Mob had never met anyone with purple hair before.
Well lavender. He…? She? This person said that their hair was lavender, which was a shade of purple, but it was best to be specific with these things. They said that their hair was lavender and no, it did not grow like that, which was a dumb question for Mob to have asked. She knew that it was dumb the moment she asked it. Nobody outside of anime had purple hair that was natural, not from a salon, but then again she saw a lot of things in her daily life that were only supposed to exist in manga and anime and movies and stuff.
Like being able to control plants.
That was what this person was here to teach her how to do. She had just found out that she had the power to control plants not too long ago. Dad usually helped her with her powers but he couldn't control plants. That was weird. How could she have a power that her own dad didn't have? Dad was her dad and she had come from him so therefore she should have had all of his powers. That was how it worked.
Dad said that the scientists were still trying to figure out how it all worked.
Mob wished that they would hurry up with all of that. She didn't know why she had this power, and so far it was hard to use without messing up, and she wished that maybe dad had this power and then he just sort of ended up forgetting that he had it. Then he would be able to remember and then he would be able to help her like he always helped her. Well her and Sho…but sometimes it felt like she helped Sho more than dad did. That was ok. Dad was a very busy man. That was why he had to have someone come over to their house, not their house but one that they were staying in, and teach her how to control plants.
And also maybe watch Frozen and play dolls, if this person was a girl, or play with Sho if this person was a boy.
"Is your name actually Daughter?" they asked. Mob shook her head. They were sitting at the kitchen table. The person, dad just said 'this is your new teacher' and left. Then the person said 'so you can do it too' and then made the hanging spider plants grow super big. Then Mob had said ok. Then Sho had thrown a pencil at her because it wasn't fair that she had a power that he didn't have. In all of that there hadn't been any introductions made.
"No, my name is Suzuki Shigeko. You can call me Suzuki or Shigeko or Suzuki Shigeko….or Mob. I like Mob a lot." Said Mob. They looked up from their book, Mob didn't know any of those characters, and raised an eyebrow….well they would have if they had an eyebrow. Mob wondered what happened to their eyebrows. Sometimes mom just drew hers on when she made a mistake. Mob didn't understand why people did all of those things to their eyebrows. Most people had regular eyebrows that looked fine.
Dad's looked like caterpillars….but she would never tell him that to his face.
"Why the hell would I call you Mob? That's not a name, that's an insult, and not a very creative one either." They said. They went back to their book and turned the page. They turned the page backwards like in English. That book was in Korean. Mob knew what it looked like, she was supposed to be learning it, but she didn't know any of the characters yet. She really wanted to learn Korean mainly so she could watch that show she saw about the girl who dressed up like a ladybug and the boy who dressed up like a cat and it was kind of like shonen but also kind of like shoujo so she and Sho could watch it but it didn't have subtitles in Japanese so they really needed to learn Korean. She wondered if it was hard. She wondered if she could ask them.
She usually wasn't supposed to have conversations with the people who worked for dad.
Usually they were either supposed to do what she told them to, the Awakened, or they just came and taught her stuff and left, their tutors. Sometimes there were others, people with big scars or other people who worked for dad but didn't do anything for her and Sho. She wondered if those people were supposed to listen to her, too. She wondered if this person was supposed to listen to her. She wondered if she was even supposed to have conversations with this person.
She didn't even know if she remembered how to talk to people who weren't dad and Sho.
"Because it's something that I like to be called." Said Mob. That was what she settled on. She didn't have a big reason for it, she would just rather be Mob, and it was something that she wanted to be called. That was the one thing that the Awakened wouldn't do. They only called her Miss Suzuki. Sho was Little Suzuki. He didn't like being called 'little' and she didn't like being called 'Miss' but dad had told them that they had to be respectful of them…even if the more respectful thing to do would have been to call them what they wanted to be called in the first place. Not that she was going to argue with dad. That would not have gotten her anywhere but punished.
"Fine, whatever. You're Mob and I guess that I'm your babysitter for today….that sexist asshole…." They muttered. Mob held her braids down with her powers. She didn't know what she had said but she did know that it must have been bad if she had gotten them cursing like that. Dad said that cursing was the lowest form of speech and that she and Sho were better than dad. Dad had whole lists of things that they were better than, it seemed sometimes.
