Mob had a loose tooth.
That wasn't weird. She'd already lost most of her kid teeth. At least she thought that she had lost most of her kid teeth. She didn't know, she had never been to the dentist before, she but did know that she had lost a lot of teeth already. She wondered how many teeth she had left. She'd google it later, or ask dad, dad probably knew. He knew a lot of things about a lot of things. He'd probably be able to tell her how many teeth people had and also how many teeth she still had left to lose.
Also why her teeth were turning yellow.
"Move over." Said Sho as he came into the bathroom. This was another day that Sho would end up spending with dad and she would end up spending with Minegishi. She wondered if they would paint her nails again, that was always fun, or maybe they would read books and drink coffee like a couple of grownups. Well they were a grownup, she was still a kid, that was why she still lost teeth.
Even though she didn't always feel like a kid.
Sometimes she felt like a grownup…or at least like there wasn't much of a difference between herself and the grownups around her. The only grownup who told her what to do was dad. No other grownup told her what to do and that was why she didn't feel like a kid around them. They told kids what to do, that was how things went, but she was actually the one who told grownups what to do sometimes. Like the Awakened. She told them to do things and then they did them. Like how she said yesterday that she wanted pancakes for breakfast and now she could smell pancakes coming from the kitchen. Or like how a few days ago she and Sho had wanted the honey popcorn from Disneyland and then a few hours later they had the honey popcorn from Disneyland. She didn't tell every single adult in her life what to do, though.
She never told Minegishi what to do.
They told her what to do but they didn't have power over her, like dad did, Mob just listened to them. Even if they didn't get punished if they didn't listen. Well they wouldn't get hit but losing Minegishi's friendship would have been pretty awful. Also Minegishi had good reasons for telling them not to do the things that they did. Like not sneaking around their house and stuff like that because Mob would end up seeing and hearing stuff that she wasn't supposed to and also didn't understand.
Not that she did a lot of sneaking around…not really.
"What, Sho?" asked Mob as she stared at herself in the mirror. Were her teeth more yellow than Sho's? Or less yellow? Had her teeth always been this yellow?
"You're taking up the whole sink. Move over." Said Sho as he tried to scoot in next to her.
"Sorry, Sho." said Mob as she let Sho push her out of the way. She smiled and pushed at her tooth in the mirror. It was one of her side teeth, she thought that it might have been called an eye tooth, and that was the last one she needed to lose…of those teeth. She had already lost the one on the other side. She had it in a box somewhere, she saved their teeth like mom did, and she wondered if the other one that she had lost was as yellow as this one.
"Give me the toothpaste. Come on, dad hates it when I take too long." Said Sho. Mob nodded and handed him the toothpaste. It was bubblegum flavored. She wondered how that worked, bubblegum toothpaste, since bubblegum was supposed to be bad for your teeth. Maybe that was why her teeth were turning a weird color.
She didn't like it.
The color her teeth were turning, not the toothpaste. She liked the toothpaste. Bubblegum was the best kind. Well the very best kind was the red and green berry flavored Christmas kind that she and Sho had gotten when they went to the Christmas store last year but they only had that kind at that store back in America. They were still in Japan, now, and it wasn't Christmastime yet. She wondered if a different kind of toothpaste would have helped her teeth. They were not supposed to be that color at all.
"Do you want me to knock it out for you?" asked Sho
"Huh?" asked Mob. She stopped poking at her loose tooth. It wasn't loose enough to come out yet. Still only wiggly, not twisty. When it started to be able to twist around then it was about ready to fall out on it's own.
"Your loose tooth, the one you keep on picking at. Do you want me to knock it out? I know how." Said Sho. Whenever his teeth were lose he either yanked or knocked them out even though you were supposed to let them come out on their own. Mom had said that back when Mob had gotten her first loose tooth. Mob had tried to get it out by tying a string around the doorknob and the other end around her tooth and then slamming the door. The only thing that she had managed to get out of that was a headache from the noise of slamming the door over and over again.
"It has to come out on it's own, Sho, but thank you." Said Mob. She wanted to tell him not to yank out any more of his own teeth. She didn't know why it wasn't ok, the tooth was going to come out on it's own anyway, but she did know that you were supposed to let it come out on it's own. Mom had said so and mom was very smart. She knew a lot of things about a lot of things. Mom and dad were both smart people so maybe that was why they had gotten together.
She actually had no idea why her parents had gotten together.
They weren't together anymore and that was why it was important that she knew why they had gotten together in the first place. If she knew the reason then she could know what not to do. What a bad reason for getting together with someone was. She knew that they had met at the train station, that was what mom had said, and she knew that dad thought that mom was perfect, he had told her that once. If dad thought that mom was perfect then why did mom leave?
