Late summer was not an easy time of year.

The heat was unbearable, for one thing, and the mosquitos were a constant nuisance. Apparently in the course of raising his children he had forgotten to teach them how doors worked. No matter, he made short work of the insects that wandered into the house that he would be calling home until the fall at least. There was no reason to move so he wouldn't. He didn't need to pile the stress of moving on top of the stress of late summer.

Stress which had nothing at all to do with the heat or the insects.

He had never marked the date. He didn't have to. He would always carry the memory of that day, the last time he had ever seen Masami, with him for the rest of his life. She was gone. He knew that she was gone. Knowing and accepting that she was gone should have made the whole process easier. She was gone and she was never coming back. It was as though she had died…though it would have been easier if she had died. If she had died then she could have been added to the family grave and then that would have been the whole of it. She was alive and then she had died and that was the circle of life.

If she had died then he could have still seen her.

He could have visited her grave…although he was not good about that. He never visited his parents. Never left them offerings. There was no point to it. Their spirits had passed on immediately, or they had been destroyed, and all that was left in that grave were ashes. They probably didn't even want to see him anyway. He was the cause of their demise. He had lost control and then they had died and that was the whole of it. There was a beginning, a middle, and an end.

They were born, they married, they had a son, and then they died.

Masami didn't have an end. She was alive and she was out there and…and she had left him three years ago to be alive and out there. He hated her then and he hates her now. He loved her then and he loves her now. He wanted to take her in his arms and never let her go. He wants to push her away as hard as he can and tell her to go and die…but he doesn't mean it. He could never mean it. He wants her alive. He wants her alive and he wants her alive with him where she belonged!

Half of his bed is empty.

He feels her loss most acutely at night. Even outside of this time of year he always feels her loss when he retires for the night. Son and Daughter…he has no idea when they feel her loss and he doesn't care. They're children, they're resilient, and Daughter has taken over the role of mother in Son's life nicely. He doesn't' concern himself with the children's emotions towards the subject of Masami. He doesn't want them to have emotions towards the subject of Masami. He can't deal with their emotions on the subject of Masami.

He can't even deal with his own.

He wants to exorcise his emotions. He wants to take them and obliterate them until there is nothing there anymore. He wants her gone from his mind. He wants to exorcise the ghost of her from every facet of his life. The feel of her skin against his. The sound of her breathing as she drifted off to sleep. The way the light would hit her as day broke and she slept. The way her voice sounded, the melodious way she would speak to him about anything and everything, the feel of her hands, the shape of her…just the shape that she had left within him. Like he was one of those simple wooden puzzles the children had been fond of when they had been small. There was a Masami shaped hole in his life and in his bed and…

And he's disgusted with himself.

It's midnight. He's tired. He needs sleep. He needs sleep because he has an empire to run. He can't concern himself with one traitor. He can't just sit there and…and she is and isn't…and he doesn't want to think of her as…but she betrayed him! She left him of her own free will! If she had been kidnapped she would have been found already! If she had been killed her body would have turned up! She had left him of her own free well and she was out there somewhere and he was here and he was not leaving Japan until he found her and-

The room was upending its self.

He hates himself in that moment. He's nothing more than one of the children…not even. The children have better control than him. Even Daughter hardly ever lost control these days. He's ashamed. He should just walk out into the ocean with his pockets full of rocks and…and now he's just being dramatic. He's not going to drown, first of all, and second of all he had things to do in the morning. He had to be awake in six hours and he needed his sleep and he needs to close his eyes and sleep.

But he can't.

She haunts him. When he closes his eyes he can see her. He can feel her. She's there and he's there and…and it is such a gift to be near her. She's laying there beside him. He wants to tell her…he doesn't know. He wants to tell her that she is the very breath that he breaths. She is all he desires and his will to succeed. There is no point to ruling the world without her in it. Without her by his side then what is even the point? He needs to make a world for her to live in, for her to be safe in, and for her to be happy in. She's like a hothouse flower. He will keep her under glass and under lock and key so no harm will come to her. He will tend to her and care for her and make her happy. He will lock the hothouse doors so she can never leave him again. He will lock the doors and keep her safe and she will be safe and she is his.

She is his.

