Minegishi Toshiki did not want children.

There was no ticking biological clock. There was no concern for passing on the family name. There was no urge to make a smaller and cuter version of themselves. No. They did not want a baby, had no urge to reproduce, and actually could not stand the sound of a crying baby. It cut through them like a knife. It made them feel vaguely anxious. It made them want to bang their head against a wall until they passed out from the concussion.

They did not want a baby.

So why in the hell could they hear a baby crying?

"Look Mukai! Fresh air! And the sun! Does this make you happy? What makes you happy?" Mob was outside shouting in Korean at a…doll? She was pacing up and down her backyard with a baby doll. One of those realistic ones. It looked like it could cry, at least, and move and…turn red…and also Minegishi didn't know much but they knew that Mob should not have been holding it like a sack of potatoes….that is if that was a…

That was a real baby.

"What the hell?" muttered Minegishi. They had been laying down on their bed trying to get caught up on their reading. They had been hanging out with a ten year old all day. They liked Mob but they'd needed a break for a while…and now they had a break…well they'd HAD one but this was not something that they could ignore.

Because that was a very loud baby….that Mob should not have had.

"Please…please….please stop crying. I'll be your friend if you stop crying, Mukai, we'll be best friends." Said Mob. She was still pacing around with a screaming baby…and Minegishi could not take this. They were going to intervene because, judging by the lack of Suzuki's aura, he was off doing more important things than taking care of his Daughter while she took care of a baby. Thank God that they were in the middle of nowhere or someone would have started asking questions.

Like why there was a ten year old pacing with a screaming baby.

"Minegishi! Help me please…." Said Mob. She felt their aura before she saw them…and she was so happy to see them! They were smart and they would know what to do. Dad told her to Google it but Google had said that there were a bunch of reasons that a baby could be crying. She could have been too hot or too cold or hungry or lonely or she might have needed a change or she might have missed her parents or she might have just been crying for the sake of crying.

Babies were a lot.

But Minegishi was smart! The smartest person ever next to dad. They would know just what to do and they would do it and the baby would be happy and it would be taken care of and then Dad wouldn't tell her that she had failed him even though she sort of had…because she was not taking good care of this baby at all….but now it would all be ok! Even her aura was calming down…which was good because she had been feeling way too many feelings.

"Mob, where'd you get that baby?" asked Minegishi. Yup. That was a genuine human baby. An esper baby from the look of her aura. It was small and it was dim but it was there…and Minegishi had no idea if that was normal or not. That was a baby with an aura…so it made sense why it would be there….there as in with Claw, not there as in being held by a panicking ten year old.

What the hell was this?

"This is my baby." Said Mob. Dad had given her this baby and now that meant that it was hers and she was it's mom…but she did not want to be it's mom. Her mom. She did not want to be Mukai's mom at all. She didn't know all of the things that a mom was supposed to know and she didn't even have her own mom to ask. She couldn't even ask her own dad because he had left. So now it was just her and this baby….and she was going to be it's sister. Not a mom but a sister. She knew how to be a sister.

She knew how to be Sho's sister. Sho was not a baby. This was a baby. But she would be fine.

"What….what?" asked Minegishi. That was….what? No. That was not possible. Mob was ten. That was…what?

"This is my baby and her name is Mukai and she won't stop crying and I think that something is really making her all upset and I don't know what it is and I'm kind of scared and also she won't stop crying no matter how much I walk around with her." said Mob

"But…how is that your baby? I mean…you and that guy…right? I mean the one you were telling me about….you didn't do more than kiss, did you?" asked Minegishi. Ten year olds could have babies. The youngest mother ever had been five…it was a sick world they were living in….but Mob hadn't….Minegishi had been reading too much Wikipedia. It was poisoning their mind. Mob was just a kid. There had to be a rational explanation for the little human screaming in her arms.

