Suzuki had no idea how someone so small could be so ravenous.

Growth spirt? Daughter was growing…but then again so was Son and he wasn't eating his dinner like it would be taken away from him. Well he wasn't eating at all. He was too busy deconstructing his meal. Suzuki didn't understand why he needed to take apart his salad and remove all the tofu from his soup but he wasn't going to start with Son. He did not need to deal with another one of his dinnertime tantrums. Well Daughter was the one who dealt with them, she was very good at caring for her brother, but he would have to listen to Son carrying on and he didn't want to.

Though he did wish that his children would find a happy medium when it came to eating.

"This is good rice. Isn't this the best rice ever?" asked Daughter as she used her powers to spoon herself a small mountain of white rice. Suzuki picked some rice up off his own plate with his chopsticks, he had told her time and time again not to use her powers at the table, and tried it.

It was rice.

Which rice. Starchy. Normal. There was nothing at all out of the ordinary about this rice. He did not see what was worth raving about it…or why Daughter needed quite so much. Money was always in abundance but he did not like it when the children were wasteful with their food. Daughter was eating, though, she was demolishing her mountain of rice so quickly that it was more of a hill now, and she had used plenty of soy sauce to do so.

He wondered if that was healthy.

"Put some soy sauce on it. This is the best soy sauce ever. Like, remember from the documentary? Well dad does but Sho doesn't. Ok, so me and dad were watching this documentary show about Japan and stuff and they were talking about soy sauce and did you know that there are five different types of soy sauce? But not only that there are subtypes like…" Daughter was talking and eating at the same time…and it was vile…but Suzuki did not stop her. She must have been very hungry…and also feeling very sociable. She never spoke this much in one sitting. She spoke as she ate and ate as she spoke and it was strangely transfixing but also not something that he wanted to watch at all.

She was behaving so strangely.

For a moment he has a crazy thought. Could she be pregnant? Masami ate ravenously when she had been carrying Son. She used to eat entire boxed cakes, buckets of children, and blocks of chocolate. She also ate entire sacks of oranges as well…which may have contributed to Son's deathly citrus allergy…and for a moment he is simply horrified at the fact that Daughter even COULD get pregnant hat he forgets a very simple but important detail.

She is only ten years old.

He's calmer when he remembers that she's only ten years old. That is far too young to bear a child. That is…the youngest mother in existence was only five…the world was indeed a disturbing place sometimes…but Daughter isn't pregnant. Most ten year olds cannot bear children and if Daughter were pregnant then some man would have had the nerve to…and then Suzuki would have to do some killing because Daughter was ten…and also his Daughter….and no one would ever use his Daughter like that no matter what age she was…

Which was maybe not the best thought to have about his Daughter's future romantic and sexual life because he did want at least ten grandchildren.

He tries to let the truly insane thoughts pass but then all the he is left with a nagging feeling of confusion. He wants grandchildren. He wants the world to be peopled with espers. Preferably powerful espers. He wants the entire world to be people with espers and he wants his family and bloodline to go on…even though she is not a part of his bloodline….he wants her to have children but the thought of any man and some older version of her…

But that was just the way life went.

Maybe this feeling stemmed from the fact that she was just a child now and he was having trouble conceiving of a time when she would not be a child. When he had first met her he knew, of course, that one day she would be a ten year old but he could not see it. He could not see past that fact that she was a two year old. Just like how when Son had been born Suzuki had known that he would not be an infant forever but he'd no way of seeing the person that he would become. He knew that Son and Daughter would grow up and find partners and have children…but the thought of it….bothered him in several ways.

Mostly for Daughter.

Son was Son. He didn't care much about what Son did. He thought of Son on occasion, like when he had been away somewhere for a few hours and Suzuki had no idea where he had gone to, but usually he just sort of let Son be. Daughter, on the other hand, consumed many of his thoughts. He wellbeing and her happiness, her wants and her needs, and her safety as well. He knew that she was a capable esper in her own right but he also knew that she was small and female and he had this instinctive urge to protect her from everything. Sometimes it felt like the world was fraught with danger and the only place safe for her was at his side.

She could never leave his side.

He was glad that they were on the same page about that. He had made himself very clear and she had made herself very clear. She had gotten the impression that he didn't love her because he didn't show her the level of affection that she desired. He then told her that he was not capable of showing the constant affect that she desired but she should rest assured that he would always love her because she was his Daughter and that they would always be together. He was glad that they'd had that talk. She had been clear and he had been clear and now they understood each other.