She didn't know.
Maybe it was like losing a tooth. She lost her teeth because they were too small for her. She outgrew them. Maybe that was the same way with people. Maybe you could outgrow a person…like how she and Sho used to be together all the time but now they were apart sometimes. Sho wouldn't leave her though, he couldn't, because they were brother and sister. He would always come back to her. That was how family worked…well how brothers and sisters worked. Moms could leave you. Moms could just be there one day and gone the next…but not little brothers. They were forever. Brothers and sister were forever, not like parents. Parents weren't forever…unless they were dads. Dads were forever.
Even if they needed you less and less.
Sho was eight and a half now. He didn't need her for as much stuff. He could brush his own teeth, before she had to do the toothpaste for him and make sure he rinsed, and he could do other stuff too like brush his own hair and get dressed all by himself. They still shared a bath, though, because it was fun to play in the tub. Even if Sho did splash a lot. Sho wouldn't want to take a bath with her forever. One day he'd be big enough to take a bath on his own and then he would need her less and then he might even go and then-
Sho was her little brother. He would never go.
"That's dumb." Said Sho as he put way too much toothpaste on. You weren't supposed to eat the toothpaste. There were warnings on the tube. It said not to eat it because it could make you sick. She used her powers to scrape some of the excess toothpaste off before Sho could make himself sick.
"No it's not. When your teeth are ready then they come out on their own." Said Mob
"Who's the boss? You or your teeth?" asked Sho
"But Sho, my teeth are a part of me. I'm the boss of me so therefore I'm the boss of my teeth but they're also the boss of me. I am the boss of me but my body also does stuff on it's own….so I guess that I am and am not in control…kind of like my powers." Said Mob. She held her hand out in front of herself. She saw her aura move with her hand. She opened and closed her fingers and watched her aura move in and out. Pink and blue. Always moving. She couldn't control her aura like she couldn't control when her teeth decided to fall out.
"I'm always the boss of myself…well sometimes I can be a jerk without realizing it…but I'm still the boss of myself. Well I try to be. My teeth come out when I say they come out. Besides, if you yank them out as soon as they start to wiggle you get more money from the tooth fairy. Sometimes she even leaves you candy instead of money. I mean I know we get unlimited money and candy but it's better when you don't have to ask for it." Said Sho
"I don't think it works like that. I think that you're thinking of harvesting apples, not teeth, and also I don't think that the tooth fairy thinks like that. I think that the tooth fairy just gives you lots of money and candy because you're such a wonderful person and she loves you more than anyone else in the whole world." Said Mob. There was no tooth fairy. She knew that there was no tooth fairy. She had goggled it back when Sho had lost his first tooth and he put it under his pillow but then in the morning there hadn't been any money for him. Mob goggled and found out that there was no tooth fairy, which actually hurt a little bit, but she didn't tell Sho that. He was littler than her and he would have taken it worse. Also if she told him that there was no tooth fairy then he would have known the mom tricked them and then he would have been sad. So she had just decided that the best thing to do was to keep on pretending.
She didn't like tricking Sho like that.
But telling him that there was no tooth fairy would have been worse than tricking him. She could have just not given him anything, too, but then he might have thought that he was a bad kid and that was why he didn't get anything. Sho wasn't a bad person at all. He could be mean and he hit her and shouted at her but he was not a bad person. He was the best little brother in the whole world.
"No, she doesn't play favorites based on how you act. She gives you money based on your teeth because she needs the best ones to build her castle with." Said Sho
"Well your teeth are the best then." Said Mob
"Of course they are. Especially the ones without the dark spots on them. Those are the best ones I think." Said Sho
"You really should brush all of your teeth, Sho, not just the ones that show." Said Mob. Sho sometimes just brushed the front ones because those were the ones that people saw. Mob didn't get it. It wasn't any extra effort to brush each and every one of your teeth, not just the ones in the front.
"I am brushing them all now! I heard what Fukuda said." said Sho. Fukuda came to see them once because Sho's tooth hurt him a lot. It was a grown up tooth. It had a really bad cavity, Fukuda had said, because of all the candy Sho ate and the soda he drank. That was why it was important to brush your teeth every single day. Well that and the fact that if you didn't brush your teeth then your breath would smell and you'd be excluded from society.
"Ok. Just making sure. I just want your teeth to be ok, Sho, so you don't end up with cavities." Said Mob
"My teeth are fine. Besides, you're one to talk. Your teeth are turning yellow." Said Sho
"They are….and I don't know why. I brush every day. Twice a day even. No matter what I do they just won't stop being…all yellow." Said Mob. She poked her front tooth with her toothbrush. She was right, her teeth were yellow, and she hated it.