"No we only…I don't want to talk about that now! I'll tell you the story of me and Hanazawa later but right now this baby needs something and I don't know what it is because she can't talk yet and even if she could talk she would speak Korean and my Korean isn't that good but that's what her mom and dad spoke so she probably can't understand us and-and-and I don't know why my dad gave her to me in the first place! A baby is not a birthday present." Said Mob

"Give me the baby and tell me everything." Said Minegishi. They did not like or want a baby but they also did not want to have to hear this baby carrying on like that. They held out their arms and Mob passed them the baby. Minegishi wasn't much wiser about this than Mob, they decided, and being an adult did not give them magical, Mary Poppins-esque powers, but they at least knew to support the baby's head.

"Um…ok. But don't hold her like that or she'll spit on the front of your shirt." Said Mob

"She's trying to breastfeed. Lovely." Said Minegishi as the baby turned it's head to the side and slobbered all over their shirt. Sometimes it really sucked having to be the adult. Like now when you got baby slobber all over one of your best shirts because, apparently, you didn't have enough to do in your life. Now you had to take care of a baby and change.

"Breastfeed?" asked Mob. She felt so much better not having to hold Mukai while she cried. She wasn't crying so loud anymore, either. She just wanted to suck on shirt…or try to eat from them. But how did that work? Babies drank milk from bottles. Mob may not have known much but she did know that babies only drank milk from bottles.

"You know, breastfeed. How babies eat. They get their food from their mothers like that. How do you not know?" asked Minegishi. Well this was certainly shaping up to be quite the shit show. Mob was ten. She was probably about to give the baby some of her strawberry milk or something. Minegishi may not have liked babies but they did not fancy having to deal with a dead one and an inconsolable ten year old.

"So that's why moms have breasts? Because they're full of milk? Like cows?" asked Mob. Huh. Well that would make sense. Moms were the ones who grew the babies inside of their stomachs so they much have been the ones who grew the food for them too. Did that mean that everyone could feed a baby like that even if they didn't have a baby?

"What? No, only if you've had a baby already….what the hell is your father even teaching….not now. I am not telling you the facts of life now. Nope. That's a crisis for another day." Said Minegishi

"Crisis?" asked Mob. She didn't think that this was a crisis. Sure this was sort of difficult, baby Mukai was still very upset, but she could figure this out. Dad was counting on her and she was not going to let him down.

"Does she have a bag? A suitcase? Anything?" asked Minegishi. Suzuki had dumped this on his Daughter, she had said, the sexist asshole that he was….but he wouldn't have just left this baby here with no supplies. That would have been insane….well anyone with eyes could see that Suzuki was not playing with a fill deck…but he wouldn't have been so stupid as to leave his Daughter alone with a baby and no supplies?

Right?

"Her things are inside." Said Mob. Right. She should have looked through the baby's bag. Her bottles must have been in there. So the milk in the bottles came from moms. That was interesting. They milked moms like cows for their milk and then gave it to babies. She hadn't known that. She knew that she was right to ask Minegishi for help. They were so smart. They knew everything.

"Well, come on then. I seriously can't take much more of this crying…." Said Minegishi. They carried the baby and followed Mob inside. They did not want to hold this baby. They did not want to care for this baby. They had no clue how to care for a baby. They hadn't joined this cult thinking that they would ever have to take care of a baby. They had spent their whole life taking precautions so as not to be in a situation where they would ever have to take care of a baby.

But now not only did they have to take care of a baby but a ten year old as well.

"Please take care of Mi-Cha. She is three months old as of the writing of this letter. Her birthday is February Second. She likes warm baths, warm bottles, and warm hugs. She has no allergies. She is formula fed. Please love her as much as I do." Said Minegishi as they read from the note in the diaper bag. Well that was no help. At least there were bottles and a can of formula in there as well as some clean clothes and diapers. Good. They had supplies. They would send for some more things for her and then…and then Minegishi did not know.

They did not and had never wanted to care for a baby.