"Um….I think that you're supposed to be my tutor for today…and I'm sorry." Said Mob
"That I got pulled off the Fifth Division for this? Well thank you so much for your kind apology, Miss Mob." They said. Mob smiled. Good. They accepted her apology and now they could both be friends…or as close to friends as an almost nine year old could be with an adult. Mob wasn't picky at this point. She knew that it was wrong to feel like this, she loved Sho with all of her heart, but she really wanted to play with someone who wasn't her little brother. Or just watch TV…or read books. Whatever they felt like doing.
Mob had never had a friend over before.
But she had no idea if she and them were friends yet…or if they were even allowed to be. They were an esper, which was good because dad said that she was only allowed to be friends with espers, but they also worked for dad….so she didn't know. But they were getting off on the right foot it felt like. That was good. Maybe they could show Mob how to get purple hair. Dad had never said that she wasn't allowed to color her hair…he never gave her or Sho rules about hair and clothes and stuff. Their clothes only had to fit and also they always had to be wearing them. No going around naked when it got hot…though Sho was the only one out of the two of them to do that. He didn't understand why it was a rule and Mob didn't either. She and Sho had been taking baths together for their whole lives and dad was a boy like Sho was a boy. Dad just said that they were not animals and they had to wear clothes all the time. Then he said that Sho was tiring…which he could be.
A crash came from the living room.
"I'm ok!" shouted Sho from the other room. Then there was another crash. Mob got up to see what was happening. He didn't need her. He was just playing something that involved jumping on the furniture. It didn't matter if they broke anything, this wasn't their house anyway.
"I'm sorry for being a bad host and leaving you alone. I just had to check on my little brother." Said Mob. It was important to be polite when you were trying to make new friends. She really, really, really wanted a friend. Even if they were kind of quiet…but that was ok, she was kind of quiet too. They could read books together….or something…..
She didn't know if she remembered how to hang out with someone who was not Sho.
"Does he have an off switch?" They asked. Mob shook her head. She knew that it was a saying, she sometimes had trouble with those, but she knew that they were just being funny. That was good. She was getting better at getting a clue. Maybe she'd be all the way better by the time she was nine.
"No. That's just how Sho always is. He'll get tired eventually, though, and then he'll draw and he's always pretty quiet when he draws. That's when I do my homeschool homework." Said Mob. She sat back down on the table. Her tablet was charging in front of her. She wondered if it would be rude of she started reading something too…or maybe it was more rude not to be reading something when someone else was reading. She didn't know, there were a lot of rules, and back when she had gone to school and played with other kids she hadn't known that there even were rules until she broke them.
Then everyone laughed at her.
"Good. Well then I guess that we'll just sit here until he exhausts himself or we die of old age, whichever comes first." They said
"Um….I think that he'll get tired before we get old….and also we don't have to sit here. If you don't want to teach me about my plant powers we could-" said Mob
"It's not that I don't want to, well yeah I don't want to, but it's also the fact that I have no idea how the hell I'm supposed to teach you. I'm not a teacher. I was a florist before all of this and now, well, you're way too young to know what it is that I do in Claw." They said
"I'm almost nine." Said Mob. She was not young. She hated it when people said that she was too young, well they didn't say that or much of anything beyond 'yes, Miss Suzuki' these days but back when she had a mom she was always being told 'you're too young'….which made no sense. Mob may have been a kid but she was not young. She couldn't remember ever feeling young.
"Yeah, you're way too young to know. Call me back when you're ten at least." They said. Mob nodded, she could do that. Ten was way older than almost nine. Ten was in the double digits…not that she knew what made that so important, just that it was. She wondered what things would be like when she was ten….probably more of the same. When she was little she used to look forward to going on to the next grade and being taller and also going on trips with dad. Now she wasn't in any kind of school at all, was so tall that she needed new clothes, and her life was one never ending trip with dad….so what was there even to look forward to anymore?
Making a new friend.
"Ok, I will. Um….do you like…stuff? I mean do you like the stuff that I like. I mean what kind of stuff do you like?" asked Mob. That was important when getting to know someone and making a friend. They said that they didn't want to be her teacher so maybe instead they could be friends. She hoped that they could be friends.
"I like not being bothered while I'm trying to work but I guess that ship has sailed. I like to read, I like to drink, I like to do travel, and I like a lot of things that you're way too young to know about." They said. Mob frowned a little. She didn't like being told that she was young…but they said that Mob could ask again when she was ten. That meant that they would still be talking to her when she was ten. That meant that they might have wanted to be friends with her….and that was so wonderful!