"Maybe Fukuda could fix it." Said Sho
"I don't want to bother him over something as dumb as teeth. Fukuda is for things like broken bones and bleeding and stuff." Said Mob
"And fixing your dolls." Said Sho. There was a tone there that she couldn't read. She was bad at tones but that was ok because dad was too. She could see his aura. He wasn't mad. That was what mattered.
"That too. I didn't even know that there were doll hospitals. It was nice of him to take my doll to the hospital. I should say thanks the next time I see him." said Mob. She hadn't seen him in a while. Sho hadn't been getting hurt like he used to and Mob hadn't been hurt in a while. Fukuda never just hung out with them. Minegishi hung out with her but Fukuda never had. Maybe because they were older now. Maybe they outgrew them like they outgrew their kid teeth.
"He didn't take it to the doll hospital, he had this guy fix it. Higashio. He has the power to fix anything. Dad says that he's super useful." Said Sho. Mob nodded. She had let a lot of espers back when they had helped dad at the Fifth Division. There were so many espers in Claw it was hard to remember who could do what. She had to, though, because dad said that when she grew up that would be one of her jobs.
She had to help run Claw when she grew up.
Even though if she had a choice she would have worked in a cat shelter or as one of the people in costumes at Disneyland. That was what she wanted to be when she grew up but she didn't get to decide what she wanted to be when she grew up. Regular kids got to be whatever they wanted to be. She had to be what dad wanted her to be. Dad said that he never got a choice, either, when he was a kid. He was born with the ultimate power and that meant that he had to be the one who ruled the world.
Sho didn't get to pick either. Suzuki's didn't get to pick.
"I don't think that we'll see him today though." said Sho
"What are you going to do today?" asked Mob
"I don't know. Drive around in cars, sit through meetings, throw stuff at Shimazaki. The usual." Said Sho
"You shouldn't throw things at people but especially not at Shimazaki." Said Mob. Even though if anyone deserved to have stuff thrown at them it was Shimazaki. He was just so mean all the time. Plus he called Minegishi by their first name even though he knew for a fact that they did not like that one bit.
"Why not? He likes it." Said Sho
"Because it's mean to make fun of blind people…also I don't think that he likes it. He doesn't like anything." Said Mob. Well everyone must have liked something but Mob had no idea what it was the Shimazaki liked. She never hung out with him. She never wanted to hang out with him. She would rather have hung out with Sho when he was super mad and also super full of those energy drinks with the warning label on the front.
"I'm not making fun of him. I would never make fun of him. He's so cool! He's like this blind master or something. You know he can teleport anywhere in the whole world, right? And he can see with his powers and stuff? And he can hear really well, too. Like he can hear pudding. Like if you shake a cup of pudding he can hear it…and steal it. He likes pudding. Dogs too. One time he was supposed to be watching me while dad did something, I don't know what it doesn't matter, and then he just grabbed me and teleported me-" said Sho
"That doesn't sound very nice." Said Mob. You weren't supposed to just grab people and stuff. That wasn't very nice. The polite thing to do would have been to ask…and nobody was ever allowed to be impolite to her little brother.
"Shut up! It was! It's cool teleporting, not scary at all, and I wasn't even scared the first time! I really wasn't'!" said Sho
"Ok. I believe you." Said Mob
"Good. You should. Anyway he teleported me to this park and then he said that I had to pretend to be his kid and there were these dogs everywhere and people let us pet them and play with them. He likes dogs a lot. He said that when he was a kid he had a dog and that it died through no fault of his. He said that dog is man's best friend more than man is man's best friend. Also did you know that you can pet dogs for unlimited time if you tell them that you're a blind single father?" asked Sho
"Shimazaki is someone's dad?" asked Mob. She felt very bad for that kid, or kids, and also for the lady who married him. Those poor people.
"No! That was the lie! He told those ladies that he was my dad and also that he was blind, that part is true, and then they let us pet the dogs and play with them and roll around with them and let them lick us. Dad was upset when he finished his stuff and we weren't there…and also that we smelled like dog…but Shimazaki was all 'whatever' like he wasn't even scared of dad." Said Sho
It's wrong to tell lies, little brother, very wrong." Said Mob. Shimazaki was being a bad influence on Sho. Telling lies was wrong, both mom and dad had agreed on that, and lying just to play with dogs was very mean indeed…also Mob would have liked to have been invited to play with the dogs. It couldn't have been that much trouble for him to pop round and get her too….not that she wanted to hang out with Shimazaki in the first place.
