Suzuki Touichirou did not understand Jell-O.

He poked it with his spoon. It shook in it's clear plastic cup. He wondered if this really counted as a food. He's had aspic before, he enjoyed aspic, but Jell-O was not aspic. Aspic was made from boiling down animal bones until you got a sort of gel like substance. This was made in a lab and colored green and flavored like…

He smelled it.

Lime? A cross between a lime and an apple. Also there was a strong smell of plastic. Disgusting. This could not have counted as a food. Who would eat this? Well the people around him, obviously. They were eating it up like it was a real food with some real value to it. Especially Shimazaki….he really seemed to be enjoying it.

"You've got to let the flavors dance on your pallet." Said Shimazaki with a spoonful of Jell-O balanced on his tongue. Suzuki couldn't stand to look. Thank God Son wasn't there. Son did that sometimes with ice cream…truly vile. He should have said something, he knew that he should have said something, but he was too consumed with trying to understand the dancing green substance in front of him.

"That's gross, Shimazaki. You're acting like Sho and he's not allowed to do that anymore. It grosses dad out…and also me but mostly dad." Said Daughter. There. She was good at keeping people in line….though he would have preferred if she had never spoken to Shimazaki again for the rest of her life. He looked up. There was a flush to her, the same flush that she'd had all day….and he knew what that was about.

She still had feelings for that moron.

Even now with him acting just like Son….maybe that was it. Maybe she just had zero expectations for male behavior since she had spent her entire life dealing with her brother. That might have made sense. Maybe he needed to find some other men for her to hang around…or maybe just keep her closer to him. She was older now and was becoming more and more of a help to him each and every day. He would keep her by his side where she belonged and Son…

There were always away missions.

"What, you don't like seafood?" asked Shimazaki

"This is Jell-O." said Shibata

"No, I mean see-" said Shimazaki

"Are you the one who taught Sho that?" asked Daughter. She was upset with him. Good. She needed to get upset with him. See beyond whatever it was that she found so attractive about him. The fact that he was unusually tall for someone with no foreign blood in him. The fact that he always dressed very well despite the considerable handicap of being blind. The fact that he was a very powerful esper. The fact that he was actually built very well…

That was an odd wat to think about another man. He decided to stop.

"No, he's the one who taught me that. God, I miss the kid. When's he coming back again?" asked Shimazaki. Daughter was so incensed with him that she had stopped looking in his direction. Suzuki decided to do the same. Jell-O. He was going to stare at his Jell-O, he decided, because it was infinitely more fascinating.

It really was.

What would it have been like to be small enough to walk on it's surface? Would you have sank in? or would a human foot have been able to displace just enough Jell-O to be able to walk on it's surface. Like walking on water. He could fly, yes, but that wasn't…interesting enough. He could walk on water by making sure to displace just enough water to make him buoyant, like a boat, and he wondered if the same thing would have gone for Jell-O. What would the friction be like? He ran a finger over the top of it. Very slick.

He wondered what would happen if he filled a swimming pool with it.

Could you swim in it? He hadn't gone properly swimming since he was a child. He could and had many times in the past dove into the ocean and just…seen what there was to see. Swimming for pleasure was different. He wondered how much resistance there would be if he were to swim in a pool made of Jell-O. He wondered how he would even get so much Jell-O to set. It took time to set and had to set in the refrigerator. Mother had made gelatin desserts every holiday…he remembered….and he had tried it once…when he had been very small…

What had it tasted like?

He had been small, very small then. Small enough that he could not see above the kitchen counters. Mother had made a dessert for…it had been red. Cold. The house had been cold. Snow on the ground. Christmas. The tree inside…and he hadn't known what Christmas was…but he had known what food was when he saw it…but he had been too small to reach….so he'd used his powers….

And then he had eaten the whole thing and mother had been upset with him.

Mother…he exorcises thoughts of her from his mind. All of them. He hadn't thought of her in years. Why think about her now? She was dead and out of this world. She had passed on and that was the end of it. Father as well. Now he was a father. He had no reason to think of his parents. He didn't need his parents. He was a parent. He didn't need anyone but himself. Himself and his own Daughter.

Who had, apparently, been trying to get his attention for some time now.

"Dad? Hey, dad?" asked Daughter. She had abandoned her own food now and was speaking to him. He attempted to backtrack, to figure out what she might have been asking him about, and came back with nothing. Bother. He hated feeling out of the loop like this….though judging by the fact that Shimazaki was still being disgusting he should have been glad that he had not been following whatever they had been talking about.

"Daughter? You need something?" asked Suzuki

"No. We were just wondering if you knew when Sho was coming back." Said Daughter. Suzuki…drew a blank. Son was still gone and he hadn't really given it much thought. Him returning. Fukuda would return with him when the job was done. He hadn't checked is email yet. They could have been done by now…but he didn't know. He was in no hurry whatsoever for Son to come back. There were enough annoyances in his office as it was.