But they were the most responsible person. Mob was ten and didn't even know where babies came from, Suzuki was gone, and the Awakened were morons. Heavy was the burden of the wise ones. This was just…this was insane. Suzuki could be an asshole but he at least had the ability to think and plan ahead. How was leaving a baby with his ten year old Daughter a good idea?

One thing at a time.

This baby was hungry. Minegishi had no idea when the baby was last fed. They had no idea how often babies needed to eat. Hell, they had no idea how much babies needed to eat. These bottles were all at different levels. They had just taken out the most full one and told Mob to microwave it until it was warm enough to drink but not so hot that it burnt.

"Mob! Hurry it up!" said Minegishi as the baby fussed in their lap. It was trying to latch on. Well good luck with that. If this baby did manage to latch on, doubtful since Minegishi was a lifelong member of the itty bitty titty committee, there'd be nothing there to reward her for her valiant efforts.

"I don't know if it's hot enough or too hot or too cold. The outside feels like-" said Mob

"Just splash some formula on your arm to see how hot it is. Having you seen mothers doing that?" asked Minegishi with a sigh. For all of the TV that kid watched, truly appalling amounts of it, she sure could be clueless sometimes.

"No. When Sho was born I was a baby." Said Mob. Minegishi did some mental math…and realized that this was not the time to do mental math. She and her brother were only about half a year apart. They could not think with this crying baby on their lap.

"Just tell me if it's ready, Mob, Mi-Cha is really hungry and I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to stand the crying for." Said Minegishi. Support the head, keep her close, don't drop her. That was what they knew about holding a baby. Sex ed should have prepared them for this. That would have been more practical for daily life than what they had been taught. Not that they had ever pictured a baby being added to their daily life.

They were not a nanny.

They were something of a babysitter, a terrible one, to Mob. That was the extent of their childcare role. Suzuki was so fucking sexist. Sure, just give the baby to the only member of his family with a vagina. She was only ten but the minute the baby was placed into her arms all of her instincts would just kick in and then she'd know just what to do. That, of course, ignored the fact that she had no idea where babies even came from.

"Her name is Mukai now. Dad renamed her." said Mob as she walked over and handed Minegishi Mukai's bottle. Minegishi knew what to do. They were holding the baby the right way, Mob had been carrying Mukai over her shoulder so she wouldn't try and eat her shirt, and that was good. Mob felt a lot lighter, now, because there was someone who knew what to do. They even knew that babies had to have special human milk…and Mob should have known that because she had known that human beings were mammals. Well she knew now and now she could take care of her pretend little sister better.

"Why? That's just going to confuse her." said Minegishi. They knew that when you adopted a pet from the shelter you weren't supposed to rename it because then it would get confused. The same thing must have gone for people. Mi-Cha was a nice name. Better than Toshiki anyway. Mukai was…what even was that name? Maybe there was some story behind it. It didn't matter. Suzuki would never say why he had seen fit to change this baby's name.

Suzuki wasn't around, anyway, even if by some miracle he felt like explaining himself to his underlings.

"I don't know. He just said that he didn't like her name and then that her name would be Mukai now. That doesn't seem like a good reason to change someone's name, I think, because you don't like it. She could have changed her name all on her own when she grew up if she had wanted to." Said Mob. She sat down on the couch next to Minegishi and watched them feed the baby. Their arm was keeping the baby propped up a little and their other arm was holding the bottle. Oh. Mukai's arms were too short for her to eat on her own. She was so cute when she wasn't screaming.

Mob was going to like having her for a pretend little sister.

Not a real sister, though, because for this to be her real sister she would have had to come from mom and dad. Mom was gone and dad didn't love her anymore. So she and Mukai were just pretend sisters. That was good. She would rather be Mukai's sister than her mom. Dad had made it seem like she was supposed to be Mukai's mom now…but that would have been way too much. She was only ten.

She felt like a kid.

