Baby Mukai couldn't draw at all.

But that was ok. She had Sho to teach her and he was very good at drawing. Even dad said so and dad never said nice things to anyone ever. Well anyone who wasn't big sis. Sho wondered if he would be nice to little sis…if he ever came back. And if she was allowed to stay. Dad hated pets and a baby was like a million pets in one. All of the fun but also all of the mess and the noise. He didn't want little sis to go…but he did want her to find a happier family than his. She deserved a dad who was nice all the time and a mom who was there and didn't run away from home. He loved her but he wanted her to be happy…

So that was why he had to teach her to draw. While she was still there.

"Here, you've got to hold the pencil the right way." said Sho. She couldn't hold a pencil, not really, but she could learn. She was very smart, he could tell. She knew her own name already and she knew who he and big sis were and she also knew that she should not have let Shibata hold her. Every time he picked her up she cried more than normal. She was smart like that.

She was a very smart baby.

"No, more like this." said Sho. He took her hand and tried to make her hold the pencil the right way. She just threw the pencil across the room. He took a deep breath. She was not going to make him mad. She was a baby and she could not make him mad. Even though just that morning she threw up all over his face when he had been carrying her. He hadn't yelled at her or anything when she did that. He just put her down on the floor right then and there and went to the bathroom.

He kicked a hole in the laundry hamper but that was ok.

He was proud of himself, then, for not yelling at her or anything and he was proud of himself, now, for not getting mad at her. She was a baby and he was not supposed to get upset with her. She was just a baby and he was not a baby so he was not going to act like a baby. He hadn't been that upset lately, too, he had hardly yelled at big sis since they had gotten baby Mukai. He hadn't hit or pushed her once, too, which was good. Well he thought that it was good of him. He knew full well that he was not supposed to be hitting his sister.

"Ok, fine, you don't like pencils. You want a crayon instead?" asked Sho. He used his powers to bring over his box of sixty four colors. He was careful to keep his aura away from big sis'. She was asleep on the couch and he didn't want to wake her. She had been really sleepy lately. Well they had all been sleepy lately, Mukai may or may not have been part vampire, but big sis had been especially sleepy. She was the one who got up with Mukai after all.

He would have gotten up with her if big sis would have just let him.

She treated him like he was the baby and not Mukai. He didn't always want to get up with her, he needed to sleep and stuff, but he did want to get up with him sometimes. To him it would have made sense for big sis to switch off with him sometimes. But she didn't. She always told him that he had to go back to bed because he was little. He wasn't that much younger than her. He was nine and she was ten. Mukai was the baby, not him, and he could help. He could totally help! He could be a good helper and a good big brother…well sort of big brother. He didn't know if Mukai would be staying long enough to be his sister, he couldn't see dad keeping another kid since he didn't really seem to like the ones that he had to begin with and also he hated loud noises and messes, but while she was there he would be the best big brother that a baby sister ever had.

"Do you want pink? Because you're a girl? Or do you want red because it matches your hair? Or maybe blue because it's awesome." Said Sho. Mukai reached over and took a handful of crayons out of the box. It wasn't a lot of them, because she had baby sized hands, but it was enough to mess up his color order. She also knocked some out of the box, too, but he was not going to get mad at her even though he'd arranged that box so that it was just right…

His aura flared a little bit.

He held his aura in close. Big sis turned over onto her side. The couch groaned when she did that but she didn't wake up even a little bit. That was good. If she woke up then she would probably tell him that it was dangerous to give her crayons because she could poke her eyes out or swallow them or something…and actually her swallowing them was a real worry. The only crayon the had managed to stay in her little baby hand was the white one and now she was trying to put it in her mouth. She wasn't trying to eat it, that was just what babies did. Sometimes big kids did that too, like how Sho bit his nails, and sometimes adults did it too. Like how Shimazaki said that he sometimes chewed on candles because he liked the way that they felt.

Not that he was going to be letting little sis chew on any candles.

