken to work with him. That he had ever looked down at when his day grew long and tedious. He had left with two children and could have come home to only one. He had come so close to losing his child, his son, and it had been disturbing.

He would allow Daughter her emotions.

He understood her.

"Your brother is not going to die. I won't allow it." Said Suzuki

"You can tell people not to die?" asked Daughter

"I can do everything in my power to keep your brother alive." Said Suzuki. Death was one of the few things that he had no control over. He could have died in the last attempt on his life, a suitcase bomb, but he hadn't. His Son could have died from something as simple as eating a grapefruit. His Daughter could have died that evening when she slipped on the garden path because of those ridiculous shoes she had been wearing. He could have lost Masami-

He had lost Masami.

"Because you love him?" asked Daughter

"Because he's my Son." Said Suzuki. He really did not like that word. 'Love'. It encompassed so much that it didn't even encompass anything. People loved people and cats and dogs and eating and drinking and all sorts of things. He cared for Son. Son was annoying, underfoot, loud, hyperactive, but also his Son. There was caring there, beneath it all, not as much as for Daughter and not anything like he had felt for Masami but there was caring. The children knew that.

They knew that he cared for them.

"Oh…but you love Sho, right? Like you love me?" asked Daughter. He cared for Daughter a bit more than he cared for Son. She was just more compatible to him. That was all. She was easier to be around. She was even…she was even a bit more like Masami than he was…even though that made no sense. Son was all that he had left of Masami. There was so much of her in him. She had always been creative and intelligent, and there was an intelligence to him beneath all of the impulsivity, and there was even some of the look of her in their Son….

He cared for both of the children.

"I care for you and your brother. You know that." Said Suzuki. The children could be so strange sometimes. Of course he cared for them. He would have left them at a child prison, orphanage, if he hadn't. They knew that was what happened to children who were unwanted. Many of their shows and movies starred orphans. He had never understood that. That was not something to strive for. Maybe some part of Daughter remembered her old life. If she did then she had never told him….

And he was not about to ask.

"I know it but Sho doesn't. I told him that you don't hate him but he doesn't think that you like him. I know that you must like us at least a little." Said Daughter

"You're correct in your assumption, Daughter." Said Suzuki. She was laying down more on him. Their show played in the background. He wondered if she understood enough English to follow it. She was watching, at least, and he could see her aura. She was settling down for the night. It was late for her. Children needed a lot of sleep. He wondered if she would allow herself to be carried to her bed.

Or maybe his.

Which he knew was a sign of weakness. He should have been complete on his own. He had spent weeks, or even months, on end away from Masami. He had slept on his own for all of those weeks and months and it had been fine. Maybe because he knew that he had her to come home to. He wished that he could just exorcise those emotions, all of them, connected to her. The he could just pick Daughter up and lay her down on her bed and then be done with her.

Her presence was pleasant.

"I love you, dad." Said Daughter. She said that sometimes. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Masami had told him that she loved him, too, in the same random way that Daughter said it. It was off hearing those words from Daughter. That was why he didn't like that word, it encompassed too much. The love that Masami meant was worlds different from the love that Daughter meant.

"I care for you as well." Said Suzuki. He used his powers to bring a blanket over to her. The children had built some sort of fort. He hoped that they didn't take this too badly, the destruction of their fort, because he did not need this sort of annoyance. Not with what he had to deal with.

She shifted again. She seemed as though she were still in pain. It pained him that she was in pain. Her being in pain made him think of the times that he had been in pain. He hated pain. Be it the little things like cutting himself shaving or misjudging the temperature of a cup of tea…or the bigger pains like being torn between two super dense gravity masses…

Or the pain he woke up with every morning.

"Have Fukuda fix you up in the morning. I can't stand to see you in pain like that." Said Suzuki

"Ok….I will." Said Daughter. She shifted. He covered her again. It was cold in there. The children had turned up the air conditioning as high as it would go. He did not disapprove. It was summer…high summer as Masami would have called it. She liked spring and fall best. She had always enjoyed mild weather. He wondered if she was beating the heat wherever she was….

He didn't care.

