Mob's hair was in her eyes.

Mom used to cut their hair, hers and Sho's, but mom wasn't there. Dad got his hair cut every so often and he took Sho with him. He didn't take Mob with because she was a girl and girls were supposed to have long hair. At least that was what Mob figured. Mom had always said that she couldn't cut her hair because she was a girl and she also had very nice hair.

Well mom had said that she didn't have to get her hair cut but that was pretty much the same thing as telling her that she couldn't get her hair cut.

She liked her hair. Sometimes. Not the part where she had to brush and braid it every day, she had to do it by hand or else she would end up accidentally pulling her hair so it took a while, but she did like how long it was. It was fun to spin around with her hair down and stuff. Plus dad said that her hair was nice. He was always giving her head pats, like mom did with Sho, and that was nice even though she should have been telling him to give Sho head pats because he needed it.

She gave Sho head pats so maybe it all evened out.

Sho had nice hair, too. It was fun to touch. It stood up on it's own and was so fun to push down and watch spring back up. He didn't really like that too much so she didn't do it that often. She didn't know why he didn't like his hair. She wished that she had hair like his. Even if she had to keep it short she would have wanted hair like his. That way she could have matched him and dad. It wasn't fair. They were both half Japanese but she got all the Japanese and he got all the half. Back in Japan she had looked like everybody else but here she was different.

Well she was always different.

Dad said that she was a rarity, which meant that there were not a lot of people in the world who were like her. People with powers like hers. She was a prodigy, dad said, and she was second only to him. That meant that out of everyone in the whole world the only person stronger than her was dad. She didn't care about being stronger than everyone else. Sho did. She wished, and had wished for a while, that she and Sho could have swapped places. She could have been the one with hardly any powers and he could have been the one with all the powers in the world or whatever other nice thing dad was planning on saying to her.

Maybe Sho would get more powers for his birthday.

She hoped that he did. Even though she was not sure how that would go about happening she really, really, really wanted him to get more powers. So far all he could do was move stuff, light stuff, when he got super mad. That was not useful at all, dad's words, and Mob wished that he would have said something nice. He could be really nice sometimes…to her. Sometimes to Sho but those times were super rare. Like when Sho drew something cool and dad said that he liked it. He also always stole Sho's drawings, to, which was not nice…maybe dad was just bad at being nice. Mob didn't know.

She knew that he would be nicer to Sho once he got his powers.

She knew because dad had been nice to her for her entire life. She couldn't remember a time when she hadn't had her powers and she couldn't remember a time when dad had not been nice to her. Well there was time after when mom left when he hit her a lot…but that was her fault for making her mad. Just because he hit her sometimes, not in a very long time, didn't mean that he didn't love her. He did. He cared for her. That was the same as telling someone you loved them. She didn't know why dad didn't just come out and say it if he loved her. Maybe he just didn't know how. That might have been it.

Dad loved her.

And he loved Sho, too. He must have. Even if he had been kind of mean to Sho, before, because Sho had been too freaked out to sleep so he was bothering her and dad when they had been trying to watch TV, even though Mob would not have called it bothering, and then Dad told him to get lost. He was just freaked out about what happened back at the Awakening compound. She was freaked out about it too but she didn't say anything. She knew better than to say anything. Dad hated it when things bothered her, when she let things get to her, and stuff like that. Even though that had been such a scary place….

She tried not to think about that.

She thought about what she was doing. She turned the bathroom lights on, all of them even the mirror lights, and she looked at herself in the mirror. She used her powers to make herself tall enough to make eye contact with herself. Her hair was in her eyes. She had to cut it. Mom had always cut it for her but now she had to cut it herself. That was also kind of scary…because she could mess up and ruin her hair…but it was hair so it didn't matter. It would grow back….but of course in the time it took for it to grow back people would make fun of her for being bald….not that she was going to cut her hair bald….

Just her bangs.

They were in her eyes and it was getting annoying so of course she was going to cut them. She put the bowl on her head. This was the bowl that they used for popcorn. Mom had put a popcorn bowl on her head too…but maybe that bowl had been a different size. Mob didn't know. She really didn't know anything about cutting hair besides the fact that she had to brush it first and to use a bowl to cut her bangs.

Mom should have done this.