Mostly.

"Do you want my food too? You look like you need it more than I do." Said Son. Suzuki didn't much care if Son ate anything at all, just that he not make a nuisance out of himself while he was at the table, but this was Daughter's domain. She got final judgement over this and most other things when it came to Son. He trusted her fully and completely. He trusted her the most out of everyone in the world…well aside from maybe Fukuda. Now there was a loyal person. Even if he did overstep…but that was fine. Suzuki cared less and less what his Son got up to over the years. If he had to make a nuisance out of himself then let him go and do it somewhere far away from his father and sister.

"No, you eat it. You need to grow up big and strong, little brother." Said Daughter

"But you're starving. You ate all the rice in the rice cooker and all the tempura vegetables and also a whole fish. Did you eat lunch today? And breakfast? And dinner yesterday?" asked Son

"Of course I ate. I just really, really like this food. Isn't this the best food ever? Just like lunch today was the best lunch ever. I'm so glad that I made milk day. All the food was milk and the drinks were milk and it was all just…milk! Ice cream and cream soups and strawberry milk and choclate milk and dairy free milk product…that stuff is gross but some people can't have milk. I can have milk though and I had…." Said Daughter. Suzuki lost track of what she was saying. At some point she had gone from listing the different kinds of milk to talking about how white rice was better than brown rice, which to be fair there was no contest, before circling back to milk again and then from there somehow jumped over to a one sided debate between that ice queen movie she liked and the one about the princess with the very long hair.

He didn't get it.

"Big sis? What are you talking about?" asked Son, finally, and Suzuki was grateful for once. Now he didn't have to ask. What was….he had no idea what this was. He'd had no idea what this was. She was hungry and rambling and also she was having trouble sitting still. Her aura was very…sleepy? Her aura seemed like it was asleep but she was wide awake. Well her eyes were shutting a bit…overly tired? They had been carrying on late into the night but not that late.

How much sleep did she need again?

The two of them were getting about six to seven hours of sleep a night these days. It was her fault. She was the one who had wanted to watch the original series of the Galaxy Express. He never would have chosen that because as enjoyable as it was, not that he should have been getting enjoyment out of that because he was in his forties and not his single digit years, and he watched for her benefit. So he happened to enjoy the time spent with her, big deal.

Maybe, though, they needed to start going to sleep at a reasonable hour.

"I'm talking about how Tangled if like Frozen but instead of being afraid of herself she stays in the tower because she's afraid of the world which makes the story much less fun even though she and Flynn get married at the end. Elsa could get married in the sequel though but I don't think that she will because the only non evil and not a snowman boy character is Olaf and he's a snowman so that would be weird but then again she is the queen and she could do whatever she wanted and also Minegishi thinks that she likes girls and the whole story is about her liking girls but that makes no sense because then instead of her having powers it would be about her liking girls which would then be a whole different movie and also….." said Daughter. Son looked at him. He looked back at Son.

He had no idea what to tell him.

Masami had never acted like this so it was not some woman thing that he couldn't understand…or maybe it was because he had never taken the time to learn the secrets of the opposite sex. If he had he would have figured out how they kept their skin so soft and also how they could stand to have such long hair. He'd ask Daughter about the hair later, actually. She kept on touching hers now. Did it bother her? She was touching her hair and squirming in her seat and…and also if there had been more food to consume then she would have done it….

This whole thing was very strange.

"Big sis? Are you ok? Because if you're going crazy from hunger or something I can call Fukuda? Or maybe you just got heat stroke? Or were you hanging out with the Awakened too much today and you caught their weirdness?" asked Son. Suzuki wondered the same thing. Her eyes were red and her face was flushed. Could she have taken ill?

The though is terrifying.

He had, for a brief time in his life, been terrified of germs. Of illness. Of tiny pathogens invading his body and taking him down from the inside. There had been a period of two weeks when he ate nothing but prepackaged food, drank nothing but prepackaged drinks, and used telekinesis instead of touching anything. Of course then he, eventually, came to the realization that someone as powerful as him did not have to fear germs, the germs had to fear him, and then came the two weeks of incessant cleaning…which mother had been very happy about….and now suddenly feels like cleaning the house from top to bottom and covering Daughter in hand sanitizer to keep the germs off….but that would be bad for her skin….and she had very soft skin.