"I see….and do you know why she's even here in the first place?" asked Minegishi as they fed this baby. Good. The crying had stopped and now they could think clearly. Right. A human baby. There was a human baby to take care of. Food, water…did babies drink water? Put a maybe on the water. Clothes, there were some in the bag, and there were diapers in the bag too. Which Minegishi was not going to be changing. That was a Mob job.

"I don't know. I came home and dad just handed her to me. He just said 'here Daughter, a friend for you' and then he gave me the baby. He said that I was the one who was going to take care of her. He said that I should just Google what I don't know and that he believes in me." Said Mob

"…so he seriously told you to Google it?" asked Minegishi

"Yes. He said to Google it. Those were his exact words. I have to Google the things that I don't understand." Said Mob. There was a lot of stuff that she had to Google. She didn't know how often Mukai was supposed to eat. That bottle didn't look like it held enough for even one meal. Also when did she have to sleep? She knew that babies needed a lot of sleep. She didn't know how to change diapers, either, because she had never had to change anyone's diaper before. Sho had been a baby at the same time that she had been a baby. She wished that mom would have had another baby while she still lived with them. Then Mob could have known what to do.

"So you're just expected to Google 'how to take care of a baby' and then become an expert?" asked Minegishi

"Yes. I think so. He thinks that I'll be good at taking care of Mukai. That's why he let me take care of her." said Mob

"Why would he just give you a baby? I mean trying to understand Suzuki has never been easy but…what the hell is wrong with him?" asked Minegishi. They had no idea how many bottles that this baby was supposed to eat in one sitting and they knew that if they, as a grown adult, didn't know then it was asinine to expect a ten year old girl to know what to do.

What was wrong with Suzuki?

"Dad said that I had to take care of her now. I guess that I have to take care of her because she doesn't have anyone else. Moms leave and I guess that dads can leave too and I guess that they could leave at the same time so I guess that's why we have orphanages." Said Mob

"Group homes." Said Minegishi without thinking.

"What's a group home?" asked Mob

"A group home is what they have now. It's a place where they send you when your parents either can't or won't take care of you…or if you run away from home enough times. Terrible places. Hell on Earth if they really put their minds to it." Said Minegishi. They looked down at the baby while they spoke. The baby made eye contact with them. Blue eyes. Red hair and blue eyes. Sone babies were born with blue eyes. They had been. There were pictures, the few surviving baby pictures of them, and they'd had blue eyes for a little bit after being born. The red hair could change too…though they had never heard of red hair tuning black with age…

This baby looked a hell of a lot like Suzuki.

"And they have a big room with a lot of beds and it's cold and smells like sour milk?" asked Mob. She had dreams like that, sometimes, where she was in a big room with a lot of other kids and it was cold and smelled like sour milk and everything was scary. She thought that she had been dreaming about what life would have been like if she had been in an orphanage because mom and dad hadn't wanted her anymore. So she had been dreaming of a group home without even knowing it.

Not that it mattered. Those were just weird dreams that she had sometimes.

"Weirdly specific but yes…mine smelled more like unwashed bodies and cat piss though." said Minegishi. They didn't care. That had been years ago. That was just a part of their life that Mob had asked about. What their childhood had been like. One of those things that they had promised Mob an answer to when she turned ten.

"I'm sorry…I didn't know that you were an orphan." Said Mob. She would not let Mukai go to a place like that. That must have been why dad had given her Mukai, so that way she wouldn't have to go to a terrible place, and then he left suddenly because he had something important to do that couldn't wait at all. Not even for him to explain how she was even supposed to take care of a baby in the first place. If dad even knew how to take care of a baby. That seemed like more of a mom job than a dad job.

Well now it was a Mob job.