"Don't do that, crayons aren't for putting in your mouth. You're going to either choke or ruin my crayon or both. Even though it's a white crayon I still care about it. How else am I supposed to draw clouds and ghosts and skeletons?" asked Sho. He tried to take the crayon from her hand but she was crazy strong for someone so small. She could even hold onto his back like a monkey while he walked around…but he had to do that in secret because big sis saw once and freaked out because Fukuda was gone.

Fukuda was still gone with dad.

He missed Fukuda. He missed Fukuda a whole lot more than he missed dad. He was a whole lot nicer than dad, for one thing, and he was used to Fukuda being around too. He had always been around more than dad had been back when they lived in the Castle. It even felt like, sometimes, he was around the house more than dad too. Fukuda would always come when they called him and sometimes he would hang out with them in the house, too. He didn't do that anymore. Dad gave him a lot of work. Dad said, once, that Fukuda was the first member of Claw ever and dad trusted him with a lot of sensitive Claw stuff. Sho would be able to trust him too, dad said, if he was still around when Sho inherited the world.

Which he would be, of course, because even though he was dad's age he would still live a lot longer.

People weren't trying to kill him, for one thing, and also he healed really fast. Like the time when Sho had been trying to throw knives, it was ok because Shimazaki said that even if Sho made contact he wouldn't be able to get through his barrier, and then he teleported away too fast for Sho to stop himself from throwing the knife and then Fukuda had been there…but he was fine. His cut closed up super fast and there wasn't even a scar. He didn't even get mad. He just took the knives away and said that throwing knives was a very bad idea.

And he didn't even tell dad about what happened.

Sho trusted Fukuda and he knew that when he grew up and ruled the world Fukuda would be right there with him and then they could hang out all the time just like when he had been little. Fukuda would even be friends with his kids, too, because he had to have them anyway so why not let them have good memories like he'd had. Fukuda wouldn't have any kids, though, he said that it was very hard to meet women and work kept him very busy.

Which Sho did not understand. There were girls everywhere and they were always trying to hold your hand or kiss you or just staring at you and sighing like that was supposed to make you like them or something.

"Mukai…come on. You're going to end up eating my crayon. I don't eat your things. I don't go into the kitchen and drink your formula or take your pacifier and put it in my mouth so please, please, please, spit my crayon out." Said Sho. He was being nice. That was the best thing to be with someone so small. Nice. If this were big sis and not little sis he could have just taken it back. You weren't supposed to be mean to your little sister…or to anyone…but at least when he was mean to big sis he could say sorry. That was ok, it was always ok, if you said sorry. Well he could say sorry over and over again to Mukai but it wouldn't matter. She was too little to understand.

She was so little.

And he did not want to be mean to little sis. He was going to be a good big brother. He was going to be a better older sister, or rather brother, sibling. A better sibling to Mukai than big sis had ever been to him. He would only boss her around when he had to, not just whenever he felt like it, and he would only make her do things that were strictly necessary.

Big sis was always making him do things that didn't have to be done.

Like putting on day clothes. They hadn't gone anywhere in almost a week. So what if he wanted to wear his pajamas all day? Who was going to tell on him? Dad was gone. Dad was off on some mission and when dad was gone it was time to have fun. Like how when the cat was away the mice could play. Not that they had mice and they weren't going to get them, either. Big sis wouldn't let him eat outside of the kitchen because they could get mice that way. It would have been a good thing, anyway, because if they got mice then they could get a cat.

They would get a cat to catch the mice and they'd get a dog to catch the cat and they'd get a wolf to catch the dog.

Or maybe they could just catch the mice themselves and make them into pets. Dad was gone and he might have been gone, even, for a very long time. When they had been little kids dad had gone away for weeks on end. Maybe things were going back to the way they were before. Maybe dad would be gone for weeks and weeks and then he and big sis and little sis could be free to do whatever they wanted to do. They didn't have a mom, anymore, either since she had run away a long time ago.

And big sis was not mom even if she was always pretending to be.