"I'm ok. I'm the most ok. Are you ok? You're who matters little brother. I love you so much. I love your little smiles so much and I love your hugs and I just want to hug you for the rest of time but I know that I can't because we would eventually have to eat and sleep and breath and drink water and visit friends and stuff." Said Daughter. Was she craving affection in that case? Oh. Well he could do that. Later tonight he could tell her that he loved her. She seemed to like that. Once every week or so or every two weeks…still sort of a lot…but he could do that.

For her there was nothing that was beneath him.

"I'm…ok. Do you…do you want a hug? I can give you a hug big sis…if you want." Said Son. He slowly got out of his chair and…and he had no idea that Daughter could move so fast. She had caught Son in a hug so fast that he had barely been able to see her. Son's aura was tucked in protectively around them…and he had no idea why. He knew that he was safe.

"I love you so much Sho. You're the best little brother ever and if you weren't my little brother you would be my best friend ever….and you're so warm. Why are you so warm? Your hair feels nice." Said Daughter. She reached one hand up and began to pat Son's hair. Suzuki did not envy him in that moment. He'd had to deal with the same thing as a child before he started cutting his hair too short to spike up. Seemed a big odd for Daughter to be fascinated by it, though, since she had known Son for her entire life.

"You smell weird. Kind of like Shimazaki's house." Said Son as he tried and failed to tug himself free from his sister's loving embrace. Suzuki narrowed his eyes. She had better not have been spending time with Shimazaki…she had said that they were just friends….but Daughter had still had feelings for him at some point. Suzuki didn't fully trust Shimazaki but then again he didn't trust any man around his Daughter.

Which was going to be real problem when it came time for her to marry.

Suzuki could not envision a version of the future in which he did not hate Daughter's future spouse. Some man was going to try and take her away from him, that was how it worked the woman joined the man's family and all, and he hoped that she never married. He hoped that she simply had children but did not marry…and also thinking about Daughter as a sexual being was disturbing as well even though he knew that women were human the same as men and wanted the same things…but the thought of his Daughter actually wanting to do those things makes him want to build her some sort of female only artificial island…under a dome…so no men could get to her and then she would be safe and…but then she would no longer be by his side…but it was a decent idea on paper but…but the logistics of that weren't adding up….

She was only ten. He decided to put a pin in the women only domed island.

"That's because I was hanging out with Minegishi and no other reason. No other reason at all. So don't think that there were other reasons. I like to hug you. I never want to let you go. I wish we were still little enough that we could fit in the same bed and sleep next to each other and also do you remember when we got a new dishwasher and we had that box and we lived in it? I wish that we could be that little again. Don't you wish that we could be that little again?" asked Daughter. Suzuki certainly wished that they could be that small again. That she could be that small again. Small enough that he could carry her in one arm. Small enough that she was happy with what she was given and did not ask for more than he could provide.

He would tell her that he loved her later tonight, though, when Son was asleep.

He hated being weak. He hated being weak when he was alone and he hated being weak when it was just him and Daughter but he especially could not be weak around Son. If he was weak around Son then Son would think that it was alright to be weak and Suzuki could not have that. He had been good about that, hiding his weakness from the children, and he was loathe to change that now. But Daughter had asked him too…

Just like Masami had.

But at least Daughter had been specific with what she wanted and she had also accepted that she had been asking much more than he had been willing to give. That was where she and her mother different….and also in many other ways…but he does not want to think about those ways now. He does not want to think about Masami at all now. The pain is passing, slowly, the wound that she had left him with is beginning to scab over. It will never do more than scab over, though, because she is gone and…and he has no idea where she had gone to. That was the worst part of it, not knowing, being powerless. There was a powerlessness to the not knowing….and he did not like to feel powerless…

So he decides to stop thinking about this and focus on the disjointed ramblings of his Daughter.

"Your hair is so red and pretty I wish that I had hair that was red and pretty when I grow up I'm going to make my hair red and then we can match and then we can finally look like brother and sister and then we won't be mistaken for friends and even worse boyfriend and girlfriend. That's always so weird. You're my brother, that's so gross!" said Daughter. She's incorrect, they have no genetic relation so it would not be wrong, but he knows better than to ever tell her that she'd been adopted. Especially in her current state.

Or if she had been in any state at all.