"I wasn't then but I am now…and you don't want to hear that story right now." Said Minegishi

"Because the story makes you too sad?" asked Mob

"Because I know that this story will make YOU too sad. The last thing that we need right now is you freaking out. We've got to figure out what we're supposed to do with this baby. You can't take care of a baby, you're only ten, and I don't want to take care of a baby. Where the hell is your dad? And when did any of this look like a good idea?" asked Minegishi. The baby was done eating now, well the bottle was empty, and they had no idea what to do now. Wait, right, you were supposed to burp a baby…but that was a great way to get baby vomit on you and Minegishi did not want baby vomit all over them. The tears and drool were enough to deal with.

"I'm not going to freak out. I mean that I don't feel like I'm going to freak out. I just….I feel better that you're here. You're so smart. You know what to do." Said Mob. She wondered if Minegishi was a girl. These were the kinds of things that girls were supposed to do. Maybe that was why dad didn't stay and tell her what to do. Maybe he just didn't know how because he was a boy. That was why he had given her the baby, too, and not Sho. Sho was a boy and he didn't know what to do….

She didn't know how she was supposed to take care of Sho and baby Mukai at the same time.

"Mob, I have no clue what to do." Said Minegishi. They were not going to lie to Mob. They could sugarcoat some uncomfortable truths on occasion but they would not outright lie. Not about this. Outright lying about this would just put Minegishi in a position where they would have to care for a baby for the rest of their life…not something that they wanted. This was not what they had joined Claw for…

Though the lie would have put Mob at ease.

She was looking up at them with her big brown eyes just brimming with hope….but Minegishi was not a nanny and had never wanted to be. They needed to figure out what to do with this baby…this baby who looked like Suzuki and that he had randomly dropped on his ten year old Daughter…this baby that had a red aura…and red hair…and blue eyes….

This baby.

This baby…where had this baby even COME from? The way Mob had said it had been dumped on her by her father…Minegishi was having crazy thoughts. Thoughts that this was Suzuki's secret love child. That was insane. If this baby was Suzuki's love child that would have meant that a woman would have wanted to actually be with him. Sexually. Sure Suzuki was good looking but his personality…nobody would ever get so horny that they could ignore Suzuki's dumpster fire of a personality. Nobody's taste in men could have been that bad, and Minegishi knew a thing or two about having terrible taste in men.

Well Suzuki did already have those two kids….

"But…but you knew that she was hungry and you knew how to feed her and how to tell if her milk was too hot or too cold or just right and-" said Mob

"Hey, Goldilocks, that was all just common sense. I have no clue how to take care of a baby. I am not a nanny or a babysitter or a parent. I'm going strictly on common sense here….speaking of. Here, burp this baby." Said Minegishi. They rested the baby on Mob's chest with her head over Mob's shoulder. She could hold her head up, it seemed, she just hadn't felt like it. Well she could sort of hold her head up. She turned her head and started to gum on Mob's hair.

Cute when it happened to someone else.

"But you still know more than me. I don't know how to do…any of this." said Mob. Minegishi shook their head. She took Mob's hand and banged it against the baby's back. Not hard, like Mob had thought, and she…she had seen this before. After the baby ate you were supposed to do this for…reasons that Mob did not know.

"You're doing better than any ten year old I've ever met." Said Minegishi speaking the truth. They omitted, however, the fact that they didn't know any other ten year olds besides Mob.

"Really?" asked Mob

"Yeah. You've been freaking out a lot less than I would have figured you would have. I mean this is the most fucked up situation your dad has ever put you in." said Minegishi

"This situation isn't all F-worded up." Said Mob. She liked this, sort of, holding the baby like this. Tapping her on the back. She was trying to eat Mob's hair. She had no idea if that meant that she was hungry or just felt like chewing on something. Google would know. Mob…she could do this. Minegishi believed in her too. Mob knew that she could do this. She was a girl, after all, and she would have to do this when she grew up and grew a baby in her stomach too so she had might as well learn how to do it now.

