Mob hadn't meant to break her doll.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!"
And neither had Sho.
"Maybe we can fix it with glue or tape or something!" said Sho as he held up Mob's now headless doll. Not only had her head come off but it had broken in half, too. She wasn't upset about it. She hadn't really liked that doll anyway. Dad just got her dolls all the time without ever even asking her what she wanted. She didn't care at all if this one broke.
She took another sip of her strawberry milk.
It was hard to be sad about things when she had milk. Milk was good and sweet and creamy and built strong bones. Also you could put things in milk to make it taste better. Like chocolate or strawberry or the stuff that Minegishi kept in their drawers. Well that stuff didn't make it taste better but it made her feel better at least. Like now. Normally she was at least a little bit upset when Sho broke her things but now she wasn't upset at all. She didn't even like that doll that much. She had a million others so the loss of one doll didn't matter at all.
"It's fine. I don't care. I mostly just want to lay down." Said Mob. She liked to lay down. That happened when she drank too much milk. She got tired and also kind of nauseated but it was worth it. It was hard to get even a little bit upset when she drank milk. Also her powers didn't listen to her when she had milk, enough of it anyway, but in a good way. Usually her powers didn't listen to her in the way that they just did stuff without asking. When she drank enough milk her powers just stopped doing things all together.
It was nice.
"Don't lay down! We have to fix this!" said Sho. No. No way was he going to let her lay down. He had let Mom lay down back when she had been sick and…and he was not going to let big sis lay down. She wasn't even sick. She couldn't be sick. She was fine. She was just….her aura was weird and she slept all the time but she was not sick.
"Sho-" said Mob
"We can…we can get some tape and some glue and then…um….some nails and a hammer…and also maybe we can…maybe Fukuda knows how to fix dolls! I mean he can fix people and dolls can't be more complicated than people." Said Sho. He hadn't meant to break her doll. He had just wanted to play so he jumped on her and then they fell off of the couch and her doll fell too and the head came out. Dad was going to be so mad at him for so many reasons.
He didn't want dad to be mad at him.
Dad had been so weirdly grouchy lately even for him. Big sis said that it was because he had a lot to do at work, probably, because that was what he was always complaining to her about. Sho didn't care why he was so upset, just that he always acted like a jerk. Maybe that was where he got it from. Maybe since his dad was a jerk and he was a jerk then his kids would be jerks. Maybe he'd even end up married to a jerk and then she'd be a jerk to him and they'd be a bunch of jerks to their kids…and that would suck so much….so he just needed to work harder at not being a jerk. That was all. He couldn't be a jerk forever. If he kept on acting like a jerk then big sis might start fighting back again…and he had no desire at all for that to happen.
Dad had made himself perfectly clear. Sho was not to provoke his sister ever again.
"People are made of flesh and blood and skin and organs and stuff. Dolls are just toys. Fukuda can only heal people." Said Mob. It took her a moment to get to the point. Milk made her brain all foggy sometimes. She really wanted to lay down. Maybe the fog would go away once she got some more sleep.
"He can fix toys, too. Remember the time he fixed your dollhouse?" asked Sho
"When we were little?" asked Mob. She could sort of remember that. She had been….four? Much smaller than she was now. Maybe five. It was hard to remember. That happened when she drank too much milk at once, her brain started slowing down, so maybe she should have taken a break….maybe.
"Yeah, back when we lived in the cast-in the old house." Said Sho. He knew that dad wasn't home but he couldn't help but stop himself from calling it the castle. Dad said that they weren't ever supposed to talk about the castle again. He said that the past was in the past and that the castle was just walls and a roof and stuff like that. He said that if Sho or big sis ever mentioned the castle again they would be punished…and Sho didn't want that. He was still sore from the last time.
"Oh yeah….I remember…when you climbed on it…" said Mob. She remembered that day. She had been littler and Sho had only been a little mean. Mom had been tired but not as tired as she eventually got. That was one of those days when Fukuda would come over to play with them. She wondered why Fukuda never played with them anymore. Maybe because they were big kids now. Yes, that must have been it.
