"Are you sure he's your brother?"

"Yes, he is, I'm sure."

Minegishi had asked that question three times now. Mob didn't get why it didn't seem to count the first time. Of curse Sho was her little brother. They had the same mom and dad. Even if they didn't look alike or act alike they were still brother and sister. That was why they were both called Suzuki. Suzuki Sho and Suzuki Shigeko. Their dad was Suzuki Touichirou and their mom…they had to pretend like they never even had a mom to begin with….

But that didn't mean that she and Sho were not brother and sister.

"And you're sure that he doesn't have an off switch?"

"He doesn't, he really doesn't, I'm sure that he doesn't."

Minegishi had asked her that about four times now. She understood why Minegishi would ask that. Sho had been really weird all day….weird even for him. He wouldn't leave her alone. He was always telling her to leave him alone, that she was bossy and annoying and stuff, but now when she did want to leave him alone he just went and bothered her non-stop. Right now he was shooting her with NERF darts. They weren't supposed to have toy guns, mom had said so, but dad said that they were ok. Well he said that they were ok if she and Sho absolutely had to play with them….which it seemed that Sho absolutely did.

"Can't you put up a barrier or something?" asked Minegishi as they started the read the same goddamned page for the third time. That kid…that terrible kid….Suzuki's terrible kid. They hadn't imagined that Suzuki would ever have let his kid get to be so terrible. The man freaked out if people so much as breathed too loudly in his direction but he let his son act like this!?

Well, to be fair, he was being raised by an eight year old.

Almost nine year old, as the kid was so fond of saying. She was more like what Minegishi had always imagined Suzuki's kid to be. Way too powerful for it's own good and scared into quiet submission. Yup. That was Mob to the letter. They still stood by their theory that Mob was adopted. She didn't look a thing like Suzuki and didn't act a thing like him either. Not like the other kid, the little brother, that was definitely Suzuki's kid even if he acted like a little asshole…no, because he acted like a little asshole.

"I tried that before but then he just broke through it. Sho just wants to play right now…but I don't want to play. I want to hang out with you. You're the guest and you're my friend, too." Said Mob. She was going to be a polite host. She had even made that instant coffee that Minegishi liked. He…or maybe she…or maybe they….yes, they hated it when the Awakened got them coffee. They said that it always came back too cold and too weak. They said that Mob made a good cup of coffee.

They hadn't even told Mob to make them one, she just did, because Dad said that it was good that she just did things without having to be told.

Mob made herself a cup of coffee too…even though she hadn't been able to get more than one sip down. That was a dad drink. Dad loved bitter things like that. Dad might have had fun with them, too, because he liked to do quiet things like this….not that she was going to ask him to join them. He was working, for one thing, and also he might not have been ok with Mob having a friend. She was supposed to be taking care of Sho after all…

He was fine.

She could see him in the living room. He had made a fort and sometimes he stuck his head out to shoot her. Those darts hurt a lot, and she was sure that she was going to end up with a bruise, but it was ok so long as Sho was having fun. That was the only thing that mattered, that Sho was having fun. She felt guilty ignoring him but just that morning he had told her to leave him alone so…so maybe this was what he wanted?

She didn't know.

"You sure you're eight?" asked Minegishi. This kid…this was defiantly Suzuki's kid. He'd trained her well. Minegishi was tempted just to go up and ask the man if he had adopted Mob…but that would not have gone well. The boss did not like people asking him questions. He didn't seem to like people at all…and not in the way that Minegishi didn't much care for people. Some people were ok, like Mob, and some people made them want to set themselves on fire just to get rid of them, like Mob's little brother. God, that was Suzuki's kid. Entitled, weirdly violent, and obsessed with being the center of attention.

This may not have been Minegishi's first choice of gig but at least they didn't have to deal with Suzuki face to face anymore.

Being an enforcer had it's perks, true, and being a babysitter also had it's downsides but at least they got to put their feet up for a little bit. The kid was ok company most of the time…but there was no way in hell Minegishi was playing with dolls. This was ok. Show the kid a few cool plant tricks and then brush up on their written Korean until it was time to be reassigned. They had been with the Fifth Division for a while and they were ready to move on. Maybe the international squad needed more manpower…or maybe the Seventh Division….

Too bad about the Eighth Division.

"I'm almost nine." Said Mob. Just a few more months until her birthday. Then she'd be nine…not that she knew what was so special about that. She just wanted to grow up. Maybe then she could have more friends…or enjoy the friend she had. She kind of wanted to go and play but Minegishi was an adult and did not play…and this was ok. Mob was getting a lot of reading done. She had found a manga about Japanese history and she could read it and then talk about it with dad.

He seemed kind of mad at her lately.

