One of the best times of the day is, was, and always would be lunch.

The best person to share lunch, every meal really, was Daughter. She and Son had come to work with him that day. Son to learn what it was that he would have to do and Daughter because she was old enough, he thought, that she could have some tasks delegated to her. He trusted her with simple things right now but things would become more complex as she proved her competence. That was how it went for everyone in Claw…though maybe, since this was his child, he should have just sent her straight to the upper echelons…

Not yet. She wasn't even ten years old.

Still though she had proved herself to be more competent than Son. Son…he was not Daughter. Suzuki was about ready, actually, to have a blood test done. Sometimes it felt like Daughter was his child and Son was the foundling. Or maybe he was a changeling. That would have explained everything from his behavior to the fact that everything he ate was covered in sugar. He had even see Son, on occasion, eating from a sack of sugar….

He would never understand that child for as long as they both would live.

Daughter, on the other hand, he felt like he had a good understanding of. That day, anyway, she could be confusing on occasion as well. Such as what her obsession with cats was. She still had on that headband with the cat ears, the one that she had gotten for her last birthday. He hated that thing. It was ridiculous. She was not a cat, she was a human being, and she should not have been pretending to be a cat. That was what bothered him about her cat ears headband. That was all that bothered him. It had nothing to do with who had given her that headband or who was e-mailing him nonstop or who had had almost managed to forget or who he was spending the lunch hour agonizing over as his food rapidly cooled and-

"Dad? Do you want to trade?" asked Mob. Dad wasn't eating. That was weird for him. He loved breakfast food, especially omelets, and especially omelets with ketchup on them. Especially that kind of ketchup. Mob didn't understand about the different kinds of ketchup but she pretended that she did for her dad's benefit. He liked it when they had things in common.

"What, Daughter?" asked Suzuki. He was hovering above an E-Mail. He knew that he should either have opened it or deleted it. Very few people had his personal E-Mail…and he didn't even remember giving it to this particular person…but then again he had been trying to forget her for a year now. Almost a year. Both not long enough and far too long.

"Do you want to trade food with me, Dad?" Said Mob. She wondered if dad hadn't heard her or if he just didn't get it. He had been an only child so he had trouble understanding the things that she and Sho did. From trading food to playing fort he just didn't get it. If Sho had been there he would have explained it to dad. Sho was eating in the cafeteria. He wanted the people down there to fight again. Why anyone would want people to fight she did not know.

Maybe dad could explain it to her.

But he seemed busy, too, or just zoned out. He had been staring at his computer screen for a while. His aura was being weird too. It stung hers when she got too near. He was keeping it tucked in, too, and maybe that meant that something was bothering him. The only thing that could have been bothering him, that Mob figured, was his lunch. Sho hadn't been around much so that couldn't have been it and she couldn't think of anything that she had done wrong that day. She brought dad the papers that he needed and stapled what needed to be stapled and delivered what needed to be delivered. She also had to boss around some Awakened, they had been hanging out outside of dad's office trying to watch him because they liked him a lot. They had been being so loud so dad sent her to tell them to get lost. She didn't say the words 'get lost' but she did tell them that they were distracting dad. They left, eventually, but they had been all happy that she was talking to them and….and it had been sort of weird, the way that they were looking at her, and the way that they talked about her as they left. They had been all 'she spoke to me' which was…weird.

Sometimes the Awakened could be kind of weird.

"You want to trade with me? Why?" asked Suzuki. He thought that she liked that mess of sugar and fat and salt and oil. Pancakes with syrup, the fastest way to ruin them, french fries with enough salt that he could see all the way from his desk, and a milkshake that he knew she would be dipping her fries in very soon. Maybe this was a good sign. Maybe she was growing up. Maybe soon she would eat real food and stop dressing so ridiculously.

Maybe she would retire that goddamned headband already.

He was tired of looking at it. He was tired of thinking about it. He was tired of…he was tired of thinking about a great many things. He was tired of going over his own mistakes in his mind…and he hated the fact that he had made those mistakes in the first place. He hated how weak he had been…and how weak he was being now…

He missed Masami. He only missed Masami.