"Yeah, I remember that too. Anyway let's figure out how we're going to fix this." said Sho. He didn't need her going back and remembering all the times he had ever been a jerk to her. Couldn't she see that he was trying to be a better little brother? Couldn't she see that she had won? That, since that night, he had been making an effort not to be such a jerk because she could have pushed him back again? Maybe she didn't. She could be kind of clueless sometimes.
"But I don't even care." Said Mob. She had so many dolls. Dolls she hadn't even asked for. Dad was always just getting her dolls to play with. He called them her friends. Dolls were not friends, they were toys, living and breathing people were friends. Also she was perfectly capable of making her own friends. But she didn't say anything like that to dad, no, that would have been mean. She just accepted her new doll and put it with the others. That was the nice thing to do.
It was a lot easier to be nice these days.
Minegishi was so smart. That was why they were always reading books, because they were super smart, and also books gave them good ideas. Well Mob didn't know if the idea came from a book or not. She would have to ask them the next time they hung out. They had stuff to do, they said, and the stuff that they had to do was stuff that Mob was not allowed to know about until she was ten. There was a lot of stuff that she wasn't allowed to know about.
But that was ok because she had her secrets too.
"Well I do!" said Sho. He took her doll from her and went to go and fix it. She just went back to the couch to watch TV. Frozen again. She had been watching it over and over and over again…but that was normal for her. She was so weird like that. Girls were so weird like that.
Like why they liked dolls so much.
Sho had to turn the doll away from him which he tried to tape the doll's head back on. Why did girls have to play with such creepy stuff? They looked too much like people. Like what Sho imagined dead people looked like. He had never been to a funeral so he had never seen a dead person but he imagined they had frozen faces and glass eyes and just stared at you if they had died with their eyes opened, which if movies were to be believed people sometimes did. Girls were so weird to play with stuff like this.
He didn't get big sis at all sometimes.
He wondered if he had been adopted. He thought about that sometimes. He may have looked like dad but he didn't act like dad. Big sis acted more like dad. He didn't look that much like mom, and he had seen her picture that week so he still remembered what she looked like, and he didn't act that much like mom either. Mom had never been a jerk like he had been a jerk. Maybe he was the reason mom had ended up getting so sick. Dad was always saying that he was tiring.
Big sis was tired all the time.
So maybe she was sick. Maybe whatever it was that was wrong with her had nothing at all to do with him. Maybe…maybe this was the sort of thing that he should have called Fukuda about after all. Maybe he knew how to fix big sisters and dolls….Sho really hoped that he knew how to fix dolls. If dad found out that this happened he would just think that Sho had done this on purpose and that he had been picking another fight…and then that would have been so bad…so really Sho had to call Fukuda.
Yup, it was the smart thing to do.
Mob wondered if taking so many naps was the smart thing to do.
She was taking a sort of nap on the couch, she had been anyway, when another aura came into her range. She knew that aura, who it belonged to, but it was hard to open her eyes. She took a lot of naps during the day now, milk made her kind of tired, but no matter how much she napped during the day she was always tired. Maybe all the sleep she had been getting lately had trained her body to think that it needed to sleep most of the day. Like cats.
She needed to get up.
Because Fukuda was there. He was coming closer and closer to the house which meant that something was wrong…or maybe not. If Sho had hurt himself then she definitely would have heard him screaming. He screamed all the time. He screamed when he was happy, he screamed when he was mad, he screamed when something he liked came on TV, he screamed then commercials came on, he screamed when it rained, he screamed when it snowed…there was a lot of screaming in Mob's life.
Which was why she always had a little headache just hanging around in her head.
