Hatori Nozomu was the nicest, most interesting, boy Mob had ever met in her entire life.

"Die! Mother fucker die!"

Even if he did say bad words sometimes.

"Um…aren't you worried about hurting people's feelings? It's just a game…so you don't have to be mean to people….because it's just a game." Said Mob. She was in the tech support room now. Dad was in a very important meeting with very important people and Mob and Sho couldn't be in the room while he had his very important meeting. Sho was with Fukuda, Fukuda needed his help and Sho was a good helper, and Mob had gone to visit Hatori.

It was nice…mostly.

"Not at all. What are they going to do? Mute me? I'd like to see them try." said Hatori. Suzuki-sama had come to hang out again just like he knew she would. She was lonely like that. Her brother was apparently being a dick because a bird pecked his head or something. So she had come to visit him, which was ok. She was on ok kid. He'd give her a turn next right after he defended his rank.

"But…what if they get sad that you yelled at them?" asked Mob. The only person she ever played multiplayer games with was Sho and he could yell sometimes too when he lost. Yell and scream and also break their controllers….he took videogames very seriously. Maybe that was a boy thing. Yes, it must have been a boy thing that boys couldn't help because they were boys.

Hatori was still a very nice person even if he did yell at people, sometimes, over his game.

"Eh, if you can't take the heat then stay out of the kitchen." Said Hatori

"Huh?" asked Mob

"If these guys didn't want to get screamed at then they should go and play Minecraft or something. Getting screamed at is just part of the game." Said Hatori

"Oh….ok. I get it." Said Mob. She didn't get it at all. Why would someone play a game where you got screamed at? It didn't make sense but boys didn't always make sense either. Why did they always have to yell and fight and stuff? Even dad was always being mean to people and beating them up and stuff. She wished that someone could just explain it to her, boys, and why they were the way they were.

But they couldn't.

She still liked Hatori, though, even if he did play games which involved killing people and yelling at them. She was going to sit by him until dad's meeting was over. Dad wanted her to stay near him all the time…and she didn't get why. He had never made her stay with him all the time before. Maybe he just wanted company. Sho's company was different than her company and maybe dad couldn't take any more of Sho's company. He said that, sometimes, that Sho had to go away because dad couldn't take another moment of his presence.

Which was sort of mean.

But not the worst thing that dad had ever said to either of them. That was dad being nice. He didn't shout it at them and he didn't curse at them either. He just said that Sho needed to go away because he was annoying and stuff. So Sho did go away. He was hanging out with Fukuda more often now. He was mad at Shimazaki because Shimazaki had let a bird peck his head…and Mob still wasn't all the way sure about how that had even happened. Sho said that Shimazaki was a jerk and that he had made a momma bird peck his head and Shimazaki said that he was just going along with Sho's idea to take a nest of baby birds home.

Which made no sense because Sho knew that dad hated animals.

She hoped that Sho and Shimazaki made friends again soon. She wanted her friend and her little brother to be friends…but not the sort of friends that smoked together. No, she didn't want Sho to end up doing the things that she did. He had better control over his powers than her so he didn't need to smoke and drink and stuff. He was the one with the better control. He almost never lost control of his powers. He lost control of his feelings all the time but he never lost control of his powers. That was why it was ok for her to drink and smoke but not him.

He was way too little, anyway.

"You want a turn next?" asked Hatori. This did not seem up her alley but, hey, he had to be polite to his boss' kid…and also she was maybe his boss too. Either way he was not going to be a dick. He used to be a dick when it came to games, he was the one who invited people over to watch him play Gamecube with no intention of all of letting anyone else have a turn. Well he was an adult now and he could share.

It was in his best interests to share.

It was in his best interests to be nice to her. Not just because she outranked him and would probably be his future boss once President Suzuki stepped down or was assassinated but also because, well, she was a nice kid. Also she knew the only other girl working at this HQ and, honestly, she had it going on. Minegishi Toshiki, not Suzuki Shigeko, because he was not into little girls and people needed to stop with the gross rumors already. He hung out with her sometimes. That did not mean that he was trying to get ahead by sleeping with the boss' underage elementary schooler Daughter.