"…do you like cats?" asked Mob quickly. She needed to know what they had in common. Friends were supposed to have all sorts of things in common. Like her and Sho. They both like to go sledding and they both liked Disney movies and they both liked cats, though he liked hamster better, and they were both espers and they both like bubble baths and warm milk and hot chocolate in the summer and ice cream in the winter and a whole lot of other stuff. She didn't know if she would ever meet someone who was a better friend than Sho but she really, really, really wanted more friends.
"They're alright, I guess. Not a fan of the constant shedding and pissing in the house but, hey, there's no pets allowed in Claw so whatever." They said. Mob would have to change that rule when she took over after dad…or she would have to ask Sho too because he was a boy and boys were the ones who did the inheriting. Mob would have so many cats, at least ten or fifteen, and she did have to agree about the shedding and peeing everywhere. Whenever she and Sho and mom went to the shelter mom always gave her and Sho a bath and washed their clothes when they got home. Ok, she and them had something in common. She wondered what else the two of them had in common. Only one way to know.
"Do you like milk?" asked Mob. That was important. Milk was delicious and good for you, too. It built strong bones and made you grow up big and tall and also it could be made from soy or oats or coconuts or almonds….and all of that wasn't as real milk but she wasn't too picky. Also milk could be strawberry flavored.
"I like it alright I guess. Could be worse. At least strawberry milk is healthy. That's why it has fruit in it." They said. Mob wasn't sure if they were right about it being healthy, dad said that it was all sugary and gross, but it was too early to be correcting a new friend. Sho was always saying that she was bossy and she thought that she knew everything. She didn't want to scare them off now when they had just met. Mob knew that she had to ask something…and soon. They weren't looking at her anymore. They went back to their book. Mob fidgeted with her powers even though she knew that she wasn't supposed to. The table started to sway and hover for a bit. They looked up from their book and raised the space where an eyebrow should have been.
"Why don't you have eyebrows?" asked Mob. She wished that she hadn't asked that question. The minute she asked it she knew that she had said the wrong thing. What if they felt bad about being different? What if the other espers made fin of them for not having eyebrows? What if they started to cry? Oh no! Mob didn't know what she would do if they started to cry!
"Why do you have eyebrows?" They asked. Mob hadn't been expecting that. She had no idea. She just knew that she had them. She hadn't ever figured that there would have been a reason for it. People just….had eyebrows.
"I was born with them." Said Mob after some thinking. That was the only reason that she could think of…though it was not a reason at all. She had eyebrows because she did. She'd have to ask dad why she had eyebrows later. He looked like he knew a lot about eyebrows.
"Well I was born without them. Next question?" They asked. Mob took a moment to maybe stare just a little. That was not an answer. There must have been some reason that they had been born without eyebrows….but maybe that was best left to dad to answer. Right. They wanted to be asked another question….were they playing the question game? Sho usually won at that. He asked 'why' until Mob and Google ran out of answers.
"What are you reading?" asked Mob. That seemed like a good question…unless she was prying too much. You could ask too many questions and the ones that you asked could be too prying. Dad was always telling her that…even though she didn't think that asking about his parents hadn't been so prying…but then again she was bad at that sort thing, talking and stuff, so what did she even know?
"It's a trashy romance novel that you would not be interested in since, you know, you're eight." They said.
"I'm almost nine and I like love stories. I don't think that they're gross but my brother does. He makes throwing up sounds every single time people in movies and on TV kiss. I don't mind. I like love, it's a good feeling." Said Mob
"The love makes the world go round." They said. Mob nodded. She liked them even more now. Sho said that love made the world gross and dad said that gravity from the sun made the world go round. Boys were so weird like that. Maybe she was talking to a girl then. She didn't know. Mob couldn't even tell from looking. They had short hair and their shirt was so baggy that Mob couldn't tell if they were a boy or girl…but that wasn't fair, really, because Mob was a girl and she didn't have any kind of chest at all. Well she sort of did, now, except her chest was just kind of pointy and sore all the time. Not that she was going to tell Fukuda about that. Nope, no matter how much it hurt to sleep on her stomach she was not going to say a word…even if her chest stayed like that forever and it was always sore and stuff, too, and then people made fun of her like they had back when she went to school…even though they were all in the first grade and nobody had anything to brag about yet, in Mob's opinion.