She was a traitor. She had left him. She had left him and the children and that made her a traitor. He did not have room for those who were not loyal. For those who would seek to harm him. She had harmed him. She had worried him and pained him and she didn't even care. She had just walked out that door without a care for him or the children or their life together-

"I really will, dad, you don't have to get upset. You know that I would never lie to you. I love you and when you love someone you never lie to them." Said Daughter. She had put her hand over his in an attempt at comfort. He didn't need comfort. He was a complete person on his own. He took his hand from hers.

And then he sat her back up.

"See to it that you do. Also wear some practical shoes so you don't end up like this again. I can't stand to see you in this state, Daughter." said Suzuki. He was cold. That was just because they had been sharing body heat, that was all. The room they were in was much too cold. That was all.

"Those are the only shoes I have left." Said Daughter

"Then have the Awakened get you some new ones and some for your brother as well. His shoes are in terrible condition." Said Suzuki. Masami had been the one to get the children new clothes when they needed them. He had no idea how to buy children's clothing and the children, it seemed, had no idea how to purchase their own clothing. He hadn't wanted to criticize what she wore, it was dangerous ground, but she was being ridiculous.

"I don't….we don't want new shoes." Said Daughter

"Your feet are covered in blisters and Son's shoes are held together with tape. You need new shoes." Said Suzuki

"But we don't want to wear new shoes. We don't want different ones. We like the ones we have." Said Daughter

"Then have the Awakened get you new versions of your old ones." Said Suzuki. He understood not wanting new shoes. He had found a pair of shoes that he liked so those were the only shoes that he was going to wear for the rest of eternity. He fully planned on being buried in his usual suit and shoes. He didn't see a reason why he shouldn't have been. It was different, though, for him because he was fully grown. The children probably did not have the option of finding their perfect outfits and wearing them until the day they died and then for some time afterwards.

They really didn't.

He had been their age, once, and he had completely upended the children's section of the department store his mother always shopped at. He had a…shirt…it was blue and had a giant robot on it. He couldn't remember which one, some show that he liked, but he did remember how painful it had been when he grew out of it. When he couldn't even pull it down over his stomach. His mother had gotten him two, the original and one in the next size up, but that had been ages before….before he grew out of them both…and then by the time they made it to the store they didn't carry it anymore…

That had not been a good day.

But then his mother had gotten him another blue shirt, three sizes up, and then that had never happened again. Maybe that was the way that the children felt about their shoes. He hadn't know much about what they wore, he hadn't had to notice these things before, but he had to notice now. He was the one who clothed them, now, after all.

"But we don't want-" said Daughter

"I know how attached a person can get to their clothing. Your clothing is an outward expression of who you are, a bit like your aura, but something that is under your control. I understand but I need you to understand, too, that you need to wear properly fitted shoes. There is no point at all in getting upset over clothing. You need to wear shoes, that is not up for debate, so get some new ones that are as close to what you had before and then when you find ones you like get enough pairs that they'll last you for the rest of your life…or at least until you go up a shoe size." Said Suzuki

"I…yes, dad, I'll do that." Said Daughter. That had been a lot less painful than he had imagined. Maybe because he wasn't criticizing her, not really, just pointing out a fact. She needed shoes that fit. Simple. There was no reason for her to wear shoes that pained her. He didn't even know why she would wear shoes like that…..

He'd ask her later.

Because it was dangerous ground criticizing a woman's choice in clothing. Not that he was criticizing her….and not that she was a woman yet. Still a child. She'd be a child until she wasn't. He didn't know when that day would come but he knew that it was coming. She would maybe make more sense…or less sense….when she got older. He didn't know. He had no idea what she would grow up to be, what she would be like.

He hoped that she never changed.

Because she was so pleasant to be around now. So agreeable. Even after he had criticized her choice in clothing she remained pleasant and agreeable. He hoped that she carried this with her long into her adolescence and her adulthood. He knew that adolescents could be difficult, at least that was what people said, but he could never imagine Daughter being anything other than her agreeable self.

She really was an agreeable person. A pleasant one. He loved that about her.