But mom wasn't there. Mom wasn't there to do this. Mom knew what to do. Mom always knew what to do. Mom should have taught her how to cut her hair if she was planning on leaving. She should have taught her how to cut Sho's too and also how to do…a lot of mom stuff. Sho was always telling her that she was not mom, that she shouldn't have been trying to be mom, and she had not been trying to be mom. She was just trying to be…to be there for him. If she had been trying to be mom then she would have done a much better job of it.

She picked up the scissors.

These were their scissors. The ones they used to cut paper with. She had made Sho's birthday card with these. It was almost his birthday. The sun was going down earlier and there was snow on the ground. It snowed a lot here in the winter. She didn't know how much longer they would be here for but she was going to make the most of it. This was another house, not a compound, and she hoped that they never went to another compound for as long as they were nomads for. She liked it here. There was a yard and the yard had snow in it and that was where Sho was. They had been playing in the snow but then her hair had been getting in her eyes even though she had tried tucking it into her else hat, the one with the braid in the back which Sho said was dumb because she already had braids, so she had come inside because she just could not take it anymore.

She had scissors in her hands, she had a bowl on her head, so there was nothing to do then besides start cutting.

It would have been easy. Just a straight line across her forehead, Mom had done it a thousand times, and it hadn't been hard at all. Not like those times when mom had taken her and Sho with her to the place where she got her hair cut. It was a salon. It was bright and the music was loud and it smelled like shampoo and hairspray. Sho had hated it. She liked it. Mom said that when she got to be too old for the bowl cut then mom would take her to the real salon. Then she could get her hair cut and her nails painted and her skin cleared up, which was when they put that mud looking stuff on Mom's face, and then she and mom could have had a mother daughter day like mom had said about before…

That was not going to happen.

Because she didn't have a mom anymore, just a dad, and dad didn't do the stuff that mom did. Dad was home, he said not to disturb him because it had been a very tiring week and he needed some peace and quiet, but she kind of wanted him to be there. Maybe he knew how to cut hair. Maybe he knew how and then he would do it for her ad then if something went wrong it would be his fault. Not that she would tell him that it was his fault. She wouldn't be so mean to her own dad. She didn't like to be mean. She wouldn't ask him, though, because he needed peace and quiet. She would just…just do it herself. She was big. She was big and she could do these things for herself. Dad was always telling her that she was big, now, and she had to start taking care of herself.

She brought her scissors up to her forehead.

She wobbled, just a little, because she had been nervous. She was holding herself up with her powers. She should have had better control than that. Dad was always telling her that she should have had better control. She was a prodigy, second only to him, and she should have been better. She could not embarrass him. She was supposed to be more than that, better than that, he had said. He was always telling her stuff like that. Things that weren't very nice.

She wished that he knew how to be nice.

If he didn't know how to be nice then he probably wouldn't have known how to cut hair…even though Mob wasn't sure how those two things were connected. Dad was smart and he knew a lot of stuff. Dad knew how to count by nines and how to tie shoes with his powers and how to read in seven different languages and also he was good at playing Chinese checkers and Go. Dad was smart at so many things but also bad at so many other things. Like being nice. She wished that he could have been better at that…but he wasn't. He was kind of like her. She was bad at talking to people and figuring out what they meant and stuff like that. She was just like dad…

Sometimes she didn't want to be.

But she didn't get to decide that stuff just like she didn't get to decide whether or not she was going to cut her hair. She had to cut her hair because it was bothering her. She would rather risk messing up her hair than going around with her hair in her eyes. It put her at a real disadvantage when she and Sho had snowball fights. Not that she was going to try very hard. She wanted Sho to win because winning made him happy and she wanted him to be happy more than she wanted anything else in the whole world. No that she was going to let him win again. The last time she had let him win he had taken a handful of snow and put it down her back.

It had been awful.

It had done down her back. It had been under her undershirt and dress and sweater and at least she hadn't been wearing snow pants, the only god thing about not having a mom was that nobody tried to make her wear snow pants, because if she had been wearing snow pants instead of tights then the melted snow would have gone down her legs too. She didn't want that at all. Sho had been sorry, he had said so, and he had ever offered to let her put snow down his back. She hadn't taken him up on that offer. That would not have made what he had done right. She would never have wanted to hurt him, either, even if it was just snow. She hated it when people got hurt. She didn't even like playing fighting games or even having snowball fights.

