Parenting got easier as the children got older.

When they had been infants, well at least when Son had been an infant, he had needed round the clock care. He had needed to be fed and held and rocked and changed and interacted with constantly. Most of that had been left up to Masami. It had honestly been a bit terrifying when she would just hand him Son. He had been so small, then, and so fragile. If Suzuki had lost control even a little bit then he would have lost his Son, the person he had created, and the person who depended on him most in the entire world. If he made a mistake, not even one relating to losing control of his powers, he could have ruined his son's entire life. If he even did so much as drop the small, red, screaming human that he and Masami had made….then it would all have been over.

Also Son vomited constantly. That had not been fun.

Infants couldn't hold anything in or down and…and that was not pleasant. Masami had been the one to handle all of that. She had changed and dressed and bathed Son and kept him alive through the first years of his life. He had been nearer to his family then, he had to be, because there was just so much that could go wrong….and Masami also refused to allow him to build Son some kind of force field or cage or something to keep him from hurting himself. Babies were, for some reason, suicidal. That was not a fun time. Having to make sure that Son, even before the age of two, didn't come up with some novel new way of endangering himself….

Suzuki did not care for caring for infants in the least bit.

Or small children. The yelling and the screaming and the crying and fighting and the complete lack of any sense of self-preservation at all. He wondered how the human race had managed to survive all these years if it's children seemed hell bent on sticking forks in electric sockets and climbing out of windows…or maybe that had just been Son. Daughter had been her own source of stress during those years. She had been born with her powers and, in the two years she had been alive, she had gotten so little control over them.

Not that he should have been complaining about that fact.

If her control wasn't so very poor then she never would have come to him. Then her parents never would have abandoned her. Those people had no idea what they were doing. Well it didn't matter since their abandoning her was the best thing that ever could have happened to him. Esper children were very rare. Most powers presented around the onset of puberty and even then the most they could produce was something insignificant. Daughter was a prodigy and he had always been grateful for her…even if he'd had to put some of his work, most of his work, on hold when she came to them. It had been somewhat difficult to get her acclimated to their family. Also Masami had no way of stopping Daughter when she did such ill-advised things as making her brother fly or when she would throw tantrums and lose control completely….and he had never seen someone get so very angry over having to wear a pair of pants….

Some things never changed.

It got easier, caring for the children, as they got older. Son was still reckless as always but Daughter had gotten much better at controlling her powers. That was just wonderful. Her control wasn't the best, a certain quarrel the two of them had came to mind, but she was getting better every day. Her aura had even been so very calm lately. He was proud of her for that. Well he was proud of her for many reason. She was pleasant to be around, she took very good care of Son, she was a lot like him, and she was even taking his life's work so seriously. She was gathering espers of her own. So far just Minegishi but still that was a good step for a child her age. That was more than he had done at her age. When he had been nine years old he had still been coloring in his manga and staying up until all hours to watch television and giving himself arthritis playing Space Invaders. She had vision, his Daughter, and it was his vision.

He didn't know what he would do if she had her own vision.

She had the potential to be his greatest rival. Her power presented at birth like his had and she was a prodigy just as he had been. Well not quite the prodigy he had been but she was not his Daughter. He forgot that sometimes, that she was not actually his child, just a child that he was raising. She was so much like him. She had always been an easier child than her brother. Even if her brother was becoming an easier child as he got older. He could actually bring his son with him, now, for at least part of his day. He wasn't as pleasant to be around as Daughter, of course, but he was finally old enough to be brought with.

He wished that he could have brought Daughter with.

But he knew her. She had an aversion to violence just like Masami had. Most women had that it seemed. He wasn't going to bring her around with him when he did this portion of his work. She would have been so unhappy. It would have been distressing for her and then she would have ended up losing control and then, well, he knew what happened when she lost control. Truly lost control. There were attempts on his life, near constant and very tiresome attempts on his life, and she would not have taken it well. Nobody took it well, seeing someone try to kill their father, even Son had been distressed the first time.

As much as he loved her she would not be coming with.

But that was fine. She had found a companion so at least she wasn't lonely during the day. What she saw in Minegishi he would never know. That was the most sardonic person he had ever met. If Daughter had been of a similar temperament it would have made sense but, no, Daughter was far too kind. He didn't understand her, he had never been able to fully understand her, but somehow it felt as though it got more difficult as she got older. Or maybe there was just more of her to puzzle out. That was what he liked about her, actually, how there was so much of her to puzzle out.

He enjoyed her presence more the older she got.