A lot of people were soon going to find their private search histories made public if they didn't learn to shut their mouths.

"No thank you. I don't really like games like these. I play phone games and also Mario games and also…um…I play games but just not games like these." Said Mob. She was trying not to say too much. He had been talking more to her now and she knew that it was because she wasn't talking too much like she usually did. She talked a lot because her brain either knew all the words or none of the words.

"Yeah, I guess that your brother would have been more into stuff like this." said Hatori

"No, he doesn't play a lot of killing games. He likes fighting games and games where you take care of a pet and we both like Mario and Wii games, we've been playing a lot of Smash Brothers lately, but he doesn't play a lot of games like this." said Mob. Sho did not need another excuse to get mad and scream and probably smash controller, too, if he liked games like this.

"Well it's good that you two have something in common. It must be hard having a little brother instead of a little sister. Not that I would know. I'm an only child." Said Hatori. He'd have to figure out something he could play with her that they could both like. Minecraft? She might like that. She had said, before, that she liked playing games where she could build things and take care of things. She might like building her own princess castle or something. She might like Princess Maker, too. It was old but she might like it. She had sort of a princess fixation going on. Either that or she was REALLY into cosplay.

"What's it like not having any brothers or sisters?" asked Mob. She couldn't imagine life without Sho. It must have been very lonely being an only child.

"It was lonely, a little bit, but I never had to share so it all balanced out." Said Hatori

"Oh. I guess that's….something. Minegishi is an only child too and they said that they were happy that they never had to share, either. I don't mind sharing, though, but me and Sho don't have to share a lot of stuff. "said Mob

"So you guys just have two of everything?" asked Hatori

"No, we have one Wii and stuff but we have separate tablets and beds and clothes and food and stuff. Well we have to share some stuff. I don't really mind sharing. I don't think that I would have liked being an only child that much….sorry." said Mob. She wondered if she had said the wrong thing. It was easier just to talk and talk and talk because then at least she didn't have time as she was talking to worry about if she was saying the right thing or not. She had never talked to him like this before, or for this long, and she didn't want to mess it up. She knew that he was too old to be her boyfriend and stuff, or rather that she was too young, but she wouldn't be little forever…

"No, don't be. I got over wanting a little brother or sister a while ago. Besides, if I ever feel like having a little sister I can just hang out with you." Said Hatori. He figured that this was what it was like to have a little sister. Some kid who came and hung out with you all the time and stuff. She was an ok kid. He didn't know much about kids but he thought that she was ok. A little weird but, hey, this was Claw. Everyone was a little bit weird, it was one of the requirements for the job.

"Little sister?" asked Mob. That wasn't what she had been going for at all. She didn't want him to be her brother, she wanted him to be her boyfriend and stuff. How was he supposed to like her back when she was all grown up if he thought of her as a little sister and stuff? Brothers and sisters did not get together so even when she did grow up and she was his age and he was whatever age he would be in nine years then he still wouldn't like her because he thoughts of her as a little sister.

"Yeah, I figure that this is kind of what having a little sister is like. You know, there's a kid and she's there and she hangs out with you and you fix her broken electronics and teach her how to play games and stuff." Said Hatori. Her aura got sort of weird there. Did he overstep or whatever? She may have maybe been his boss but she was also a very lonely little kid. Maybe she didn't want another brother, though, since she already had the one brother and from what he had heard from her he was kind of a dick to her.

"Yeah…that's sort of what you do for a little sister…I guess." Said Mob. Well then it was over, it was all over, he would never like her back and she would end up having to spend the rest of her life single. Nobody would ever love her or want to hold her hand or kiss her or anything and she would be stuck with dad forever like he was always telling her that he wanted. She would never have a boyfriend or fall in love or kiss someone or get married or any of that other stuff. Great.