He missed Masami more than anything…and that was hard enough to admit. He didn't need her, he didn't need anyone. He just…he missed her because they had been together for so long…even though she was just a normal woman. Just like any other woman…even though she was so much…more….than any other woman that he had ever met.

Masami. Always Masami. Even if there had been someone else, and he was not proud of that, there would always be Masami. His Masami.

"You aren't eating. We can trade if you want. I have pancakes but I didn't put any syrup on yet. Also I have fries with salt and I know that you like fries with salt. Oh! And I also have a cookie and a milkshake but I know that you hate sweet things…but you can have them if you want to." Said Mob. She and Sho sometimes traded foods if he got something that he didn't like. Like the time with the durian or the breadfruit or the meat on a stick that may or may not have been people….Mob thought that it wasn't but Sho said that it was…and she never liked trading gross things for good things but it was worth it for Sho.

Dad didn't have anything gross though.

That was his favorite food. Four egg omelet with mushrooms, ham, green peppers, cheese, another kind of cheese, and sometimes bacon inside. Also sometimes avocado but not all the time because sometimes that was just too much, dad had said. Mob thought that it wasn't too much because it was a fruit and dad needed to eat more fruit. You were supposed to eat all the food groups but dad didn't eat a lot of fruit because it was sweet and he hated sweet foods. She wondered if dad was allergic to sweet foods. Sho always hated citrus and then when he got older he became allergic and now if he tried to eat citrus he would die…and that made her a little nervous because she was with dad and Sho was downstairs where there was lemonade and orange juice and citrus fruit and other kinds of citrus fruit too…and if he accidentally ate some he would have been in so much trouble…

She let herself see the auras around her. Fukuda was there, too, near Sho. That was good. He would be safe, then, with Fukuda near him.

"No thank you, Daughter. I'm fine. Eat your lunch." Said Suzuki. He was fine. There was nothing wrong. He would just ignore this email like he had been ignoring them since she had started sending them. She was a mistake, pure and simple, and he did not miss her. He already missed Masami and that was more than enough. He had nothing to miss about her, he knew her name but he knew not to use it, he barely even knew her.

Her thoughts on faster than light travel weren't feasible anyway.

He had no desire to know her, anyway, none at all. So she had interesting things to say. Big deal. Everything could be interesting if he thought long enough and hard enough about it. The way the clouds moved through the side, the drawings that Son had left scattered around the office, the way the sun got caught on the sparkles of Daughter's dress. The way she dipped her fries into her milkshake before she ate them. The way her hair was starting to grow down into her eyes. The fact that even though the headband did nothing to keep her hair out of her eyes she still wore it.

He could not stand that headband.

He knocked it off of her head. Daughter reached up in confusion as that ridiculous headband of hers went stumbling to the ground. She was confused and slightly….frightened? What reason could she have possibly had for being frightened? It wasn't as though he had harmed her in any way.

"Dad? Are you…mad at me?" asked Mob. Dad tried to hit her over the head but he missed. She had no idea what she could have done to him that would have made him that mad. She was just eating lunch…but maybe she was eating lunch wrong….even though she had no clue whatsoever how she possibly could have been eating her lunch wrong. She was just sitting there and eating and sometimes dad could be so-

Conceal, don't feel.

There was no point in getting upset with dad. If he was upset with her then it was for a good reason. She had, obviously, done something wrong. Dad would tell her what she had done wrong and then she just wouldn't do it again. One more thing that she was not allowed to do…there was no point at all in thinking like that. She had to follow rules, all kids did, even her. She didn't have as many rules as normal kids and she should have been grateful for that. She could eat whatever she wanted and she didn't have to go to school, well she had homeschool but that was different, and she got to play with her little brother all day which she had not been allowed to do back when they had to spend most of the day at their separate schools…so one more rule wouldn't be so bad.