"What is the point of this, again?" asked Suzuki. This was his time with Daughter. He had never been one for copious amounts of television, not since he had been young, but this was pleasant. A calming way to end his very trying days. His empire needed money which meant that he had to earn it which meant a lot of dealings with people who, well, he would have preferred not to have had to deal with. Which meant so many headaches….even with Shimazaki there to stop things from happening before they even happened…it was such a headache.

She made it better, though, she was just so….pleasant.

"In this show the girls are all friends and they just sort of…hang out." Said Daughter. He knew that he should have been grateful that she was moving away from the constant, never ending, stream of Disney movies she had been watching for the past nine years of her life. This was, at least, Japanese. He had kept her out of Japan for far too long, that was on him, but there was so much to watch…animation was capable of so much…so why would she want to watch drawings of girls going about their daily lives? He had never been able to understand that part of her, her media choices, since she had been two years old and had been watching that same film over and over and over again….

"Is anything else on?" asked Suzuki

"This is streaming. See? No commercials." Said Daughter

"Oh. Alright. I hate commercials. So obnoxious." Said Suzuki

"What does obnoxious mean, dad?" asked Daughter

"Annoying. I find advertisements to be very annoying." Said Suzuki

"Me too. They keep interrupting the show for them every few minutes." Said Daughter

"At least you have platforms by which you can avoid them. It wasn't like that when I was your age." Said Suzuki

"You were born before they invented TV?" asked Daughter

"No, I was born in 1973. We had television, four or five channels if I remember correctly, and plenty of advertisements. Television has been around for a while, Daughter, since my father was young." Said Suzuki

"Your dad? I didn't know that you had a dad." Said Daughter

"Everyone has a father. You know where children come from…right?" asked Suzuki. He did not want to have to explain it. He had assumed already that Masami had. It wasn't that he was squeamish, no, he just didn't see the point in telling her about something that she was too young to even understand. She was just a child and he wanted her to stay that way for as long as possible.

It felt like just yesterday he had brought her home.

"I know. They come from the mom's stomach. I'm not dumb." Said Daughter

"I never meant to imply that you were unintelligent. I simply wanted to know if you knew how the human race reproduced itself. You said something that implied that you didn't." said Suzuki

"I know that you must have had a dad of your own….you just never talk about him…and also I've never met him. Him or your mom." Said Daughter

"They're dead." Said Suzuki simply. There was no emotion behind his statement. There didn't need to be. His parents had been dead for quite some time. He was an orphan. He was a self-made orphan.

"I'm sorry…I didn't know." Said Daughter. She turned to face him and soon he found himself being embraced. She was expressing sympathy. For what he did not know. His parents were dead. He was forty one. That was the age at which many people lost their parents. Well he had lost them much earlier in life but she didn't know that. She didn't know that because he never told her. There had never been any reason to tell her or her brother. No reason to think about it, about that day, about the day that he had been more upset than he had ever been in his life…the day he truly lost control. He remembered it, what it had felt like, and that was why he was not going to tell her about the day she had lost control. Even though he had killed his own two parents which was much worse, he imagined, than killing seventeen strangers.

"You don't need to offer sympathy. They've been dead for quite some time. Decades before you were even born." Said Suzuki

"Oh….ok. But I'm still sorry. I know that if I ever lost you…if you ever died…then I would be so sad all the time. I don't know what I would do without you, dad. I love you." Said Daughter. Her eyes were getting watery. He pulled his sleeve down over his hand wand dried her tears before they could even fall.

"The feeling is mutual. If I were ever to lose you then I would be upset as well." Said Suzuki. The thought of losing her, the thought of her leaving or dying, brings about the same sort of pain that he used to feel at the thought of Masami's death. She was gone now so that pain was pretty much just a constant, a dull ache in his chest, that never fully went away no matter how much time passed. He was not going to lose her, Daughter, not to anything. Disease, desertion, not to anything.

"And Sho, too?" asked Daughter

"Yes, and your brother as well. He is my only Son after all…though I would feel the loss of both of you. I would probably feel it more acutely, actually, than you would feel for me." said Suzuki. The thought of losing Son is also painful but less so. Maybe because they never got along as well as he and Daughter did. Maybe because he didn't enjoy spending time with Son like he did with Daughter. Maybe because, as troublesome as it would be, he could always have more biological children while Daughter had been a stroke of luck. He didn't know. He didn't want either of his children to die or leave him.