"Or a friend, I guess." Said Hatori. He could be her friend. Well as much of a friend as he could be towards her without being creepy. Was it ok to hang out with her if she asked him to hang out first? Was that how this went? He had no idea. He hoped that people didn't get the wrong idea. He hoped that her DAD didn't get the wrong idea. He'd seen Suzuki briefly a couple days ago and he gave off the shotgun cleaning overprotective dad vibe. Which, to be fair, this was Claw and there were a hell of a lot of weirdos just at this Division alone.

"A friend?" asked Mob. Friend was better than little sister. Friends could become more than friends. She wanted to be more than friends with him. He was so…him. She loved the sweater he had on today, it was another cat sweater, and she loved his glasses and how tall he was and how messy his hair was and even the not so good things about him like how his fingers were orange with either Cheetos or Doritos and also how he hadn't changed his pants in a while and also how he didn't care that his shoes were untied. She even didn't mind all the spots on his face even though Minegishi said that he looked like a greasy planetarium….which was not a nice thing to say to someone at all. She would never say anything mean to Hatori ever. Even if she hadn't liked him she wouldn't have said anything mean to him at all.

"Yeah, we can be friends. I figure that you wouldn't want another brother so how about we're friends, then?" asked Hatori. She nodded. She played with her hair and she nodded. She did that sometimes. She probably wasn't used to talking to people like this. She didn't go to school and the only people she interacted with were in her father's entourage. He had said it once and he would say it again. Poor, poor, poor kid.

"I-I would like that, us being friends. I could always use more friends so let's…let's be friends." Said Mob. She wanted to pull her dress up over her face and hide. He wanted to be friends! She was so happy but she had to keep her powers under control. It was easier, now, because Shimazaki had gotten her another one of the good vape pens. She knew that she was not supposed to smoke these because Minegishi said so but…well she had cut back. That was good, right? Cutting back? She didn't know for sure about that but one thing that she did know was that her losing control of her powers would have been a whole lot worse than her getting caught with one of Shimazaki's vape pens.

"I could always use more friends, too. Cool, we're friends now." Said Hatori

"Cool." Said Mob. She felt warm, actually, very warm. Not cool at all. She had to calm down. She felt the vape pen in her pocket. She sort of wanted to go outside and vape, the good kind of vaping, but she also wanted to be near Hatori…actually she really wanted to be near him. She felt all happy and nervous and doki doki and fizzy and all of that stuff and she wanted it to stop right now but she also wanted it to go on forever and…and it was a lot but…but it was nice and also a lot.

"You sure you don't want a turn? I have other games you might like." Said Hatori

"No thank you. I'm happy to just watch you play. I'm used to it. My brother's been playing a lot of one player games lately but he lets me watch him play. I'm happy to just watch." Said Mob. She didn't think that she could focus on a game, or anything at all, right now. Not when she and Hatori had just become friends. Friends could lead to being even more than friends…not that she was getting her hopes up or anything like that.

"That's kind of a dick move." Said Hatori. She was red, a little, and maybe he needed to invest in a swear jar or something. Yeah, if he was going to be hanging out with little girls he may have had to learn to clean up his language a little bit. He wouldn't want to be responsible for corrupting a kid or anything like that. President Suzuki would probably kill him or stick him in a traitor hole or whatever it was that he did to guys who corrupted his little girl.

"I don't think that it's a…that word…move. I like to watch him play. I like to watch people have fun because it makes me happy when other people are happy." Said Mob

"So you'd rather just sit here and watch me play for hours and hours than play yourself?" asked Hatori. Well she was certainly a sweet kid…and maybe President Suzuki ought to get a paternity test. Hatori didn't know the man well, or in any other way but a work way, but he did know that if the boss had been her age he would have definitely been a….no, not a Gamecube hog since he was old….a SNES hog? No, wait, he might have been even older than that. A Famicom hog? A pong hog? Or maybe he was even older than that…Hatori would look later. The point was that he just could not see the boss ever sharing or taking delight in another human being's happiness.

She really was a sweet kid. Like a sweet little sister type.