Ever since Valentine's Day he'd been kicking her out of bed. Also he was starting to send her to bed more. Sometimes they'd be watching TV and he'd just…send her to bed. Randomly. Usually after she got very comfortable and felt her eyes getting heavy. That made sense, though, because if her eyes were getting heavy then it was time to sleep…so it all made perfect sense….

Even if it did hurt her feelings a little when dad was like that.

"Almost nine is still eight." Said Minegishi. How had their life come to this? They were hanging out with a kid…but it wasn't too bad. Better than hunting down traitors, maybe, and listening to Suzuki give orders and harp on about his dreams for world conquest. Poor kids. Minegishi only had to deal with Suzuki on occasion. These two were trapped with him….though it didn't seem like he had been doing much parenting. No, Minegishi had been coming around for a few days now and it seemed like the only person taking care of these kids was Mob. Maybe that was why she was so…weirdly adult-ish. Nothing like her so called little brother…though to be fair Minegishi would have left ages ago if both of the kids had been carrying on like that.

A dart hit the table.

Minegishi picked it up with a spider plant leaf and threw it back at the kid. Maybe that counted as teaching Mob how to use her powers. Minegishi did not get Suzuki sometimes. He had powers, he was the most powerful esper in the world, he knew that you grew into your powers naturally. You didn't need a teacher, you just knew, like eating or drinking or breathing or having really shitty sex. Your instincts just sort of knew what to do.

"Sho, please stop shooting at me and my friend." Said Mob. She liked that word, friend, and she liked to use it. She hadn't been able to use it to describe anyone other than her little brother in so long. It was nice. This whole thing was nice…even if sitting in one place and reading all day did feel kind of boring. It didn't matter, sometimes you had to do boring things if you wanted to be around someone, like with her and dad.

"You guys should stop getting in the way of MY darts." Said Sho. They had two guns. He had a big sister. He wanted to have a gun battle. He didn't get what the holdup was. Big sis was his friend…sort of. She was supposed to play with him and only him. She was supposed to like to play with him, not sit and read boring stuff. Their homeschool was over. It was time to play. Her friend, Sho had asked if they were a boy or a girl but then they had asked if it mattered and Sho had been about to say 'yes' when big sis told him not to be rude….she was so bossy sometimes….and he hadn't been being rude then anyway….

Big sis was so bossy.

But she was his big sis. She should not have been spending time with someone else. She should not have been siting there reading boring stuff when he wanted to play. Sometimes he wanted to be left alone and sometimes he wanted to play and this was one of those times when he wanted to play. She had never not played with him before. Even when he had been a jerk she had still played with him….and now she wasn't….well he had been kind of a jerk this morning….and maybe she was finally tired of him….

Like mom had been…

He shot another dart. He shot another dart like he was shooting that thought out of the air. Mom had left because…he felt like, sometimes, it was his fault even though Fukuda said that it wasn't. Fukuda said that while he had no idea why mom had left or where she had gone to he knew that it was not Sho's fault. Sho had felt like, before, that he had been born wrong and big sis had been born right…but that was just the way dad saw them, had seen them, before all of it happened….and anyway mom hadn't seen it that way. Mom had liked him best. In mom's eyes big sis had been born wrong he had been born right.

Big sis was not mom.

She was not going anywhere. She couldn't go anywhere, she was his big sis, and also dad wouldn't let her go. Sho was worried about nothing. He was worried about nothing. That person, the one who was supposed to be teaching big sis how to use the plant powers that it was unfair that she had, was probably a girl. That was why they had purple hair and liked to be quiet and read books with people kissing and stuff on the cover. They were a girl and big sis was just hanging out with another girl reading girl books and talking about girl things.

So boring.

Sho wished that he had another boy to play with. Someone who liked animals but also was not a jerk to them. Someone who liked to draw but also didn't make fun of his drawings…like the kids at school had back when he went to school…or stole them like dad was always stealing his drawings. Someone who was his age…but maybe a little older. A little taller, too, not that Sho knew what it was about being taller that mattered so much. Someone who could put up a fight. Someone who could maybe even win. Someone with powers, too, because dad would never let him have a friend without powers.

Sho wanted a friend too.

He went to fire off another dart when the houseplant beside him took the gun out of his hands and threw it.

"Hey!" said Sho. Nobody treated him like that in his own house! Not that this was his house but….but it was the place he lived.

"Yes?" asked Minegishi from the kitchen table. That had been easy. Too easy. The kid's aura was too bright but he was way too slow to react. Mob had said that he had just gotten his powers. That he had been put through one of those crazy awakening chambers and had managed to come out alive. The Awakened Child that all the refugees from the Eighth Division were going on and on and on about.

Minegishi had heard that it had been a little girl, though, but hey everything turned into Chinese whispers eventually.

"You can't do that!" shouted Sho climbing to his feet. His fort fell down…and now big sis was putting it back together with her powers. She wasn't even moving her hands. Showing off. She was such a showoff sometimes.