"He's coming back when he comes back. The job will be over when it's over and there's nothing that we can do to make it go faster." Said Suzuki. He didn't much know what else he could say to put her mind at ease. He knew that she missed her brother. He had no idea why she missed him, he was terrible to her, but she missed him. Maybe because he was her oldest companion…though she had new ones now. Ones which were, in so many ways, older versions of her brother.

"Unless Fukuda kidnaps him." said Shimazaki. Suzuki's Jell-O ripples. He's upset that he lost control for a moment but happy that he hadn't done anything noticeable. Though he should not have done anything at all. The statement was absurd and meant only to get a reaction. In giving him a reaction he had let him win.

There was no truth to that statement.

The idea that Fukuda would spirit Son off was absurd. He didn't want children and if he was going to steal a child it would have made much more sense to steal Daughter. She was more powerful than Son and more pleasant to be around. Fukuda was more likely to get sick of Son and abandon him on the side of the road. Suzuki would not have been too upset with him if that happened. Son could get himself home. He knew how to read a map.

"Don't spread rumors like that, Shimazaki, it's not nice." Said Shibata

"Hey, I'm not spreading any rumors. I've just been saying for a while now that it's a little weird how much time he spends with the kid. Alone. Just sayin-" said Shimazaki

"Stop saying things." Said Shibata

"What? I'm just saying that-" said Shimazaki

"Saying what? I don't get it." Said Daughter. Suzuki didn't understand either but he would not say as such. Let Daughter be the one to voice her confusion. He was Suzuki Touichirou. He understood everything….or at least he had to look like he did. Truth be told he was a moron when it came to others….but the only person who knew that was Fukuda.

Who would be coming back.

The thought is as absurd as it is unwanted. Fukuda is coming back….and if not then….then he would be dealt with as traitors were meant to be dealt with. But Fukuda was not a traitor. He had been a part of Claw since it had been nothing more than a shanty in the woods. A notebook full of half baked ideas scribbled down in the middle of class. A series of hypothetical scenarios posed at one of their never ending sleepovers. He still had no idea why Fukuda had always wanted to spend so much time with him. Constantly seeking him out outside of school. Coming over early in the morning and insisting that he sleep over….or that they make the trek to his house.

Suzuki had never understood that man, not once, but he did know that Fukuda would never have stolen his Son from him.

"There's nothing to get, your Little Ladyship, nothing at all. You just eat your Jell-O. He's just shooting his mouth off. Aren't you, Shimazaki?" asked Shibata. Their auras tell the whole story. He can be an intimidating man when he wants to be, Shibata, though Suzuki has no idea what he is intimidating Shimazaki over.

"Maybe I am and maybe I'm not. We'll see. Well you'll see…ok, that last one wasn't that funny. I'll admit it. Not one of my best. I'll have some new material when the kid comes back…or if he comes back….we'll see." Said Shimazaki

"There's nothing to see. Now eat your Jell-O like normal. You're pissing off the boss." Said Shibata. Suzuki watched his aura. Oh. Yes. That was abnormal of him. He had let his aura move too much and become too bright…or too loud as Shimazaki was fond of calling it.

A trip down memory lane tended to do that to him.

He didn't referred to it as a lane. That would imply that a journey into one's memories was a linear progression. It wasn't. The journey into one's memories was more of a series of jumps from one memory to another. A bit like the children's videogames. One memory led to another and then another and then another. A cup of Jell-O led to a memory of eating enough of a gelatin dessert to make himself sick which in turn led to a memory of his mother rubbing his back and singing to him which in turn led to a memory of Masami rubbing his back and telling her that she loved him which in turn led to a memory of holding Daughter in his arms when she had been small…when he had first brought her home….

Had it really been so long?

She had been two. She had fallen asleep in front of the television. Son fallen asleep beside her. Masami had sought him out and asked him to help her carry the children to their beds. He remembered….he had felt annoyed then to be taken from his work….because he had no yet realized what a gift it had been to be able to stand in Masami's presence…but he had attempted to lift the children with his powers…but Masami had stopped him.

He had been told to carry Daughter by hand.

She had been so small and warm in his arms. He had felt….that had been the first time he had felt it with her. The kinship. The instant kinship that he had felt with Son. She had been able to fit in one of his arms. Now if he were to attempt to lift her by hand he would need both arms….and he would not try because she was too old and he'd started having the random back pains of middle age…but back then he had been able to lift her.

Lifting her by hand had been a bad idea.

He had attempted to lift her with his powers but Masami had stopped him. He had warned her that she would wake up but Masami had not listened. Daughter did wake up. Her little eyes flew opened and her lip quivered, which always signaled one of her emotional fits, and she'd said….she'd called him father. She'd looked at him and called him father.

Daddy.

She'd called him 'daddy'. She had been saying 'mommy', 'daddy', and 'Ritsu' since the day he'd brought her home. He had assumed that she was, once again, asking for her birth parents. But no. She'd looked at him when she'd said that like…like she was naming him. Like he had designated her as 'Daughter' she had designated him as 'daddy'. Then she had reached forward to wrap her little arms around him as best as she could….which hadn't been very well at all…but Masami had still seen fit to put Son down and take a photograph even though she knew that Son would wake up and when he woke up it was VERY difficult to put him back to sleep…

He wondered if that photograph still existed somewhere.