"You think that you would be sadder to lose us then we would be to lose you? But we're a family, dad, we love each other all the same. We like each other in different ways but we all love each other the same." Said Daughter

"That isn't true. I would feel the loss of my children more acutely than my children would feel my loss. In the end you will have to bury me. That's nature's way. We all have to bury our parents eventually." Said Suzuki. He wondered if Daughter would be the one to put him in the ground. If she would rise up against him one day…or just lose control. He didn't want to think about that. She would never rise up against him. The thought was absurd. The thought of her losing control…that was less absurd…and he did not want to think about this anymore.

"You…..you're going to die some day?" asked Daughter. He could see her aura then. She was becoming distressed. Why? Hadn't she realized this already? One day she would have to bury him. Well cremate him first. She was thirty two years younger than he was? Did she think that he was going to be the one to outlive him?

"Yes." said Suzuki

"When?" asked Daughter

"I have no idea. Nobody knows when they're going to die, just that they will. Everyone dies. One day you'll die, too, and your children will bury you. That's just the way that it works." Said Suzuki. It should have been reassuring to her. She should have realized that there was nothing to do about it. People died all the time, parents included, and all we could do was wait for this inevitability.

"But…but I don't want you to die." Said Daughter

"I don't want to die either. In fact I don't plan on dying until I am very old." Said Suzuki

"When…when will you be very old?" asked Daughter

"I don't know. In fifty years maybe?" asked Suzuki. He had no clue when he was going to die and he did not plan on dying any time soon. What was so distressing to her about death? She knew that it was an inevitability. She could see spirits and had been able to see them since the day she had been born. He didn't understand her one bit.

"Is that a long time?" asked Daughter

"It is, half a century is a long time. I don't know why you fund this so distressing, Daughter, you know that death in an inevitability. You can see spirits and exorcise them too. You know that one day I will die and you will die and everyone will die. There's no need to be so distressed over it. I never was." Said Suzuki

"I guess that I never thought about it this much…you dying. I love you and I don't want you to die, that's all…but you will die. Just like your parents died and that's just how it works. Like you said, that's just the way that it works." Said Daughter

"No, not in the way that my parents died. I have no intention of dying the same way that they did." Said Suzuki

"How did they die?" asked Daughter

"In an accident and that's all that I am going to tell you. Don't not ask me any follow up questions. They won't be answered and you'll just put me in a bad mood." Said Suzuki. He didn't feel bad about it. His parents were dead and that was just the way that it was. He didn't want to rehash the story, though, not even for her. She was looking at him. She was looking at him and he knew that she was going to try and ask him something that he was not about to answer…and then he would be in a terrible mood…and then their while evening would have been ruined.

But she didn't say anything.

"Ok dad, whatever you want." Said Daughter. She embraced him again and then went back to watching television. He liked that about her. She could follow orders. Sometimes she disobeyed him, thank God she stopped asking about going back to the old house, but generally she followed his orders.

He liked that about her.

He liked a lot of things about her. He reached up and played with her hair a bit. She had such beautiful hair. She had such soft hair. She herself was very…soft was the word for it. Soft and warm. That was just…the best way to describe her. He watched her more than he watched the television. She still looked like there was something on her mind but she said nothing. That was good. He didn't want to go on and about what happened. He didn't much feel like talking about death anymore, actually, and he had no idea how they had even gotten to the subject of death. There was no point in her thinking of death or troubling herself over this, either, since she was so very young. This was not what a little girl should have been worrying herself over.

"Daughter?" asked Suzuki

"Yes, dad?" asked Daughter

"Why do you like this show?" asked Suzuki. That was a question that he had and it was very far from the subject of death. Plus, well, he didn't understand her one bit.

"I like how they're all friends. Also I like how they all go to school. I miss school sometimes….but I'm happy now. I mean I don't mind homeschool." Said Daughter. Oh. Well that made sense. He had watched the shows he watched as a child because they were so far divorced from his own existence. The vastness of outer space, climactic mech battles, all of it was so far from his own life…even if he could make things move without touching them and about a thousand other things. She was the same way. He wondered if she colored in her manga, too, when she was bored. He wondered if she ever got lost in her own thoughts, thoughts of things that she could have created, the world she could create. Or maybe she wasn't bored enough to do that. She didn't have to waste her time in school after all.

"You do very well in it and you're not held back by the rest of your class." Said Suzuki

"I don't think that the other kids would hold me back." Said Daughter

"They would. If you're anything like me they would. I always hated being in school when I was young. Everything always moved so slowly, much too slowly for me. I wouldn't want you and Son to languish like I had to." Said Suzuki

"Ok…you're right. If you didn't like school then I wouldn't like it, too, because I'm your daughter…and I don't need to go to school anyway. I mean I can always watch shows about school. So that's ok." Said Daughter

"Even if they are dull." Said Suzuki

"We can watch something that you like, dad." Said Daughter. He liked that about her. When he and Masami would watch television, well on nights like this when he would sit beside her and she would have already been in the middle of something, she would always tell him that if he didn't like what she was watching then he could go and watch something else in the other room. Of course he always stayed with her.