"No." said Suzuki simply. He was not angry with her. She had done nothing. Well she had worn that headband…but he was not going to explain it to her why he had done what he had done. First of all he was not the sort of man who admitted his mistakes and second of all nobody wanted to know that their father, who they looked up to more so than any other being living or dead, was nothing more than a womanizing, self-defiling, slave to his own joy. What kind of an example would he had set for her if he were to tell her that he'd been unfaithful to her mother with the woman who had given her that ridiculous headband that she was always wearing?

A terrible one.

She may grow up thinking that it would be alright for her to stray from whoever she chose...or even worse…that it would be acceptable for the person she chose to stray from her. No. That would not be allowed to pass. If the man who she chose was ever unfaithful to her then he would have no choice but to murder that man with his own two hands…no. Death was cheap. He would devote a portion of his life to making that man suffer in any way that a person could suffer.

All the ways.

In all the ways that he deserved….no. He was Suzuki Touichirou and he could do whatever he wanted with whoever he wanted to whenever he wanted…but he had promised Masami and she had never once been unfaithful to him….well it had been three years since he had last seen her and he had no idea what she was up to. She could have replaced him. She could have replaced him twice over. Thrice over. Right at that very moment she could have been-

"But your aura seems mad." Said Mob. She knew that she was on dangerous ground, asking dad all of these questions, but she really just wanted to know what it was that she had done. She wished that she knew all the things that made dad mad, that he didn't like about her, like a list or something. Then she could have been better and dad could have been happier and he wouldn't have gotten into moods like this.

"Not at you." Said Suzuki. He did not want to get into this with her. He reached for his fork and decided that the best thing to do would be to eat his food before it got even colder and then he would get back to work and forget about the pile of emails that he should have deleted or moved to his spam folder. He should have done more to forget her, to rewrite history in his mind to that he never made that terrible mistake in the first place, but there was just something wrong with him….something that made him torment himself like this.

"But you tried to hit me." Said Mob

"No. I don't 'try' to do anything. If I set out to do something then it gets done. If I had set out to strike you then I would have struck you. Now let me eat. If you don't want to eat then find something to do that does not involve bothering me." Said Suzuki

"Oh…ok. I won't bother you." Said Mob. She didn't know what she had done to make dad mad but she knew that if she kept going on and on about it then dad would have gotten even more upset with her. She didn't want dad to be upset with her. Sho would be coming back, maybe, unless he went outside and had Shibata throw him in the air again. That always made Mob so nervous…but not as nervous as she got when dad was upset….

"Good." Said Suzuki. He went back to eating. She did the same. There was a delay, though, as she had to spend some time watching him. He had no idea why she had to watch him, what her curiosity was. She knew that he had told her to leave him be. For a moment he wants to tell her to get out…but he needs her there. She keeps his mind on her…a little bit, at least. He knew that if he were to be alone then he would end up driving himself crazy. Maybe he was already crazy. He was constantly putting himself through all of this torment. He shouldn't have gotten himself so worked up…

But he had.

She would have been so ashamed of him if she knew what he had done and now he had felt. She looked up to him. She looked to him for guidance for her own life, how she was supposed to be, and if he couldn't even control himself then how was she supposed to? She would take it as permission to lose control and act like…this. Honestly he would not have been surprised if she ended up leaving him one day-

-she would never leave him.

Not that he needed her. Not that he needed anyone. Not that he wasn't a full and complete person all on his own. She was just…she was his Daughter. Of course she would not be able to leave him. She would always be his Daughter and therefore she would always be by his side. She was dependent on him…well she would grow up but…but she would always be with him and he should not have been thinking about this, about any of this, about anything other than finishing lunch and getting back to work.

There was no shortage of things that needed doing.

He had money and people to move around and there was a stack of things that needed his approval and the latest purge had left some big holes in the organization. He had things to do and getting all twisted up over someone who he barely knew, and who should not have been bothering him anyway, and who he should have told him to leave him be….it was irrational, the way that he was being. Completely irrational and not at all conductive to his future goals.