She is his and he is hers. He is hers and he will always be hers and she is the only being in the world that will ever have power over him. He is hers to command. There is nothing in this world that he will not do for her. There is nothing in this world that he will not provide her with. If she told him 'Touichirou, bring me the moon on a string' he will fly to the heavens without a thought to his own need for oxygen and he will bring her the moon and fuck the tides and the effect on human civilization. Masami asked for the moon and he would bring it to her! The sun, the moon, and the stars above! They would all be hers! There is nothing that he could not do, nothing that he would ever refuse her, because the world was his and if the world was his then the world was hers as well!

He was hers.

He was hers and he would always be hers. There was nothing that he would do for her. Nothing was too difficult, too complicated, or too far beneath him. She was the one who made him work for what he was. He had to be strong for her and he had been…but maybe she wanted him weak. If she wanted him weak then he would be weak for her. If she wanted him down on his knees pouring every single bit of weakness from within himself there at her feet he would gladly do so. He would tell her everything. He would tell her how much he cared for her, how there were times when he wasn't sure he could make it through another day without her, how he thought of her morning noon and night, how he had been so weak in her absence. He would tell her how weak he had been and how he had betrayed her and their marriage and then, of course she would want to end him and he would let her! He would let her cut him down where he stood just to have a chance to see her again!

He would be whoever, whatever, she wanted him to be.

If he told her to leave then he would leave. If he told her to stay then he would stay. If he told her to love her then he would love her without shame, without fear, without disgust with his weakness. He would revel in his weakness for her. He would get down on his knees and tell her every day, a thousand times a day, that he loved her. If she told him to hate her then he would hate her. He would…he wouldn't. He couldn't. Hating her was the one thing that he knew he could never do. He had tried to many times, for so many years, to hate her. To see her as the traitor that she was. It was simple. It was black and white. She had left him and she was a traitor!

He didn't care.

She had betrayed him and he didn't care. He had betrayed her right back. He had laid with another. He had taken their marriage and vomited all over it. He had taken another and…and he had enjoyed it. The feel of her mouth as it crashed against his. The feel of her skin under his hands. The feel of her stomach as he undid each and every button. He feel of her stomach as he tossed her shirt from her. The feel of her breasts through her bra. The taste of her flesh as he kissed every single inch he could find. The feel of her hands as they raked across his body, her nails making little pathways in his skin as she arched back in pleasure. The feel of her thighs on either side of him. The warmth that awaited him….the way her breath felt against the shell of his ear as they…as he…how long it had taken, how quickly it had been over, and how the entire time only one name had been on his tongue.

Masami.

Her name had been there on his tongue the whole time. He didn't speak it, not once, not even at the point of orgasm. He held back. Her name was always a prayer when it was just him and her memory. He had held back, then, because he had been with another…he knew that what he had been doing was wrong but he had still laid another…and he had LIKED it…he had liked every single moment of it. He had liked it up until the point of orgasm. Up until his head cleared and he realized where he was…who he was…and who he had been there with. Within. Who he had been within.

Not Masami.

Masami may have left him but at least she had never laid with another. Never shared herself with another man. He was the traitor, not her, and if he could just see her again he would perform whatever penance she asked of him. He would throw himself on her mercy. Whatever she asked of him he would do. He would throw himself off a cliff, nail himself to a piece of wood, eat green Jell-O, anything. There was nothing in this world or the next that was beneath him. Even if he saw her again just so she could tell him that because of what he had done she never wanted to set eyes on him again…that would be fine. Just so long as he got to see her again.

He hated himself.

How could he have allowed another human being to have this sort of power over him? What was the MATTER WITH HIM?! He was Suzuki Touichirou! Heaven itself had bestowed the ultimate power upon him and made him the rightful ruler of this world! Why did he even still care about her?! She was gone! She was gone and he was still there…

And he was alone.

"That's enough of that." Said Suzuki as he stared up at the void. Ok. He was done now. That was more than enough. He had lost control and now he was done losing control. He willed his powers into submission. The bed hit the ground with more force than he had anticipated. The lights above him flickered before darkness covered him once again.

He was alone.

He did not want to be. The choice was simple, pragmatic really. Logical. He was alone and he was losing his powers because he was alone. He was thinking about Masami because it was late summer and he always thought about her during late summer….and always….but especially during late summer. Therefore he just needed to stop being alone and he needed to stop thinking of Masami. Simple. The solution was simple really, very clear, and he wondered why it had not occurred to him sooner.

Daughter.