She would have rather built a snowman.

But they were not going to build any more snowmen. Sho hated that song and she had tried, she had really tried, but she could not stop herself from singing. It just fit, they were building snowmen, even though it also didn't fit because she and Sho were best friends. She may have been afraid of her powers, sometimes, but she was not going to shut herself away from Sho. They only had each other, it felt like sometimes, and she was not going to leave him all alone. She was his best friend and he was her best friend. They were best friends…even though he sometimes put snow down her back…but best friends could be like that sometimes…

She needed to cut her hair so she could go outside and play with Sho and also maybe end up with snow down her back.

She took a deep breath and snipped some hair at the very end of her bangs. Maybe she had taken off too much. Her bowl had shifted a little. Now her hair was uneven. Maybe. She didn't know. Maybe her hair would even out if she just cut it all off at once. Maybe it didn't even matter if she cut her hair or not. Maybe she should have just left her hair alone and let it grow into her eyes and then she could have just figured out how to get around without being able to see like a bling master or something. Like in that fighting movie Sho liked….and also liked to imitate…and also he hit really hard sometimes even if he was playing. Not that she didn't like playing with Sho, he was her little brother, and they were also best friends.

She cut off a little more of her hair.

And it was uneven. It was uneven because she wobbled. She wobbled because the energy around her had shifted. More red. Red with yellow. That was dad. He was coming out of his room. Maybe to be mad at her and Sho. They had been kind of loud that morning…and also Sho was being loud right now even though she was inside so he had nobody at all to shout at like that. He was probably just playing pretend. She needed to play with him. She wanted to play with him. She had to get this done and then go outside and play with him and make him play quietly because otherwise dad was going to be upset with them and that was the absolute last thing she wanted.

She cut off a little more of her hair.

The energy around her kept moving. Dad was moving. He was out of his room and moving towards her. He probably needed the bathroom. She had to finish this before she got kicked out. This house only had one bathroom. That was normal for this country, dad had said, but also very annoying. She and Sho took long baths, they liked to play, and also they soaked the bathroom sometimes…and dad hadn't liked that…he hadn't liked that at all…..

"Daughter, are you sure that's wise?" asked Dad. She hadn't cut fats enough and now dad had caught her. The hair that she had cut off was picked up with his powers and tossed in the trash can with their empty tube of bubblegum toothpaste, which they knew not to eat, and Sho's toothbrush because she had accidentally used his and that meant that he had no choice but to throw it away because it had sister germs on it. She should have been more careful. Like now she should have been more careful. Her hair was so uneven….

"I was just trying to cut my hair because it was in my eyes and it bothered me. I can finish some other time. You can have the bathroom." Said Mob. She hoped that dad didn't get mad at her because she had made a mess of the bathroom and of her hair. She hoped that dad didn't get mad at her for letting Sho get loud outside. The last thing that she wanted was for anyone to get punished.

"Is it supposed to be so uneven?" asked Dad. Mob shook her head. She knew that it looked bad. Now dad was telling her that it looked bad. At least she didn't have to go to school anymore. At least there weren't any other kids to make fun of her…except for Sho….but Sho didn't mean it when he was mean to her. That was just the way he was. He was bad at being nice sometimes, like dad was.

"No. I'm just bad at this." said Mob. Dad walked over and took the scissors from her hands.

"Well you are trying to cut your own hair. People are not meant to cut their own hair, you know, that's what barbers are for…or I suppose stylists since you're female. Why not just have someone else cut your hair?" asked Dad as he brushed her bangs down with her hands. Mob shrugged.

"I didn't know that I could. You didn't take me with you and Sho when you guys got your hair cut." Said Mob. Dad took the bowl off of her head and put it on the sink.

"You didn't ask…though cutting your hair would require a completely different skill set. Yours is quite a bit longer. I have no idea why you would want to cut your hair anyway. You have very lovely hair." Said Dad as he started to cut her bangs. She was facing him. She could kind of see herself in the mirror. Dad was doing a better job than she had been.

"You think my hair is pretty?" asked Mob. Dad didn't usually say nice stuff like that…and it was nice. She hadn't really thought of her hair as being pretty. It looked liked everyone else's hair. Long and black. Mom said that she had always wanted hair like hers when she had been little. She was different, she said, and when she was a kid that made her sad. Mob wished that she looked more like mom or dad or Sho. Then they could have all matched.