"Did your computer freeze? I mean because you've been staring for a while and I know how to unfreeze it. At least I think that I do." Said Mob. It did not feel good being near dad when something was upsetting him. His aura hurt, for one thing, when it touched hers. Also knowing that he was upset made her feel upset and then if she got upset she could have lost control….and that would not have been good…so she had to just stop…but she couldn't because dad was being…well he wasn't being anything.

That was the worst.

It was a relief, almost, when he did end up mad at her and Sho. There was a sense of relief to it because once he punished her she knew that it was the longest possible time before more punishment. She hated it when he punished Sho, though, but it was better when he punished her. That way, at least, Sho was ok and…and she didn't have to worry about being punished for a very long time.

She wished that he would have just hit her over the head and gotten it done with instead of just knocking her headband off.

"No. I told you to leave me alone." Said Suzuki

"I know you did but I'm worried…about you. I love you dad and I can tell that you're upset and I don't know what I did that's making you so upset but I'm sad about…about how you feel." Said Mob. She thought that she had said that right. She had a lot of trouble saying the right thing at the best of times. Dad wasn't like everyone else, he had his own rules about what was ok to say to him, and sometimes he got mad at her even if she didn't think that she had said anything that was that wrong.

Like now. He was even more upset now and she had no idea what it was that she had said that was so bad.

"I don't feel any particular way, first of all. Second of all you don't need to worry about me, I am the adult and you're the child, so therefore I am the one who should be concerned with your wellbeing instead of you being concerned with mine. Third of all and finally you've done nothing wrong. Well you had, before, but now…well now you're becoming tiresome. If you don't stop it I'm going to send you out." Said Suzuki. He thought that he had made himself perfectly clear. Verbal expression had never been one of his strengths. There had been no reason to develop those skills since he had actual strength to him. She was…upset…though. That was the feeling he got from her aura, anyway, even though she had no reason to feel that way.

He had thought that he had been calm, honest, and to the point. If he had wanted her frightened then he would have set out to frighten her.

"….sorry, dad." Said Mob. She knew as soon as he started looking at her, with his eyes and with his aura, that she had said the wrong thing. She wished that he could have just punished her now and gotten it all over with. Sooner rather than later. Better that she got punished than Sho. He was the best little brother in the whole world…even if he could be kind of man sometimes…but he did not deserve whatever punishment dad was planning on coming up with for them.

She sat as still as possible.

"Apology accepted. Now be quiet." Said Suzuki. He liked that about her. She realized when she'd made a mistake and then she owned up to it. He had no idea where she got it from. He had been agonizing over every mistake that he had ever made since…he didn't even know. Last spring's mistake had been weighing on him lately. He had mostly purged all thoughts of that incident, and the woman involved, from his mind…but now, thanks to her constant attempts to regain contact with him, he found himself wishing that she would have walked through his office door with a warm cup of tea and a few minutes of intelligent conversation….

Why was she even trying to reestablish contact with him in the first place?

She did not have feelings for him. She had no reason to have feelings for him. Logic dictated that she should have hated him. He had been the one to leave and leaving…that was the worst thing that one could do to another person in his opinion. Be it through death or simply getting up and walking away leaving was the worst thing that a person could do because it robbed another person of your presence in their life. He had no idea why she would have wanted him in her life. It couldn't have been that the sex had been just THAT good.

Well if it had been then that would have made sense. He hadn't disappointed anyone yet.

That's the stupid part of his brain, the one concerned with the reproductive instinct, that tells him that he should be proud of himself for never having had left a partner unsatisfied. That isn't an accomplishment, the more intelligent part of his mind reminds him, because it really isn't that difficult. Even on a very uncomfortable desk with someone he had never been with before and who he would never be with again…and that was fine. There was a feeling attached to that and he doesn't even bother to examine it.

He just exorcises it.

He should have no feelings about this, what had happened, beyond simple curiosity as to why she would want to speak to him at this point. The time to speak to him would have been after he had left. If she had his personal email then she could have contacted him at any point. Not that he wanted her to contact him. Not that he wanted to talk to her about that book she had been reading or if she was still into….he did not care. Pang was just a woman who had been in his life briefly and then he had done something with her that he shouldn't have….and that was the whole of it.