It was late and she was asleep. He didn't care. If she was tired in the morning then she could have some of that coffee she was constantly drinking. She was his Daughter and he was her father and he was fully within his rights to carry her from her bed and to put her in his. Really it was that most logical thing to do. He was no kind of leader, President, living God, and father when he got himself worked up like this. He needed to stop thinking of Masami and get some sleep.

So he got Daughter.

He walked through the darkened house to the children's room. They were asleep. Son had fallen asleep on his stomach with his phone in his hand. Suzuki didn't bother with him. Daughter had fallen asleep on her side. This would be tricky. He didn't know how he would do this without waking her. He could have used his powers…but he didn't want to. For legitimate reasons. If he used his powers then Son might wake up too and once he got up it was very difficult to put him back down to sleep. So, really, the only thing he could do was pick Daughter up by hand.

So that was what he did.

"Dad?" asked Daughter as she opened her eyes. He had been expecting 'Daddy' and he didn't know why. She hadn't called him 'Daddy' in years. He was just dad now. That was fine. That was who he was. He was her dad and she was his Daughter.

"Keep sleeping. It's time for bed." Said Suzuki softly. He picked her up and held her in his arms like he had when she had been a child….and considerably smaller than she was now. When had she gotten so BIG? She had one been small enough that he could have picked her up with one arm…but now she was just so much…bigger…and heavier…but he could still carry her. He could still carry her and he did still carry her.

"I'm already in…bed." Said Daughter. He said nothing. He simply carried her from her bedroom to his. She drifted right back to sleep at some point. He was glad. He didn't know what he would have said to her if she asked why he had carried her out of bed. Maybe he could have asked her for help with the television, at some point people decided that waiting for programs to air was just too much of a hassle, and she would have helped him….or directed him to the tech support office….she had been going there a lot lately. Young people and their technology.

He didn't have to think of any excuses. She stayed asleep.

He used his powers to pull the covers back for her before he deposited her onto her side of the bed. Masami's side of the bed. Daughter's side of the bed. That was her side when they watched television together. That was her side of the bed when they slept together. He could not be alone. He could…he could admit it to himself that he could not be alone right now.

Could he admit it to her?

She was asleep. He went over and laid down on his side of the bed. He pulled the covers up over the both of them. He needed her to be near him. She banished all thoughts of Masami from his mind. He couldn't think of her, of the ghost of her, when he had his living breathing Daughter beside him. He also could not think about how badly he wanted to…not with his Daughter beside him. That would have been wrong. No, he didn't think of Masami at all.

He thought only of Daughter.

He brushed some hair from her face. His fingers lingered there. She had cut her fringe at some point. He could feel more of her forehead now. Her skin was soft. Her skin had always been soft. He let his fingers trace the side of her face down to her cheek. She stirred but did not wake.

"Sho…lemme sleep…we'll play t'morrow…" said muttered. Suzuki lingered there on her cheek still. She was so small. She had gotten so much bigger but she was still so small. She was…she was his. He felt a kinship with her there through the skin ship. He so rarely shared true skin ship or kinship with anyone…but he shared it with her. His Daughter. His.

His.

The word takes on a life of it's own in his mind. His. His. HIS. Over and over again his. She is his. She is his Daughter and she will always be his. His hand goes from her cheek to her hand. He takes it in his. He can feel her aura. She's still asleep. She's there, asleep in his bed, and she is his. She is his and only his. She will never be anyone else's. She will never go. She will never leave him. She cannot leave him. She's just a child. She will not be able to survive without him. She is his and he loves her so much…because she is his. She is his and she is…she is the one…

She is the one who will make him work for what he is.

The world will be hers one day just as it is his. He will take the world and he will take the world for her. What is even the point of taking the world if she is not there at his side? She will be. She will be there at his side and she will never leave him. She will never leave him and he will never leave her. She will never betray him and he will never betray her. She is his and he is hers.

He is hers.

There is nothing in this world that he will not do for her. The world was hers and she was right to ask it. She was his and…and she was so…she was so perfect. There, in the night, she was perfect. She could be messy and forgetful and she had very strange tastes when it came to the media she consumed but she was still perfect. His most perfect child. His Daughter.

"Daughter…I love you." Said Suzuki. He said it and he meant it and this was the only time that he even COULD say it because…because she could not hear it. How weak he was. How much he needed her. How much…the sort of power that he could feel himself giving over to her…he loved her so much and…and how madly he needed her to be near him. How badly he wanted….how alone he felt…and how much better she made him feel just by being beside him….

And he could not wait until late summer passed and he was in his right state of mind again.