"It's very long and very soft. It's nice." Said Dad. He put the scissors down and used his powers to get all of her hair up and into the trash. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her bangs were even. They were even but shorter than they had ever been before…but that was because before someone else had cut her hair.

"Thanks dad….your hair is nice too. I wish that my hair was more like yours and Sho's." said Mob.

"Why?" asked Dad

"Why what?" asked Mob. She thought that what she had said made sense. She wanted to have hair like everyone else in her family. She wanted to match. She wanted to look like she belonged. Who wouldn't want to look like the rest of their family? Families were supposed to look like each other. That was how people could tell that they were a family.

"Why? Why would you ever want hair like ours?" asked Dad

"Because then we would match." Said Mob. Dad looked at her for a while. He looked at her like she was a puzzle or something from his work that he was trying to figure out. She didn't know what he was trying to figure out in what she had just said. It was pretty straightforward, as far as she knew, but she was bad at talking and stuff. Kind of like how dad was bad at stuff like being nice. Maybe they did match.

"Why does that matter? You're my daughter. Why would it matter if we're a matching set?" said Dad. It was something that made sense. Dad…he made a lot of sense. It didn't matter if she looked like Sho and dad, if they looked like a family, because she knew that they were a family. She didn't know why it mattered to her so much….the way she looked in relation to her family…

She knew that they were a family. That was what mattered.

"You're right, dad, it doesn't matter if I look like you and Sho…because we're a family. I know that we're a family and it doesn't matter if I look like you. You're still my dad." Said Mob. It was a simple fact, he was her dad, and Sho was her brother…but it was still nice to say. She just felt so…different…sometimes. It had been worse since mom was gone. Not only was she the only one with black hair and brown eyes she was the only girl, too.

But it didn't matter.

Because they were a family and they loved each other.

"Good. Now get out so I can take a bath. Go play with your brother, he's out there talking to himself. It sounds like he's starved for company." Said Dad. Sho was being loud, loud enough that he could be heard in the house, but he was just playing pretend. She wondered if dad had ever played pretend. He said that he liked things that were real, which was why the only kind of show he ever watched were documentaries, but when he was a kid he was always reading that Galaxy Express manga, he had colored in a lot of volumes of that, and he also liked shows with giant robots and stuff…but that was probably because he had been a kid, then. Dad was forty one now, he had a birthday a while ago, and maybe he was too old to remember being a kid.

Mob would have believed that.

Maybe that was why he had so much trouble understanding them. Maybe it was because he had trouble remembering how to be a kid. Maybe that was why he was always telling her that she had to grow up, too. He was always putting her in charge and stuff even though she was only eight. She wasn't nine yet, not until spring, but she didn't know if she would feel any older at nine than she did at eight. Nine was fourth grader aged. Fourth graders had always seemed so old to her, before, back when she had been a first grader. Fourth graders had shorter recess and had pierced ear and held hands with boys and stuff like that. It was so weird, really, thinking that if mom hadn't ran away she would have been a fourth grader…next year. She should have been a third grader now. Third graders had seemed super old, too. Maybe she was starting to get old. Maybe one day she would be as old as dad and she would forget how to be a kid and stuff like that.

She didn't want to end up like that.

She never wanted to forget how to play. She didn't want to forget how to be nice. When she grew up and got married and had a boy, he would be called Shigeo, and a girl, she would be called Shoko, she would play with them all the time. She would be nice to them all the time, too, even if they were mean sometimes or underfoot or something like that. She would never forget how to play, or how to be nice, no matter how old she got.

But she wasn't a grown up yet.

She wasn't forty one yet, she was eight and a half, and she didn't have any kids so that wasn't something she had to worry about now. She had a little brother, though, and dad was right. She needed to be there for him. He needed someone to play with and that someone was going to be her.

"Yes, Dad." Said Mob as she left the bathroom. She went back downstairs, but on her boots and coat and hat and scarf, and went back to playing with Sho. Even if he did play too rough, sometimes, and even if he did stick snow down her back. She was his big sister, his best friend, and she would never stop playing with him no matter what.

It was easier, now, because at least hr hair wasn't in her eyes anymore.