"Let go already." Said Sho. She was so strong and he was stronger, of course he was he was nine years old and an esper, but he was not going to risk hurting her. Even if Fukuda had been around he would have still been very careful not to hurt baby sis. She was just a baby after all. Even if she was ruining his crayon. He wondered what he was supposed to do. He could pull harder but then he would hurt her and also she would start crying and then big sis would wake up and she would be mad at him and then he would be mad at her and then he would yell at her and maybe even hit her and then he would feel bad…and he just did not want that.

But he didn't know what to do.

He and big sis had never had these problems. They had pretty much been babies at the same time and even though she was a whole year older she probably didn't remember much. They hadn't fought over things that often, either, because they'd always had two of everything that needed sharing. There had even been two TVs, one in the living room and one in their room, but they had gotten into plenty of fights over the remote if they wanted to be in the same room at the same time…

Sho couldn't remember how those fights ended.

Mom always came in and played something with them or made them help her with something. Eventually they just forgot about watching TV all together. Huh. Mom had been playing a trick on them, then, to keep them from fighting. Well sometimes she made them watch in separate rooms but that didn't help since back then they had gotten very scared if they were separated. The Castle had been so big….but that didn't matter. Home, their old home, did not matter. What did matter is that he had an idea now.

It had been mom's idea originally so he knew that it was a good one.

"Hey, you want me to draw something for you?" asked Sho. He let go of the crayon and she put it right back in her mouth. Well that hadn't been distracting enough…but that was ok. He was a very distracting person. Dad said that whenever he was around everything took twice as long as it should have.

"Here, see this? I'll use yellow paper. This paper actually shows colors a lot better than plain white paper. Light colors. White too but also yellows and stuff like that. Even sketch paper isn't totally white. Not like computer paper. Here, feel this. See? That's how you can tell that it's good paper." Said Sho. He took her other hand and rubbed it up and down the paper. She smiled but still held onto his white crayon.

He loved her little smiles so much.

"Here, how about I draw us? You and me and big sis. But not dad. He's not a part of us. Well he is but he's not here. I don't think he even remembers you. Nope, this is just going to be you and me and big sis." Said Sho. He picked up a pencil, first, for the line work. You always started with pencil. Well you didn't have to if you were using crayons but he liked to always start with pencil.

"See? Since we're using crayons we have to account for how thick the lines will be. It's not as bad as it would be if we were using markers or something but we still have to take into account how thick crayons are. See the difference?" asked Sho as he held up a pencil and a crayon so she could make a comparison. He hoped that she was getting something out of this. They could draw together when she got older and learned that crayons were for drawing with and not eating.

Little crayon eater.

"I'm going to start with big sis since she's the tallest. It's important for balance for things to look nice and stuff. See? That's me on the right, because we read right to left…well I do because I'm Japanese you're Korean so you read backward…if you could read, that is. Start with the tallest, at least I always like to start with the tallest. You're in the middle, there, for balance, because you're so tiny." Said Sho. This wasn't his best work, he had gone too fast, but she seemed to like it. She had taken the crayon out of her mouth and now she was staring at him.

"First I'll start with her hair. See? Black. This color is called black. Big sis has black hair because she got all of the Japanese. We're both half Japanese because mom and dad are both half Japanese but she just ended up with all of the Japanese and I got all of the half. But that's ok, I guess, because there's nothing I can do about it now. You're half Korean, I think, because of your hair and eyes. You look a lot like me, actually, you know that?" said Sho as he colored in big sis. Black for her hair, brown for her eyes, and blue for her favorite dress. He didn't do all the little details on it, the sparkly bits and stuff, because he just didn't feel like it. He didn't much like drawing big sis actually…well not drawing him and big sis together…

She got all the luck.

He had felt like that for his whole life. She was the lucky one. She got all the powers and she looked like everyone else, too, while he originally barely had any powers and also people were always staring at him and trying to touch his hair and stuff. He was glad that Mukai looked like him. He was glad that there was another person in the world who looked like him but was not dad.