"Get up, Fukuda's here." Said Sho. He grabbed big sis' hand and pulled her until she was sitting up. She opened her eyes slowly and made a lot of tired noises. Maybe if she didn't stay up late every night watching TV with dad then she wouldn't have always been so tired during the day…and those were jerk thoughts to have and he was not going to be a jerk to her today. He couldn't speak for future Sho but present Sho was not going to act like a jerk.
He was going to be good today…for as much as today and they had left.
Fukuda had thought that today was going to be a good day.
Tokyo was always an easy gig. Not too many ways for Suzuki to injure himself here. This was mostly a place where he made and laundered a lot of money. Also Yakuza stuff….but they had learned not to start with Claw. Mostly. Still he would have picked the aftermath of some of the world Yakuza vs psychic brawls that Suzuki could have put himself through….anything really….instead of this.
These were not his children.
He had been reminding himself of that fact for years now. This was not his family and these were not his children. Sho was not his son, Shigeko was not his daughter, and Masami was not his…anything. He worked for this family, that was all, and he needed to…to become less attached to these kids. There was nothing he could do for them beyond healing up their scrapes and bruises. Not at this point. Not after everything that had happened these past couple of years.
Sho had gotten his full powers.
And Shigeko became more and more like her father with each passing day.
He didn't know which was worse. He didn't know which would have disappointed Masami more. The fact that he had promised to watch over her son and, eventually, deliver him to her but instead let him almost die in one of those godforsaken awakening chambers…or the fact that he had let her daughter grow up to essentially become Suzuki in braids and a dress. She had always acted like him but now…now she was starting to think like him.
She was gathering espers.
Not on her own, of course, because she was only nine. She was gathering her own espers from the ones her father had picked. For what reason Fukuda could not profess to know. All he knew was that Minegishi, one of the biggest assholes in Claw and also one of the most powerful, was orbiting Shigeko now. He had no idea why. The official story, as much as there was one in Claw, was that Minegishi was teaching Shigeko how to use her plant control powers…
But Fukuda knew better.
He had known Suzuki since they were kids. Older than Sho and Shigeko were now but still kids. He had been weird then, too, but also…also it had been nice to have someone who wanted to hang out with him. They weren't friends, though, Suzuki made that clear by day three. Fukuda was just in his orbit. The only other esper he had ever met up to that point. It was mutual. They had each been the only other esper that the other had met…and at the time Fukuda had been grateful for what they were to each other. Even if they weren't friends. Those were the closest thing he and Suzuki had to halcyon days…even after the accident that took Suzuki's parents….and Fukuda had tried his best goddamn it! He couldn't raise the dead! He couldn't raise the dead and he did not deserve to have been beaten up by some overgrown-
Calm thoughts, calm aura, calm emotions.
He should have maybe warned Minegishi about what was in store for them. What it meant to be in Suzuki's orbit. What it probably meant to be in Suzuki Shigeko's orbit. A lifetime of servitude with no way out but death…that is if he didn't reach over to the other side and drag you back kicking and screaming….which, thank God, he couldn't do. He had only tried to reach over fully to the other side once. Fukuda didn't know what happened but he knew that Suzuki had vowed to never try again.
He wondered what Shigeko would be like when she got to be her father's age.
Hopefully Fukuda would be dead by then….or at least old enough that he didn't have to follow this family around anymore. He maybe should have warned Minegishi about what was coming to them…but they were so unpleasant. So incredibly, unbelievably, unpleasant to be around or speak to or spend any length of time at all with. No, let them figure out what this lifetime gig was like.
Fukuda wondered how his life would have turned out if he had just gone to the normal school by his house instead of the one you had to score high to get into….but there was no point in speculating about it now…
Now he had a job to do.
"Fukuda! Come quick! It's really bad!" shouted Sho as he threw the door opened and tried to drag Fukuda into the house. What was he stopping for? Lives were in danger? Or maybe just Sho's…..but only if dad knew what he did! Which he wouldn't! Because Fukuda could fix anything! He just needed to stop hanging around and-
Right, the genkan.