"I don't care. It was worth it to pet dogs. He likes birds, too. One time he teleported into a tree because there were baby birds. He heard them all the way from the ground. They were hatching and then he pulled me up and I watched and he watched too but he could only sort of see with his powers, he says that the easiest things to see are other espers, but we watched and until the momma bird started pecking our heads. We had to come down from the tree then and then dad was all 'you are both ridiculous' but then Shimazaki was all 'whatever' again and then we went for a ride in the car and then while we were in the car Shimazaki showed me-" said Sho
"He shouldn't say 'whatever' to dad. That's not nice." Said Mob. Dad said that it was always very important to be respectful to people and to have your underlings respect you. She didn't know what happened to people who disrespected dad but Minegishi said that bad things happened to people who took bathroom breaks in the middle of meetings so Mob assumed at least that whatever he did to people who were disrespectful was worse than what he did to people who had to go to the bathroom.
"He didn't SAY 'whatever' he was all LIKE 'whatever'. There's a difference. Anyway when we were in the car he showed me how his phone worked, well I just kind of climbed up on him to see, and it reads everything to him. That's because he's blind. I was wondering why he had a phone if he couldn't see. Did you know that his phone case was from Sailor Moon? Because he didn't. He said that Minegishi picked it out for him for his birthday." Said Sho
"That's not a nice trick to play on someone." Said Mob. Even if it was kind of funny it still wasn't nice at all…but Minegishi probably had a good reason for doing that.
"No way, it's super funny. Anyway he was all 'what's wrong with it?' and I was all 'it's a girl's case' and he was all 'why is it a girl's case?' and I was all 'because it's pink' and he was all 'I have no idea what pink is' because he doesn't know what colors are. Even auras. He can't tell what color own aura is. He says that aura's sound like things. He says that I sound like a mosquito because I'm pesky but you and dad shout all the time." Said Sho
"Oh. I didn't know that." Said Mob. She also didn't know if Sho had been giving her a play by play of an actual conversation, earlier, but she wasn't going to ask. She was always so clueless about this kind of stuff.
"Well now you do. I don't think that I'm pesky but he says that I am. He says that I'm like a mosquito that won't leave him alone but I don't think that I'm like that. He thinks a lot of stuff that I don't think, either, like he thinks that lemon soda is good even though it isn't. Also it'll kill me and when I told him that it would kill me he said that I shouldn't have told him that because now he knows my weakness but he works for dad so I know that he'll never mess with me like that. Besides, if he tried that then I'd have to beat him up." Said Sho
"No. Let dad beat him up…or me." Said Mob. She didn't want to beat anyone up but if Shimazaki gave Sho citrus then she would have no choice. That wasn't funny. Citrus could for real kill him. If someone killed her little brother then she didn't know what she would do. Hurt them. Kill them, maybe, even. Nobody hurt Sho. Nobody.
"You couldn't ever beat anyone up. You're a girl and girls don't do that. At least dad says that they don't. Shimazaki says that in the Seventh Division there's this girl Scar and she has super hitting powers. Like she can punch through walls and stuff. Also Minegishi fights with him all the time and Shimazaki says that they're a girl and not a girl, whatever that means. I asked him what it meant but he just said to ask Minegishi but I'm not going to do that because they're your friend…and also it's not a polite question and I know that dad'll get pissed off it I start asking people who work for him questions like that. So you ask." Said Sho
"No. I'm not asking that. Well I did, before, and Minegishi said that it was none of my business because unless I want to date them then there's no reason for me to know." Said Mob
"Well ask again because I want to know." Said Sho
"No. I can't do that, little brother, I'm sorry but I can't." said Mob. She was not going to risk her friendship with Minegishi to ask questions that were none of her business. Also it didn't matter. Boy or girl they were still a good friend.
"If you ask for me then I'll yank your tooth out for you." Said Sho. He reached forward and tried to tap her tooth with his finger. She stepped back. That was how people got sick. Not that she had ever been sick in her life…but she wasn't about to start now.
"No. I told you that I would wait for it to come out on it's own. Now come on, you have to rinse or you might accidentally swallow some toothpaste and then you'll get sick." Said Mob. She used her powers to fill Sho's rinse cup. He took it and rinsed way too fast to have effectively got rid of all the leftover toothpaste.
"There. You happy?" asked Sho
"Yes. I'm very happy." Said Mob. She was just happy that he listened without fighting with her. Good. Now that tooth brushing was done with they could have breakfast and then…well they'd separate but she'd see him again.
"Good. Now let me yank out your tooth for you! Come on, you're driving me crazy playing with it like that." Said Sho. Mob covered her mouth and shook her head.