"Your dad gave you a baby for your birthday. That's pretty fucked up." Said Minegishi

"I wanted a cat…but this is ok too. And don't say the F-word because then Mukai might start saying it and I don't want her to say bad words." Said Mob

"Is she even old enough to talk?" asked Minegishi

"I don't know when babies start talking but I don't want her first word to be the F-word. I want it to be something nice like 'thank you' or 'hello' or something like that. I think that I should only speak Japanese to her, too, since I don't know a lot of Korean and I might end up teaching her the wrong thing if I try to speak Korean to her." said Mob

"Your Korean isn't that bad…and how do you know that she's Korean? She could be anything. You don't know her parents." Said Minegishi. The note had been in Korean but they suspected that the mother had written that…and that the father…but that was crazy. Suzuki and a woman. What kind of trauma did a woman have to go through to end up with a man like Suzuki Touichirou?

The baby did have red hair….

"The note was in Korean so I figured that she was Korean. I don't know who her mom and dad are, though, you're right…but that's ok. We're pretend sisters." Said Mob

"Yeah…pretend sisters. Why do you keep saying that? I mean if your dad adopted her-" said Minegishi. They needed to get to the bottom of this. If this was Suzuki's kid then…well they didn't know what they would do, exactly. They were not exactly itching to tell the boss that they knew about his torrid love affairs. Still this was…something. Suzuki was having more kids…so they would have another Mob. Well that wouldn't be so bad. They could always use another Mob…but another Sho was another story entirely….

Please, God, no.

"I don't think that dad adopted her. He gave her to me after all." said Mob

"So you're this baby's mother now?" asked Minegishi

"What? No way! I'm only ten, I can't be anyone's mom, and I don't have a boy to be the dad either. Sho is my brother so he can be the uncle. Like when we would play house he was either the uncle or the dog. Not that having a baby is like playing house. Having a baby is a serious responsibility but I can do a good job. I have you to teach me things and you say that you don't know anything but you know more than me and I have Google, too, for the things that we don't understand, and also I have plenty of money to buy things for her and I'm good at schoolwork, well not math, but I can teach her everything but math. Also she's an esper so when she gets all of her powers I can show her how to use them. Oh! And also when she gets older I can brush her hair and paint her nails and stuff. I can do this. I can do all of this…but not as her mom. I'm too little to be a mom but I can be her big sister." Said Mob

"Uh-huh, sure, but why tack the pretend part on there?" asked Minegishi. Mob was taking this whole thing rather well. If Minegishi was in her place they would have just wrapped the baby up in a blanket, put it in a basket, and left it on some rich people's doorstep. Of course Minegishi did not have a lot of those nurturing instincts that other people seemed to be consumed by. Not even for plants.

They wished that Suzuki had given Mob a plant instead of a baby for her birthday. The plant would have been a hell of a lot easier to deal with.

"Because she didn't come from my mom and dad. She would only be my real sister if she came from my mom's stomach and then only if my mom did the…gross thing…with my dad. My mom ran away from home and my dad doesn't even love her anymore." Said Mob. She wondered how long it would take for this baby to burp. Mukai was having fun, though, now she had taken some of Mob's hair in her hand…and she was very strong….and she pulled a lot harder than Mob would have thought a baby would have been capable of pulling…but this was ok. Mob was ok.

Sometimes when you loved someone they hurt you but that was ok because you loved them and they loved you too.

"Half siblings are a thing, you know." Said Minegishi. If this was Suzuki's kid Minegishi didn't know if that would make the situation any better or any worse. If Suzuki had just popped around an orphanage and brought home a baby for his Daughter well then that was just him being stupid and thinking that a vagina granted it's user unlimited points to nurturing and childcare. If this was his love child with an unnamed woman then this whole thing was just ten times worse…and bizarre.

Also Minegishi would have thought that a wealthy and powerful man like Suzuki would have been able to afford a box of condoms or a vasectomy or anything, really, to now have a million kids that he couldn't even begin to be able to take care of.