They were in Japan again and in Japan people took off their shoes inside the house. That was the polite thing to do. Fukuda was polite like that. Even in this life or death situation. Not that dad would have ever killed him…right? No. Dad would hit him a bunch, tell him that he sucked as a Son and a human being, but he would never kill him. If he did then he would have to have a new Son and that wouldn't happen because mom was gone…unless dad and mom were divorced….but they weren't! Mom was just…somewhere else. She was still mom and dad was still dad and…and dad was not getting another wife!
And also he was not going to kill Sho because everything was under control and the doll was getting fixed and it would all work out! It really would!
"Sho, let me take my shoes off." Said Fukuda as he untied his shoes. It must have been bad if Sho was being like this. He needed to stay calm. The house was still standing and Shigeko's aura felt normal. So she at least hadn't lost control. That was good. He could hear the TV going. She was fine. Sho looked fine too…but obviously something was wrong if Sho was being like this….
"Just kick off your shoes and come on! Before dad gets home!" said Sho. He didn't get what was taking so long. Sho never untied his shoes, he just slid them on and off. It went faster that way. There wasn't enough time in the day to be taking shoes off and putting them on like that. There were dolls that needed fixing!
"Sho…you should be nice." Said Mob. She had managed to get up. She needed a nap. She needed a nap more now than she had before she had even fallen asleep. She yawned and rubbed her eyes.
"Little Lady…I mean Miss Suzuki. I take it you're the one who needs help." Said Fukuda. Her aura was weird. He was getting a weird feeling from her too. Like she was…sick? Poisoned? He didn't know. He could tell, sort of, with his aura what was wrong with a person. The trouble with her was that her aura was so bright and just…everywhere. It was hard to get a good read off of her, Suzuki too, sort of like trying to understand what someone was saying to your while they were screaming in your ears.
"N-No….my doll is the one who needed help." Said Mob as she telekinetically brought her doll over. Her grip was shaky and slow but she made it to the front hallway. She passed over to Fukuda as he stepped into the hallway in his socks. Mob smiled. They had cats on them. He used to have a pair that had cats in people clothes. This pair was just cats doing cat stuff.
Mob liked cats.
She reached up and felt for her cat ears headband. It was….somewhere. This happened to her sometimes. She put stuff down but she didn't remember where. She hated it when that happened…as much as she could hate something. Dad said that hating things and people took too much effort. The worst thing that you could be was indifferent, dad said, because then you weren't expending any energy at all.
"What about you? Any-" said Fukuda. He plastered a smile to his face and tried to dust off an old classic. She was smiling a bit. Smiling and…and swaying a little but too which was odd. Was she sick? She never got sick. Neither of the kids did. The kids didn't get sick unless…she didn't have any allergies. Not that he knew conclusively….but this didn't feel like an allergic reaction….
What was with her?
"No. No concussions, contusions, or abrasions." Said Mob. She smile a little bit. Fukuda said that a lot…well he said it more when they were little. That was because they got hurt a lot more often when they were little. They were big now and didn't get as hurt. Even if she did fall down sometimes. She reached out and held onto the wall. She felt kind of like she was going to fall down again.
"Just that….can you fix it? I already tried tape but it wasn't strong enough. Maybe glue? I don't know….I didn't do it on purpose…but you can fix it, right?" asked Sho. That was one of the nice ones that dad got her….and at least Fukuda could keep a secret.
"Hmm….this is a very serious injury but don't worry, I know just the man for the job." Said Fukuda. If Masami had been there then….but Masami was not there. She was off living her life and…and he needed to stop thinking about her. Sometimes he managed to go days without thinking of her…but this was not one of those times. Not when her children were so near….her children. Not his. These were…they were not his…and the thought still hurt but…but at least he could do this for them. For Sho. To keep him from getting in trouble. The break might have been beyond his expertise, he only healed people, but there was that one esper with the power of restoration and creation. Suzuki wouldn't be too pissed that Fukuda pulled him off of construction if it was for Shigeko. She was his little girl after all. Besides, the Seventh Division looked ridiculous enough as it was.