She could never know. She may not have been his child by blood but she was his. She was his and only his. She did not need to know the truth of where she had come from. He would take it to his death. She was his Daughter, he had raised her and chosen her from all others to be his Daughter, and in terms of pure emotion that was what mattered the very most. In terms of lineage and succession it was a whole other story. If the children ever came to him asking to marry he would say yes…and then privately berate himself for making the many serious mistakes that would have led the children down that path…but the children were perfectly normal so he didn't to sit there debating with himself between thoughts towards his own lineage against the fact that the children were brother and sister.

He felt like he had bigger things to worry about right now.

"You're squishing my skeleton." Said Son as he tried to get free. Suzuki watched the whole thing from the table. He decided not to intervene. The children were old enough to solve these disputes on their own. Well that and also Daughter was somewhat unsettling right now. She was just being too strange…he had never seen her like this before…and he didn't understand it…

He didn't understand it one bit.

"Sho! OH NO! I'm so sorry! I'm sorry that I squished you and stuff! I didn't mean to! I just wanted to hug you! I love-" said Daughter

"Yeah, I know you love me. You're being too weird. I'm going to go…somewhere else. Call me when you're normal again." said Son. Suzuki wished, just a little, that he had that option. He did not understand her at that moment and he wanted to be near her, he always wanted to be near her, but now she was just being….strange.

She had been a little bit different lately but nothing like this.

She had been somewhat lethargic when she came to bed, and also her mind had been elsewhere, but he had thought that she had just been tired or something. But now maybe it was something else…but he had no idea what. All he knew was that this whole thing had him very confused and also a little bit worried and he was not fond of any of those emotions…

So he exorcised them as best as he could.

"Ok….bye! I love you!" said Daughter. She waved, even, which seemed a bit odd. He would have thought that she would have followed Son but she didn't. No, she turned his attention towards him. She was looking at him now and he had no idea what to do. She smiled a bit and then walked over and….oh. She just wanted physical affect.

He hugged her back as best as he could from sitting in a chair.

"I love you so much dad. Even if you can be scary sometimes I love you." Said Daughter. Suzuki was confused. He frightened her? When? He could be frightening when he was angry but he hadn't had any cause to be angry at her in….he couldn't even remember the last time he had ever had cause to be angry with her.

"I frighten you?" asked Suzuki. That was not something that he had set out to do. Maybe she had become frightened by the way that he dealt with the Awakened and other such incompetents. Well she had nothing to worry about in that case. One of her was worth an incalculable number of them. She was worth more than any other human being that had ever walked this earth. She was perfect in almost all ways and she was his and he would never treat her in the same way that he treated others.

"Yeah. Sometimes you can be scary even when you're being nice but it's ok because you're my dad and I love you and you love me and we love each other. That's how love works." Said Daughter. Suzuki let her go. What she had said made no sense? How could he frighten her when he was being nice? He wasn't a frightening person, at least not to her, because he loved her. He cared for her. She was his and he would never have done anything to harm her. She was his and he lived to provide for her. To care for her.

Her and her alone.

He cared for her and her alone. Well he cared for Son but Son was Son. Daughter was Daughter. It was totally different. She was just someone who….who it was easier to care for…and also he cared for her in different ways. Son was Son and he did not need the same level of care as his sister did. Also he had been a difficult child to bond with. Daughter really was the more agreeable child. She had always been the most pleasant and agreeable out of his two children. So it made sense that he cared for her more.

And also that he would be bothered when she said that he frightened her.

How? How could he have frightened her? He wants to know but also…but also she said that it was ok. He did not want to have another talk about emotions and feelings. They'd had one a few nights ago and she'd asked him for more than he could give. He could not handle that again. No, he would just….he would be fine. She had said that she was alright and he would take her word for it.

She was alright.

"I love you too, Daughter." Said Suzuki. He supposed that he could move the 'I love you' up to now. Son was off doing something anyway so he wouldn't pick up yet another bad habit. Daughter hugged him again and…and she did not smell good. She smelled like…clean linen air freshener, bubblegum, and something else which was unpleasant but familiar…but he just could not recall….she broke apart from him before he could remember where he had smelled that before.

"My stomach hurts but I'm also hungry and it's weird. I want ice cream and milk even though all ice cream starts off as milk like in the documentary we saw. The one you said made you sick just by watching it. I'm going to eat ice cream now." Said Daughter. He watched as she went to the freezer and pulled out a pint of ice cream with a spoon already stuck in it…

Vile.

He had no idea how she could stand to eat that, how she could still stand to eat at all, why she had been acting so very oddly that night, and also…just….

How could someone so small possibly fit that much food into their body?