"It's in Korean and you look Japanese to me." They said. Mob sat back in her chair. She had been leaning forward too far. That had probably been rude. It was rude when boys stared at girl's chests so maybe it was rude when girls stared at girl's chests…that is if she was even talking to a girl. Why was this even so important to begin with?
"Do you like Galaxy Express 999?" asked Mob. She had to ask something because if she didn't the next question she asked would have been if they were a boy or a girl…and she could not ask that. That was a good question, Mob thought, because it had nothing to do with anything personal. Right? She didn't know. She asked dad when he first read Galaxy Express 999 and he told her not to dig around in things that didn't concern her…and then he read her the manga when they hung out in is bed and he told her about how he would read Galaxy Express back when he had been little during class because there was nothing that his teachers could tell him that he didn't already know. She didn't understand sometimes, what was and was not ok to ask, so at least if she messed up she had gotten good practice.
"The Galaxy Express? You read the Galaxy Express?" They asked. Mob nodded and called her tablet over with her powers. She scooted her chair next to them with her powers and showed him her manga collection. It was so big that she had to store some of it in the cloud. That meant that she had a lot. She didn't read all of it, she just bought ones that looked nice, but she had read the whole Galaxy Express every single volume. Dad liked it and if she liked it too then she and Dad could be better friends.
"See? I have all of it. Me and my dad read it together." Said Mob
"You and….Suzuki? He reads this stuff? He reads for pleasure? He enjoys life?" They asked. Mob nodded. She could understand how they could think that dad didn't know what fun was. Sho thought so too. Dad knew how to have fun, he liked to watch documentaries and read manga with her about giant robots and outer space and war and other boy stuff….dad knew how to have fun. He just didn't show that part of himself with other people. Mob wondered why. He would have had more friends that way…if he even wanted friends…but then why wouldn't he have wanted friends?
"Yes. Dad can be a lot of fun sometimes. He can be mean sometimes, too, but he can also be fun. We read this together before bed sometimes. Sometimes we read other things." Said Mob
"….and he's seriously your dad?" They asked.
"Yes. I know that we don't look alike but it's because both of my parents are half Japanese and that makes me half Japanese but I got all of the Japanese." Said Mob
"You sure that you're not just adopted?" They asked. Mob shook her head. She wasn't adopted. Mom and dad would have told her if she was. Also she was just like dad. She was just like dad even if she didn't look like him. Dad said that inherited traits were weird like that sometimes.
"No. My dad is my dad." Said Mob
"Sure. You keep on believing that." They said. Mob wasn't sure if she was supposed to say anything to that…or what it was that she was supposed to say to that. They just sat in silence…and she didn't like it. She had to say something and….and maybe she should have asked another question…or talk about how she was not adopted….and she felt sort of bad, now, because she was thinking about how…how she didn't look like the rest of her family….but she couldn't let herself be mad at anyone let alone her new friend.
"Do you like Frozen?" asked Mob. That was the first question that came to mind. She needed to know. It was very important to know if someone liked Frozen…but it was ok if you liked Tangled better…or something else entirely. Also this was a good way to see if this person was a boy or a girl. Mob couldn't just come out and ask. First of all you did not ask about people's privates, she felt like, because they were private. Also if she asked if this person was a boy or a girl and they were a boy they would have thought that Mob had called them girly and if they were a boy then they would have thought that Mob was saying that they looked like a boy. Both were not nice things to say to someone at all. Nope. Not at all.
"Not as much as you, obviously." They said with a motion towards Mob's dress. This was a new Elsa dress, the old one was too small and also Sho stepped on the cape and it ripped off. She had another one but it wasn't as nice as this one because it didn't have a cape or the sparkly parts that were supposed to look like ice crystals. They were too old to dress like she did. Back when she and Sho lived at Disney Land, well they still did sometimes, Mob could tell which girls she would have gotten along with based on what dress they were wearing. Not that she ever broke dad's rules, of course, because if she did then dad wouldn't be nice to her anymore. She didn't want that. She could never want that.
"I like it a lot but you might like it as much as I do. I don't know if you do or not. I just met you today. We haven't even played Elsa dolls yet. I bet that you'd be better at it than my little brother. I like to play with him but he's very rough on my toys sometimes….that is if you play with dolls." Said Mob. She needed to figure it out. Was she talking to a boy or a girl? She hadn't realized before now how important it was to know.