He didn't know. He didn't know why he even cared. He had been trying to get away from his memories, not make new memory pathways. The past was in the past and there was no point in revisiting it. Not when he was working towards a new and glorious future. When he got old, when he crossed over from middle to old age, then he would spend his time revisiting his memories. Right now there was no point to it at all. There was not point to anything at all.

Especially not this Jell-O

This was not a food and yet people still ate it. Sugar was disgusting. Sweeteners were disgusting. How people could stand the taste he would never know. He had eaten sweets as a child but he was not a child anymore. No, now he was just surrounded by children. That had been the story of his entire life. Surrounded by children. Even Fukuda had acted like a child back when they had been in school together. He had treated it like a game, planning the future, and that had made no sense. Fukuda knew how important it was to create a future for all espers to live in happiness and prosperity.

Well he knew now, anyway.

Suzuki wondered when he was coming back. It was a when. He could trust Fukuda not to leave. He could also trust Fukuda not to spirit Son away. Fukuda loved children but that did not mean that he wanted to be a parent. He had even given up on women long ago. Suzuki wished that he'd had Fukuda's willpower. Women were his greatest vice…and not just that woman in Korea. He had found his thoughts going back to not only his wife but other women, too.

So it was best that he kept his Daughter near.

It was extremely difficult to get lost in the memory of Masami when Daughter was near. Not the sorts of memories that Daughter brought up, the ones full of nurturing, the other ones. The ones that his mind would not conjure up while his own Daughter was near. The memory of her voice….her skin…the way she smelled when she just got up…the way her hair felt twisted between his fingers…the way her mouth felt against his…

"…green is too a flavor. Just like blue is and red it and…." Yes, it was very difficult to get lost in those sorts of thoughts when she was near. She was ten and she was his Daughter. There. She was a roadblock in the middle of memory lane….maybe that was why they called it memory lane. Either way his memories of Masami when she was near were always of the…what did the children call it? Safe for work? Yes, of the safe for work variety.

Not that he should have been thinking about her at work.

Not that he should have been thinking anything at all at work that did not have to do with work. Work was piling up and he needed to get back to work...but he just could not focus. There was a cup of Jell-O on his desk. Daughter had brought him this Jell-O for…reasons. Reasons which he did not understand. She knew that he hated desserts and she knew that he could not stand sugar in any form but she had brought him this. This had come from her…and he feels…touched? Yes. She had thought of him…even though thinking of the wellbeing of others was her job…well she did her job well. He had taught her well….well Masami had taught her well. There was so much of Masami in her. There was so much of Masami's goodness in Daughter, her perfection, that simple and perfect perfection that seemed to radiate from within her….

He poked at his Jell-O.

Maybe he would end up liking it. Masami used to make things for him, foods and drinks, in the hopes that he would like them. Her cheesecake was the only dessert that he had liked and only then when she had used a third of the sugar. She had been such a talented cook….she had been talented at anything she put her mind to. Daughter was the same way. Daughter was good at everything she put her mind to from caring for Son to writing memos….

He decided to try it.

It was vile.

"Dad?" asked Daughter. Suzuki forced himself to swallow. It was either spit or swallow and he was not going to spit. That would have been undignified. That would have been undignified and he was not going to behave in that way in front of his Daughter or his upper echelon. Even if he had been alone he would not have spat. It would have been undignified.

He forced himself to swallow.

Daughter had been correct. Green was a flavor and that had been it. It had tasted like lime and green apple and even a bit like mint….somehow. Sugar, too, which was what made it vile. He enjoyed lime and green apple and mint as well though he suspected that his mind was putting the mint flavor in for him. He suspected, also, that he may end up getting sick at some point in the future…but not now. Now he had to be the man that his Daughter needed him to be.

He could not let himself go to pieces.

"Daughter. Here. You finish this. You'll enjoy it more than I would." Said Suzuki. He used his powers to pass her the Jell-O cup. She took it in her hands and just stared at it.

"Thank you dad….I do like Jell-O….but you ate from it already." Said Daughter

"Not twice. It hasn't been contaminated." Said Suzuki

"Oh. Ok. Thank you, dad." Said Daughter. She dug her own spoon into the Jell-O cup. He couldn't stand to see her eating something to vile…but he did like to see her happy. Her aura shone a little brighter and she smiled a little bit as she ate. He liked it, seeing her happy, even though he should have been upset that she wasn't controlling her emotions….

He would talk to her later.

Right now he would simply allow her the happiness she felt. He cared for her and he wanted to see her happy. He wanted to see her happy because…..because he cared for her. He cared for her and she cared for him and…and he hadn't felt caring like this in quite some time….and he did not understand it. This caring feeling.

Just like he could not begin to understand Jell-O.