"Yes. That's what friends are for." Said Mob. She liked that word, friend, even though she knew that just because they were friends it didn't mean that they would ever be more than friends. She was still just ten. She was short and didn't even have breasts yet and boys loved staring at girl's breasts so, of course, no boy would like her anyway.

"So that's what you and your friends do? You just sit around watching them play videogames?" asked Hatori

"Um….just me and my brother. Me and my other friends just sort of hang out. I'm the only one who likes videogames. Well my brother likes them but a brother is different from a friend…and stuff. Also Shimazaki, he's my friend, he's blind and he can't play videogames at all even." Said Mob. She didn't think that it would be a good idea to tell him what she and her friends really got up to. She didn't want it to get back to dad and also she knew that she was doing things that ten year olds were not supposed to do and she didn't want to get into trouble or anything like that. Also she knew that not every adult was like her friends and she didn't want to scare him off. Not yet, anyway, because she had just become his friend. Maybe when they were better friends she could smoke him up.

Which was what Shimazaki said it was called when you shared your pen and other stuff with someone.

Not that Mob shared with anyone besides Shimazaki. Minegishi said that the pens were bad for you but Mob didn't see how something that could make you feel so good was bad for you. She wasn't overdoing it like before, even though before she had been happier than she had ever been in her life, because she also got kind of weird when she had smoked that much. She ate too much and talked to too much and wouldn't stop hugging Sho….but to be fair there was no better feeling in the whole world than hugging her little brother.

Well except maybe sitting next to the person that she liked….actually there was no comparison to make since both of those feelings were very different as they should have been.

"What about your friend? Minegishi? Does she play anything?" asked Hatori. He played it very casually. Like he was just asking because they were on the subject of games. That was all. Girls, at least the ones that he had known back when he had been a kid and out in the world and stuff, had a sixth sense when it came to this stuff. He didn't need her running back to her friend telling her that Hatori was asking after her just so that he could find some shared hobby and excuse to start to get to know her more organically. Yeah, organic wasn't just for overpriced produce anymore. That was where he had made his mistake with her, before, he had just approached her out of the blue.

Girls didn't like that at all.

Well the internet said that girls didn't like that. He'd never actually had a girlfriend before or been with a girl before but he had been kissed once in his third year of middle school on a dare and….and that was the most pathetic romantic history in the history of romantic histories and if she asked then he was most certainly not going to tell her his real romantic history. Nope, he wanted her to like him, not think that he was pathetic.

Girls didn't like desperate or pathetic guys….and Hatori was neither of those anyway so he had nothing to worry about.

"She?" asked Mob. Was he still talking about Minegishi? Because they were not called 'she' or 'he'. They were a 'they' and Mob didn't really get it but they could be called whatever they wanted to be called. Like they had said the only people who needed to know if they were a boy or a girl were people that were trying to date them and since Mob wasn't trying to date them then Mob didn't need to know. Though she was curious…but also that was none of her business. Asking about if people were boys or girls were really none of her business at all.

"Yeah, Minegishi Toshiki. Your friend with the short purple hair." Said Hatori. He got the feeling that he had said the wrong thing since she was frowning….crap! Was she onto him?!

"Um….they don't really like videogames and their hair is lavender, not purple, and also they're a 'they' not a 'she'. They like to be called 'they'." Said Mob. Did that mean that Minegishi was a girl? Mob…didn't know to feel about that. One the one hand she had a girl to be friends with and that would explain why they were so good at playing dolls and stuff. On the other hand it was also not something that Mob should have cared about, she felt like, because boy or girl Minegishi was still a nice person and a good friend…and also this may have been the sort of thing that was none of her business at all because, well, asking someone if they were a boy or a girl was the same as asking about their privates and you were not supposed to ask about someone's privates because they were private. That was why they were called privates.