"I don't like it enough to spend my time and money playing with dolls." They said. Mob wondered if that meant that they were a girl or that they were just too old to play with dolls. Like back when she had been in the first grade the fifth graders would always make fun of them for playing with dolls because dolls were for kids…even though they were all in the same elementary school and therefore were all kids.
"But do you like it?" asked Mob. She didn't know if she could be friends with someone who didn't like her favorite movie…but then again she was not in any position where she could just turn down friendship like that.
"It's ok. I've seen worse. The ice girl should really have come out at the end…and you have no idea what that means, do you?" They asked. Mob shook her head.
"I don't but it's ok, you can tell me when I'm ten like you said before…if we're still friends by then." Said Mob
"Friends? You think that we're friends?" They asked. Mob nodded but then stopped. She had probably misread the whole thing. She was so bad at getting a clue sometimes. She couldn't wait until she was older….if that would even help.
"Well….I want us to be. I don't have many friends and I like you and I think, too, that your hair is very pretty…or cool. Cool is better." Said Mob. Boys were not pretty. Sho had made it perfectly clear that there was nothing that boys hated more in this world besides being called pretty. She didn't understand boys one bit. She hoped that they were a girl. Mob hadn't had a girl to be friends with in so long….that is if they were even going to be friends. She didn't know. Maybe she had misjudged the whole thing. Maybe this was like how she wasn't supposed to try and make friends with the Awakened. She didn't know. All she knew was that she really, really, really wanted a friend.
"Right…..I'm cool." They said. Mob nodded. She wondered if that was the right word. She had trouble finding the right word sometimes. She wished that there was a list of words, like a phrasebook or something, so that she would always know what to say. It was hard, like walking across a minefield was she imagined, talking to someone and trying to make friends…or maybe she was just out of practice…or maybe she had just never been good at it in the first place.
"You are. I think that you're really cool. You like a lot of the same things that I do and your hair is lavender and also you're very nice. Nobody talks like you do. Nobody's allowed to talk to me like you do. Dad says that the Awakened aren't allowed to talk to me…and it's kind of lonely…but I want us to be friends…if you want to." Said Mob she crossed her fingers. She kept her hands under the table and crossed her fingers. She loved Sho but…but she wanted another friend…but having another friend did not mean that she didn't want to be friends with Sho…and hopefully he saw it that way, too.
"Ok…you win. We're friends." They said. Mob was happy, so happy that her hair started to float…and then she started to float up out of her chair…so she got up…and then she did the only thing that came to mind.
She went in for a hug.
And something tugged on her hair. The spider plants that were hanging from the kitchen ceiling were tugging her back. She stopped. Right. Sometimes friends pulled on your hair…or at least Sho did. She wasn't really sure if she wanted another friend who was like Sho. She was already a big sister to Sho, that was why he tugged her hair, but she was not sister to this person…and she didn't much like getting her hair pulled….but she also didn't much like being lonely, either. She didn't know, she hadn't known, how lonely she had been with just Sho until she had finally gotten another friend. The first non-Sho friend that she'd had in a while….
"We're not the kinds of friends who hug." They said. Mob nodded. They stopped tugging at her hair, the plants went back to being still, and Mob sat back down in her chair. They were reading so she went back to reading too. She knew that she was supposed to be practicing with her new plant powers…but she would do that later. She was hanging out with her friend.
Her new friend.
The friend who she did not know the name of…and that felt kind of wrong in some ways. Friends needed to know each other's names. She was Mob and her friend was calling her Mob….and that felt good and she didn't know why it felt so good but it did…and she needed to know her friend's name. She wondered if it was ok to ask now…well even if it wasn't she still had to…because it was only going to get more and more awkward since they were friends now…
"Um…what's your name?" asked Mob. She looked down at her tablet as she asked. That was she didn't have to think about…about how awkward she was….so awkward that they didn't even want to be friends with her anymore…and they had just become friends…
"Minegishi Toshiki. Call me Minegishi, not Toshiki, and not Toshi. Call me Toshi and I will end you, Suzuki's kid or not." They, Minegishi, said. That was a name, their given name, that was for both boys and girls…and Mob still couldn't tell if Minegishi was a boy or a girl…but that didn't matter, Mob figured.
She finally had a friend. That was what mattered the most.