He wished that he had known, then, what a gift it was just to be near her.

He pulled Daughter closer. She liked this. Physical contact. It reinforced the parent and child bond that they had. Considering that she was not his child, not biologically, it needed enforcing. That was why he never held Son like this and why Son never asked. Also Son and Daughter were different genders. He could also blame this little quirk of her personality, the fact that she constantly sought out physical contact with him, on her gender. Masami had been the same way…of course Masami hadn't been so courteous as to tell him when she wanted physical affection and in what quantities.

Daughter had told him, though, and he was thankful for that.

"Thank you. I would like that." Said Suzuki. She understood him. Well she understood him to an extent. Mostly that he preferred documentaries to all other forms of entertainment. She worked quickly and soon she found something where they could both be entertained. She had found this show a couple nights ago. Here they explained how simple everyday things were made.

Fascinating.

For the both of them. Now they were watching chopstick artisans work. He had never in his life owned a pair of homemade chopsticks. There just wasn't any point to it. As a boy he had always snapped his chopsticks on half on accident and then as a man he never stayed in one place long enough to necessitate handmade eating utensils. Maybe he should have had some made for Daughter, though, because it would encourage her to actually use chopsticks.

She mostly just ate with a fork.

Which he should not have been complaining about because at least she was an improvement over son. He ate with his hands. He ate everything, well he tried to eat everything, with his hands. Even miso soup. He just reached into his bowl with his hands to pull out the pieces of tofu. Not even with his powers. It had been vile. That was why Son could never come to the more social parts of the job, the ones that involved breaking bread with others. Suzuki hated breaking bread with others, he preferred to eat most of his meals in solitude, but at least he had better table manners than to go and eat soup with hands.

He wasn't above pulling out the solids with his powers, first, and then drinking the broth but that was as far as he would go.

"Wow." Said Daughter

"What?" asked Suzuki

"Those chopsticks look so pretty. I can't believe that someone is going to actually eat with those." Said Daughter

"I wouldn't eat with something so ornate. There's no point. A meal is a meal." Said Suzuki

"Yeah, you could accidentally break them or something. Then it would all be a waste." Said Daughter

"Exactly. There's really no difference between chopsticks, as far as I can see." Said Suzuki

"Those are more complicated than the ones that come with takeout, though, so I think that's the difference." Said Daughter

"Yes, I suppose that the difference is in the complexity of their creation." Said Suzuki. He wondered if she would like some like that…but maybe not. They would either get lost or broken in the course of the children's lives.

"I didn't know that chopsticks were so complicated." Said Daughter

"I had no idea that there were chopstick artisans either. Though I suppose that there are artisans for everything. They do good work, I've had some things made by hand. Never chopsticks, though, but other things." Said Suzuki

"Like what?" asked Daughter

"The kimono I got you for your last birthday, Daughter. That was made by hand for you." Said Suzuki. She almost never wore it. He didn't know why. He knew that it wasn't practical for daily life but she never did much. She looked nice in it. She did care about her personal appearance, that was why she dressed the way she did. In those costumes. Even her pajamas looked like the costumes she wore.

"Oh. It's nice. I didn't know that someone made it by hand." Said Daughter

"It was. I'll have another made for you for your next birthday…or whenever. You look very nice dressed like that." Said Suzuki. It was dangerous ground, critic sizing a woman's clothing, but he didn't think that what he said counted as criticism. Masami took it very well when he told her that she looked nice in yellow.

"You think so?" asked Daughter. What kind of a question was that? He was not going to lie to her or to anyone. Lying was a waste of time and his time was very valuable. He was not going to lie to his own Daughter, either, because there was no point to it. Especially about something as simple as her physical appearance.

"Yes, I don't lie to you or to anyone." Said Suzuki. Daughter was playing with the hem of her pajamas now. He didn't know why. He watched her hands. She had lavender nails, now, she had colored them again. She had beautiful hands, like her mother's had been. May still have been. He had no idea how Masami looked these days. She had been gone for so long…and he was not going to think about her anymore.