"No, leave it alone. It'll fall out on it's own." Said Mob
"But you're making me crazy with all of that playing with it!" said Sho
"It's my tooth and it's going to come out when it's ready, ok? Do I ever tell you what to do with your teeth?" asked Mob
"You tell me to brush them." Said Sho
"That's different. I tell you to brush your teeth for your own good." Said Mob
"I'm telling you to yank that tooth out for your own good. If you leave it in for too long then the tooth on the bottom will come in crooked and then people are going to make fun of your for having messed up teeth." Said Sho. Mob uncovered her mouth. She didn't want to be made fun of. Nobody had made fun of her to her face in years…and she didn't want that to start back up again. Plus Sho knew what he was talking about. He knew more about how people worked that she did. He may have been younger but he wasn't anywhere near as clueless as she was.
"…will it hurt?" asked Mob.
"Most likely. Don't worry, I'll use my powers so it goes quick." Said Sho. Mob nodded. She didn't much want to be in pain…but she also didn't want to get made fun of.
"Ok…but make sure that you only pull out the loose tooth." Said Mob. Dad had said, before, that his permanent teeth grew back on their own. She had no idea if hers would too and also it didn't really seem like the sort of thing she should have been trying out for herself.
"Of course I'm only going to yank out the loose tooth! What do I look like? Someone who doesn't know about loose teeth?" asked Sho
"No, you just look like yourself….ok. You can do it now." Said Mob. She closed her eyes and braced herself.
"Ok, I'll be quick…and don't get me in trouble! If dad asks then you tell him that you asked me to do this." said Sho. That wasn't exactly the truth, Sho had talked her into this, but she wasn't going to get him in trouble with way.
"You know that I would never try and get you in trouble. You know I love you." Said Mob
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love you too big sis. Now hold still and say 'ah'." Said Sho. Mob did what he said.
She held still.
She said 'ah'.
And then she tasted blood. It hurt and she tasted blood but she didn't yell even though it had hurt a lot…and also her tooth looked super gross just floating there in front of her. It was all covered in her spit and blood…and it was dripping spit and blood, too. She took it in her hand and put it down on the sink. She didn't want to look at it. Sho filled up her rinse cup and handed it to her.
"See? That wasn't so bad. Girls are such babies about pain. That was only a little tooth, too. One time I had a tooth that was hurting me so I yanked it out and it was really big and even had a bunch of stuff at the bottom. Not like how most teeth are hollow at the bottom. This one had a whole other part. It was really hard to yank out but I did. It had a big black thing on it, too." Said Sho
"Please don't yank out any more of your teeth even if they hurt. You might end up yanking out a permanent tooth. Those don't grow back." Said Mob after she finished spitting and rinsing her mouth out. She rinsed off her tooth, too. She didn't put it under her pillow, there was no point, but she did put it in her pocket. She didn't know why she was saving her teeth, the ones she outgrew, but she knew that she had to. Maybe the why of it didn't matter. She didn't know.
"Those grow back you know, dad said so." Said Sho
"His grow back. I don't know if ours do." Said Mob. She wondered how that worked, dad's permanent teeth growing back. He was the one who called them permanent but they couldn't really be permanent now could they if he lost them sometimes. He lost them in fights, he said, and he also said that if someone could manage to hurt him like that then they were good material. Mob didn't know if she believed that it was a good thing to knock out someone's teeth. It showed that he person was powerful but that didn't mean anything. Powers were powers and they had nothing to do with you being good or bad.
"We should test it then. One of us should knock out the other's tooth and then we'll see if it grows back or not. I think that it will because we're dad's kids and we got our powers from him so that meants that if he can do it then we can do it." Said Sho. Mob shook her head. That was a terrible idea. What if they didn't grow back? Fukuda said that he wasn't good at fixing teeth. Also they couldn't go to the dentist, either, so really that was not the thing to be trying.
"No, Sho, let's just have breakfast. Come on, dad doesn't like it when you take too long and you guys probably have a lot of stuff to do today." Said Mob. She felt the space in her mouth where her tooth used to be. Maybe she had yanked it out too soon. Maybe her other teeth missed that one. Maybe that tooth, the one in her pocket, missed the ones in her mouth. Maybe she should have just let it be until it was ready to come out.
There was nothing that she could do about it now.
The tooth had to come out one way or another. Maybe it was better to just yank it out and get it over with like Sho had said. She had outgrown the tooth. There was no reason to let it hang around if she had outgrown it. Teeth were not like people. They didn't have feelings and also it was ok to discard them when you outgrew them. It was not ok to do that with people. Not ok at all…because people had feelings, but teeth did not.
Teeth didn't leave like people did. They just got loose and fell out.