"People are going to try and make fun of you for how you look. Either that or they'll treat you like you're in a petting zoo or something. They'll try and speak English to you, too, and it'll never stop being annoying. At least that's how people were when we lived in Japan. I don't know if you're going to end up staying with us or if people from your own country will adopt you so I can't say. I feel like they'll be weird about how you look in Korea, too, since they were weird about how I looked." Said Sho. If people made fun of baby Mukai then he would have to beat them up. There was no other way. That was just what brothers, both little and big, had to do for their sisters.

He really hoped that people were nice to her, though.

"I won't let people be mean to you if you end up staying with us. You're not weird looking because you look like me and if you're weird looking then that means that I'm weird looking too and I am not weird looking. Neither are you. See? I'm coloring you in now and you are not weird looking. See how your hair is the same as mine? See how this crayon matches? If they make a crayon color for your hair and my hair then our hair is not weird." Said Sho. Mukai was still watching him. She had dropped his white crayon. He picked it up and took it away with his powers before she realized that she had dropped it. She was watching him now and he liked it. He was teaching her something important. It felt good, teaching her something important, and he hoped that she remembered it for when she grew up.

He hoped that she remembered him when she grew up…if she wasn't allowed to stay.

"Our eyes aren't weird, either. See this blue? This matches our eyes. If our eyes were weird then they wouldn't have made a crayon to match." Said Sho. He drew in their eyes perfectly round. He hoped that he had gotten her eyes right. They changed. Sometimes they were bright like when she was happy and sometimes they got all droopy when she got sleepy and sometimes they got sharp, too, when she was mad. Baby mad. Like when she spat her pacifier out and it landed on her chest just out of reach. She was so cute when she was baby mad and her baby eyes got all sharp and her baby aura flared and stuff like that.

She was the cutest baby in the world…and he could appreciate cute things even though he was a boy.

Shibata liked cute things and he was the strongest, tallest, man that Sho had ever met. He was always saying how cute Mukai was and how he wanted to hug her and squeeze her and never let her go. Sho and big sis didn't let him, though, because he could have held her too hard and then they wouldn't have a baby sis anymore. He could play peekaboo with her, though, even though she always got bored after about half an hour. He had never seen a baby get bored of it before an adult but then again he had never spent that much time with babies.

Mukai wasn't getting bored.

"Oh, now you want to help me." Said Sho as she reached over to the page. He was coloring himself in, now, and that was always the fastest part. He just filled in his hair and eyes and clothes and he was done….wait. He had forgotten to fill in the skin color. Peach for him and Mukai but white for big sis. She had very pale skin, like dad's, while he was peach colored like mom. She didn't take damage from sunlight, dad had said, and that was why she was so much paler than him and mom. Mom had looked like him, well except for the stuff that he got from dad like his hair and eyes, but now she was gone. She was gone and nobody looked like him.

Mukai slapped the paper.

Well she looked like him. She looked so much like him, much more than anyone else in the world, and he was so happy for that. For his whole life he had been hoping that he found someone who looked like him who wasn't dad and now there she was. He was so happy that she was there…and not just because she looked like him. She always liked drawing and liked movies with fighting and also she smiled at him all the time…and he smiled back.

Like now.

"See little sis? And now we're done. That's what I was trying to teach you how to do but I guess that you're too little. That's ok, though, we can try again later. I mostly just didn't want you to eat my crayon like some kind of crayon eater. Maybe I should get you some of those super thick crayons like we had in my school…when I went to school…but those kind of suck because the lines are too thick." Said Sho. Mukai was still listening to him but her eyes were getting all droopy. She was tried. She wouldn't have been so tired if she hadn't spent half the night crying, he had told her a thousand times, but she never listened to him about that.

And he had stopped listening to him now.

She yawned, stretched her arms and legs, and then her eyes closed. She was napping again. He wondered when she would be big enough that she slept at night like everyone else. He wondered when she would get old enough that she would be able to draw with him. He wondered what they would be able to draw together, what she would like to draw, when she got old enough…if she stayed. He hoped that she stayed with them for as long as she could…

Long enough to learn how to draw.