"Half siblings?" asked Mob. How could someone only be half of your sibling? She had a mental imagine of half people walking around and stuff…and smiled. Her aura must have been happy because Mukai laughed. Mob wanted to take her off of her shoulder but she wouldn't until Minegishi told her to. They knew more than she did even if they said that they didn't. Common sense that they had called it. For an adult, maybe, because this was the kind of thing that adults were supposed to know. Because they were old enough to have babies and stuff. Mob was too little for all of this…

No, not too little. She was ten now and dad believed in her and so did Minegishi so she had to believe in herself.

"When a sibling is only from one of your parents. You know, like how people divorce and remarry." Said Minegishi. Not that this was what had happened but if it was…the note had been in Korean. Korea….now they remembered. That woman who worked in finance, the one who Mob hated, the one who was always flirting with Suzuki….

Shimazaki was going to get a kick out of this.

"Oh. Well this isn't my half sibling either because mom and dad are still married. I mean dad doesn't love her anymore and mom ran away from home but…but they were still married. That's why dad still wears his wedding ring even though mom isn't around." Said Mob. She didn't know if she wanted a little sister. She knew…well she had wanted one but…but she didn't a half-sister, if she had a half-sister then dad would have had to have found a new wife…and then she and Sho would have a stepmom…

Maybe a wicked stepmom.

Stepmothers were usually wicked in movies and stuff. She didn't know why people in the movies were always getting married to wicked people. Dad wouldn't have done that. If anything someone who wasn't used to him would have thought that he was a wicked stepdad. But he and mom were married and they were not getting remarried and she did not need a wicked stepmom or a real stepmom because she did not want her mom to be replaced. She had a mom and even a mom who was not there was still a mom.

Girls were not allowed to like dad like that.

And boys were not allowed to like mom like that.

Mom and dad were only allowed to like each other like that.

"Alright then." Said Minegishi. They were not going to press the issues. Mob was only ten and she still had a fairytale idea of love springing eternal and all that. Minegishi wouldn't have been surprised if Mob still had idea about her mom and dad getting back together at some point. Minegishi did not want to have to explain that to Mob, that her parents weren't together and her father was probably long over her mother, because they had enough shit to deal with as it was.

"Hey Minegishi? How long is this supposed to take?" asked Mob. She had been tapping this baby on the back for a while and so far all that she was doing was playing with Mob's hair. The baby had to burp because…well she didn't know why but she knew that this as a thing that you had to do for babies.

"I don't know. Time? Maybe try bouncing her a little." Said Minegishi. They had no idea why you even had to do this. They just knew that this was a thing that you were supposed to do for babies. This was a baby and babies needed to be burped. There. Simple. This was…this was a simple thing that was happening…

Suzuki dumping a baby on them…that was a thing that had happened….

"Ok. Come on Mukai. You have to burp now and then…um…I'll make a bed out of a drawer for you because we don't have a crib…and also I can give you some dolls to play with…um…and then Sho might come back and…and then you'll meet him. He's my brother and he's going to be your pretend brother. He can be sort of mean sometimes but he's going to love you just as much as I do. I just know it." Said Mob as she bounced her baby sister, her pretend baby sister, up and down. She knew what she was doing now. She had a plan, sort of, and Mukai had stopped crying so…so all of this was going to work out. Yes, this was good. This was great. She had this she-

Mukai burped!

She had this! She could take care of Mukai and everything would be ok…even if she did suddenly smell sour milk and felt something warm on her back and in her hair….

"We're screwed." Said Minegishi. Mob didn't say anything back, even if screwed wasn't a bad word, because she didn't agree….because this was fine. Everything was fine. Sometimes people threw up on you. Like how Sho had thrown up after they had ridden the spinning teacups over and over again for an hour.

Mob had always wanted a younger sister…and sometimes your younger siblings threw up on you. Even your pretend younger siblings.