"I know. It's not a lie when you say something nice about someone. Sometimes you just have to say nice things about people to make them feel nice." Said Daughter

"Oh. A social nicety. I suppose those have their merits. That was the truth, though, what I said. I only speak the truth to you." Said Suzuki

"I only tell you the truth too, dad. I would never lie to you." Said Daughter. She didn't need to say it. She was his Daughter. She was his Daughter and she would never lie to him. He trusted her totally and completely.

More than the last person he had trusted totally and completely.

But he doesn't want to think about Masami. He doesn't want to think about those nights that they would spend together just watching television and being near each other. Just enjoying each other's company. She's gone and that's the whole of it. She'd gone and she betrayed him and he was wrong to trust her. He was not wrong to trust his Daughter. She was his child and in that intangible fact of it, the fact that she was his child and he was her parent, he knew that he could trust her never to leave him.

Even if he had said, before, that she wanted to go…

Well he had told him to send her away. Same difference. She hadn't said a word about it since that night so he trusted that whatever had made her say something to terrible had passed. They were together and that was…he should not have cared. He didn't like it, the attachment he felt towards her, because he should have been complete all on his own. Not that she completed him, no, nothing like that. Nothing like the sense of fullness and completeness he had felt for Masami….

He just enjoyed her company. Daughter's company. That was all.

"Do you want to watch the next one?" asked Daughter. Their show was over. He wondered if she was tired. He wasn't.

"I suppose so. It's not so very late. Not for me at least. Are you tired?" asked Suzuki

"No, not really. I don't have to get up at any specific time anyway. I like spending time with you, dad, I miss you a lot when you're gone all day." Said Daughter

"Why? You know that I'll come back. I would never just abandon you. You're my child." Said Suzuki

"I'm not afraid that you'll never come back, dad, I just like to be with you. I wish that I could come with you and Sho." said Daughter

"You can't. When we move again then you can come with. You wouldn't want to come with anyway. You would be very unhappy and I don't like to make you unhappy. Emotional instability does not suit you well." Said Suzuki

"You mean I can't come because I'm a girl." Said Daughter. There was something in her voice, there, something that he could not place. He was never any good with tones. He watched her aura. She seemed upset about…something….but he had no idea what. She was so much happier at the house than she would have been with him. She knew that this wouldn't last forever. If anything they were going to move again soon. There were periods of inactivity and periods of activity. They were entering a period of activity.

"Yes. You would not be happy. When we move again, which we may soon have to, then you can come with me and your brother." Said Suzuki

"Do you promise?" asked Daughter. He didn't know why she wanted to come with so badly…but it was nice that she wanted to help him. She would be an invaluable help when she got older.

"I don't make promises but I will bring you along if it's something that you can help with." Said Suzuki. That should have made her happy….but it didn't. Her aura was still the same. Her aura and her tone of voice and her face.

"But you'll bring Sho along either way?" asked Daughter

"What is this? You're acting like you're upset." Said Suzuki

"I'm not upset, dad, I just….why are there different rules for me and Sho just because he's a boy and I'm a girl?" asked Daughter. Well she had answered her own question right then and there, hadn't she? She had answered her own question and therefore he didn't need to answer her…but he had to. Even if it was to say what she had just said. He didn't know what was so hard to understand about that. She and Son were different people and the rules were different. That was why he could trust her to be left in charge. She was more mature than him, she was better at listening than him, and he could trust her more than he could trust Son. It had something to do both with her gender, girls matured faster than boys, and her temperament.

"You just answered your own question, Daughter. You're different and that's why the rules are different. That's why I leave you in charge and not your brother when I leave you two alone while I am otherwise occupied." Said Suzuki

"That's not what I meant." Said Daughter

"Then what did you mean? Be specific because right now I cannot understand you at all. Can you do that, Daughter?" asked Suzuki. He could feel a headache coming on. Women could be so very complicated sometimes. Even nine year old girls. She would only get more and more complicated, wouldn't she? As the years went by and she got older and older and older.

"I just meant…you leave me out when you take Sho with you and that hurts my feelings. That's all." said Daughter. He had no idea what he was supposed to do with hurt feelings. He'd get her another doll. That was something. He'd get her another doll…that would make her feel better. Also he would bring her with him next time. When he did a different, less violent, portion of his work. Something which would not upset her.

"When we move again." said Suzuki. That seemed to calm her down. At least she stopped bringing it up. That was good. Her aura, eventually, went back to normal too. There. She was better. He'd bring her with when they moved and in the meantime he would get her another doll, too. Yes, that would be good. Before all of that, though, he would enjoy the rest of his evening with her. Yes, a nice and pleasant evening between him and his Daughter.

Perfect.

This parenting thing got easier and easier as she got older and older.