"Yeah, I think that I just did." Said Minegishi looking up. Brat. That was the best word for this kid, brat. Somehow Suzuki had a brat for a son. Minegishi had always imagined, well not always but when they first heard that Suzuki had kids, that his kids would have been terrorized into a mealy mouthed sort of near silence. Like Mob was. Suzuki had a temper, anyone who had spent more than five minutes with the man would have seen it, and yet his Son acted like this….or maybe Mob got the worst of it…

Parents were the worst sort. That was why Minegishi had stopped talking to theirs.

"Sho, please be nice. After Minegishi goes home then you can shoot me for as many times as you want to." Said Mob. She would gladly let Sho shot her…even though it hurt…and even though she didn't much like toy guns…she would still let him. That was what big sisters were supposed to do.

"That sounds like a perfectly healthy thing to spend your day doing." Said Minegishi. If they were Mob they would have used their powers to teach their little brother a lesson. Minegishi had not been above such things when they had been an older sibling. That was just how it went, siblings lived to torment each other. Mob, apparently, did not get the memo. Minegishi barely knew these kids but he did know that neither of them were normal. The boy obviously had some sort of hyperactivity disorder and Mob, clearly, had a few thing going on based on the fact that she didn't make eye contact or hear sarcasm. Actually, based on that Minegishi could have totally believed that Mob was Suzuki's kid. That man really could have used some professional help. That was the extent of Minegishi's two and a half semesters of psychology classes could tell them about the truly messed up Suzuki family.

"I don't want to shoot at you for target practice! I want us to have a gun battle!" said Sho. He was not just going to shoot at her for target practice, that was a jerk thing to do, and also it wasn't fun. If he wanted to just shoot at people he would have had the Awakened stand around and let him shoot at them again. He wanted to play with her….how long was she planning on sitting and reading for anyway!?

"Ok, we can do that later. I'm busy right now. Do you want your tablet? Or maybe you're hungry. You get kind of upset when you're hungry." Said Mob. She checked the time. It was getting close to when they usually asked for lunch. She hoped that Sho asked for a vegetable today. Fukuda came by last time around lunch to talk to them about how they needed to eat real food. Well at least that was what he said. He just came around to hang out with Sho. He was always trying to hang out with Sho without her….

But that was fine. She had her own friend now.

"No. I want….I want you to leave me alone!" said Sho. He went back into his fort and turned his back to her. If that was the way that she was going to be then, fine, he didn't care. She could be however she wanted. He had plenty of things to do. Like drawing. He could do that on his own. She was a terrible drawer. She may have been better at having powers and stuff but she couldn't draw her way out of a paper bag.

Not that he understood that expression.

You didn't draw your way out of things when you were trapped. You fought really hard…even though you were stuck…and there were sharp needles digging into you…and then there was water…and you couldn't breathe…and it hurt so much….and you couldn't move…and you couldn't get out…and then you couldn't see….and then nobody was coming to save you but you didn't have to be saved because you decided all on your own to do this….and then…

He had scribbled all over the page he was drawing on.

He crumpled it up and used his powers to throw it at big sis. He threw it as hard as he could. She caught it. She just looked at it and she caught it…and then she uncrumpled it. She uncrumpled it and smoothed it out…and then he reached over with his powers and tore it up.

"Sho, you didn't have to do that. It was nice. Like those scribble paints we saw at the art museum." Said Mob. She didn't get it. Sometimes he just got so upset for no reason…and there was nothing that she could do but be nice to him. That was all she could do…and it wasn't enough. Nothing was ever enough it felt like. It just never stopped. Sho was her little brother, she was stuck with him even though she had never once considered herself stuck, and he didn't have an off switch…which made things sort of hard for her sometimes….

But she would always love him.

"I told you to leave me alone!" said Sho. He collapsed his fort around himself and just…sat there. He sat there and he looked at the little bits of light that came through. There was light. There were no needles. He could move. There was no water. Nothing was cutting him or burning him or poking him or shocking him.

He was ok.

"Huh. I guess your little brother does have an off switch." Said Minegishi. Yup, that was Suzuki's kid complete with the destructive tantrums when things didn't go his way. Like the time when he had fought Suzuki. He had been so pissed off when he couldn't' land a single hit…almost took the whole Division down with him….yup. Father and Son right there. Thank God Suzuki only had the one Son.

And thank God that Mob turned out so….ok. Weird but ok.

"Yeah…I guess." Said Mob. She wanted to go over there and see what was wrong but…but Sho had told her to leave him alone. When he got like that, when he started hiding, he really meant it. If she went up to him while he was like that…if she did that then he would have kicked her or hit her or pulled her hair or all three…and she didn't want that at all.

She just wanted to read with her friend at the kitchen table. That was all.

So that was what she did.