He went back to her message. His cursor hovered over it. His finger hovered over his mouse. He did not click.

His lunch was half eaten. Daughter was done and was back to doing something on her tablet. He was tempter to ask her what she was up to. Even if it was another one of her games or one of her movies or even one of her short videos full of humor that he was far too old to understand he wanted to…to use her to distract himself…but he didn't. She would just start up with her questions again and he did not want to deal with that.

He should have just deleted this message.

He should have deleted all of her messages. He should have ignored her. He should have done something about the fact that she was bothering him…but he didn't. He hated himself sometimes. How he could be. How he was. The sun got caught on his wedding ring. He was married. Even if Masami was gone he was married to her and she had never been unfaithful to him and he should not have been unfaithful to her but he had been unfaithful and out of everything that he had ever done in his life that was his only regret…his only recent regret…and he should have just forgotten about Pang and what had happened but he couldn't and-

He felt Daughter's aura.

"If you're done I can take your plates and stuff…because I'm done so I'm going to get rid of my plate and stuff…" said Mob. She didn't want to be around dad when he was all upset like that. She couldn't just get up and leave, though, because he would have asked her where she was going and then she would not have just been able to come out and tell him that she did not want to be near him. That would have been mean and she was not going to be mean to her own dad.

But she did want to put some space between them.

And she couldn't just say that she had to go to the bathroom because she had just gone to the bathroom so if she said now that she had to go to the bathroom then he would have been able to tell that she was lying…and also she would have been lying, too, and she hated lying. She was bad at it, first of all, and second of all she was not supposed to tell lies in the first place. Both mom and dad had told her that lying was wrong. She had to be good. Dad liked her better when she was good and so did mom…even if she was gone. Even if mom had betrayed them all by leaving which was worse than telling lies. At least, even if she had told lies, she would still have been there. Mom was…why did she even care what mom thought? If mom had been there then she would not have had to even think about lying to her own dad. She would have been a home and…well she would have been at school…or maybe not. She had no idea what time it was in Japan. She knew, however, that she would have been with mom but not dad and if she had been with mom then she would not have had to worry like she was now. She was worried about getting punished, worried about Sho getting punished, worried about how dad felt, worried about letting dad down, worried about letting mom down…and it shouldn't have mattered if she had let her mom down.

Mom was gone.

There was anger there when she thought about it. Mom having had left. She tried not to be angry but…but she was still trying to be what mom wanted her to be even though mom was gone. She should have just worried about dad, being who he wanted her to be, because he was there. Of course he wouldn't have wanted her to lie to him because that would have been bad of her even though there were worse, so many worse, things that she could have done.

She wondered if avoiding your own dad because he was mad and refused to tell you why was wrong, too.

"Take it." Said Suzuki. He had lost his appetite in the first place. He uses his powers to pass her his half eaten lunch. Such a pity, it had been good, but he had lost his appetite. A physical reaction to all of the emotions that he was trying to exorcise. Good. She was leaving. She didn't have to see her father like this. What could he even say to her? Well nothing, obviously, because she was ten…or was she still nine? He had no idea.

Young. Too young. Also she was his child.

Also he had nothing to say to anyone about this let alone his own child. He had no idea why it was that Pang was messaging him out of nowhere, why she of all people wanted to get into contact with him, and he didn't care. He had work to do. He had an organization to run. He could not afford to become…this. To practically drown in his own emotions…ones that should have been exorcised ages ago….

Why did SHE have to be one to contact him?

Why couldn't it have been…no. The windows behind him crack. He's glad that Daughter isn't around to see him like this. He doesn't care if Masami ever speaks to him again. She had left him and she was a traitor and he would not have given his first born child to have been able to see her just once more….he doesn't care about Masami or how long it had been or how she had left him or how he had been unfaithful to her or how she could have been with someone else at that moment in time or at how his Daughter had questioned him or about how-

He exorcised his emotions.

The only thing he cared about was getting back to work. The best time of the day, lunch, was over and now it was time to get back to work.

He couldn't afford to be distracted like this.