"Don't tell dad!" shouted Sho. Dad didn't need to know about this. Dad didn't need any more reason to be mad at him. He had no idea if dad was even going to be mad at him that day but he didn't want to push it. Sometimes he came home mad and sometimes he came home and he only hung out with big sis….and there were also rare times when he came home early enough that Sho was still awake and he hung out with both of them….but those times were so rare. So very rare. But not so rare that he didn't sometimes hope for those days…
"Don't worry, I won't bother your dad with this. He's not running a doll hospital after all." said Fukuda with a shrug. He tried to sound more lackadaisical than he felt. No child should ever have had to be as afraid of his father as Sho was of his. It had gotten so much worse since Masami had left, the way Suzuki was to his kids, and the way the kids had…had become. Sho was so scared looking and Shigeko…if he didn't know better he would have thought, from the look he was being given, that she was Suzuki's flesh and blood daughter.
"There are doll…hospitals?" asked Mob. Were there really doll hospitals? Did that mean that there were doll ambulances and insurance cards and emergency rooms and pharmacies? How had she not noticed this before? She watched Fukuda closely. She need to know more about this. Also she needed to sit down.
"Well they're more like repair shops. Don't worry, I know someone who'll get this fixed right up for you, Miss Suzuki." Said Fukuda. He bowed, too, which may have been overkill but when it came to Suzuki, her father, respect was best. She was so much like him…and also she still felt odd….but if something was truly wrong then she would have said something. It didn't serve her well at all to keep an injury or illness from him. That was the only weakness that Suzuki would admit to him even after all these years….
"Ok. Do you want to stay? You can play with us? I have other dolls" said Mob. She missed it when they played together. She could wake up enough to play. She would….she would make an effort to wake up. She would maybe drink less milk. Maybe.
"No, I should really get going." said Fukuda. He had to get this fixed up before Suzuki came home. This doll looked expensive. He had gotten this for Shigeko. That was where he had disappeared to the other day. He shouldn't have played favorites like that. That wasn't good for either of the kids. Sho was becoming such a brat and Shigeko…he didn't even know what she was becoming….
They weren't little anymore.
They were older and things were different. He wanted to play with them. He wanted to come down to their level and into their world and…and he couldn't. First of all Suzuki hated it when he overstepped and he had been so…difficult…since they came back from Korean. Since they came back to Japan. Since that thing that he knew for a fact happened but he also knew that it would be suicide to mention.
He was not getting on Suzuki's bad side.
"It doesn't have to be dolls!" said Sho. He missed when Fukuda played with them. It wasn't fair. Big sis got to hang out with Minegishi all the time but Sho didn't have anyone…and it wasn't fair….not fair at all. Life wasn't fair. Nothing was fair. It wasn't fair that he was going to get in trouble if dad…if dad knew what he did…because it was an accident!
"No, no, I have to get this fixed but it was nice seeing you two. Sho. Miss Suzuki." Said Fukuda. He wanted so badly to play with them…but he had to get this done. He had to do this for Sho, so he wouldn't get in trouble, and if being the ambulance to the doll hospital kept him from being the guy who had to put Sho back together then so be it.
"Bye…" said Mob as Fukuda left. She hugged the wall and went back to laying down. She sort of missed Fukuda…but that was ok. He had other things to do. It was nice to see him even for a little bit. She felt…good. Very good…but also very tired.
"Yeah, bye." Said Sho as Fukuda left. It wasn't fair. Nothing was fair. He was…he was thinking like a jerk again…and that was wrong. He needed to be better, to be less of a jerk, and…and it was hard. A lot of stuff was hard. It was hard when no matter what he did he still felt…like this. He still felt bad and…and now he felt worse because Fukuda had just left…but he had to go because he was trying to keep Sho from getting in trouble….which wasn't fair at all….
But a lot of stuff wasn't fair.