"She likes to be called 'they'? Why?" asked Hatori. That was new but he could do that. Actually that made her even more interesting. He liked a girl who was interesting…well he just liked girls in general and she was the only one around…and he was not going to be saying that to her. Nope. He was sure that when he got to know her…them…that the two of them would have a lot in common and start a relationship and all of that stuff. Not that he wanted a relationship if she didn't want one. No, he'd love…accept. He would accept a FWB situation or whatever else she, they, wanted.

"I don't know. They just do. They said that they didn't feel like a boy or a girl and that they wanted to be called 'they'." Said Mob

"Huh. Alright, I can do that." Said Hatori. He'd have to be careful not to mistakenly call them a her. That seemed like the sort of thing that would end up shooting him in foot. He wanted to have a shot with her, with them, and he was not going to blow this. If he couldn't meet a girl in Tokyo then he was just not going to be meeting any girls anywhere end of discussion. Thank God that he had met and made friends with Suzuki-sama or he could have blown it before there ever even was a 'it' to blow.

"You should. They get mad when people call them by their given name. I don't want to know how mad they would get at someone who called them a girl….even if they are a girl." Said Mob. Minegishi only got mad when people who weren't Shimazaki called them by their given name. Mob didn't know why it was ok now but it hadn't been ok before…but she wasn't going to ask. That seemed like it might have had to do with kissing stuff and also bed stuff and she was not going to ask Minegishi about that sort of stuff. It was not Mob's business or anything that she wanted to know about.

"Don't call them 'she'. Ok, I can do that. Thanks, Suzuki-sama." Said Hatori

"Um…you're welcome?" asked Mob even though she didn't exactly know what she was being thanked for. Maybe for warning them? Well Minegishi could be sort of scary when they were angry, angry for real, not that they were ever angry for real with Mob. Not since the time that she had accidentally ate one of their Xanax because she had thought that they were a mint because they were in a mint tin. She shouldn't have done that. It had been very dangerous.

It had felt nice, though.

She had never slept so well in her entire life. She wondered if those were still dangerous even if you didn't drink and then take one. She'd as Minegishi…or Shimazaki. Yes, she'd ask Shimazaki. He was better about telling her about these things. Minegishi just told her not to do them because they were worried about ruining her life. Shimazaki also told her not to do things but because she wasn't ready for them yet. He had a whole bunch of things that she wasn't ready for and, really, it felt better being told that she wasn't ready for something rather than that she was going to end up ruining her life if she tried something.

She wasn't going to ruin her life.

She could be trusted to know when she was and was not going to ruin her life. Minegishi was just overprotective, Shimazaki had said, because they hadn't had as good of a life as Mob had. They had some very mean parents and their life had been so bad that the government said that they had to live in a group home and the government mostly just minded it's own business. Shimazaki had said so and he wouldn't lie about that. He never lied when it came to Minegishi. Mob knew that Minegishi cared about her and that they were best friends and all but Mob could live her own life and she would decide if she was ruining her life or not and if she was ruining her life then she would just stop whatever she was doing.

Besides, she doubted that anything would ruin her life more than if she lost control of her powers and dad stopped loving her.

"Come on, let's do something you'd like. You ever play Minecraft?" asked Hatori. He needed to keep her around and she was not going to stick around if all he did was play games that she had no interest in. She was an invaluable wealth of information. Also she was good company. Also it was just a smart career move to get in good with the boss' kid.

"What's Minecraft?" asked Mob as he exited out of his game. She glanced at the clock. She knew that if she didn't go back to dad then he could come looking for her…but she had also just become friends with Hatori. If she left suddenly right after they had just become friends then he wouldn't want to be her friend anymore.

"Seriously? You've never heard of Minecraft?" asked Hatori

"No. I haven't. I mean I know that it's a game and I know that some people like it but I've never played it before." Said Mob. She knew that she needed to get back to dad but…but he had scooted his chair closer to hers and even though she knew that she was being a very selfish Daughter she would much rather have been next to the boy she liked than with her dad and stuff. She loved her dad, she really did, but she saw him all the time. He was the last thing she saw before she went to bed and the first thing she saw when she woke up and also they went to work together and…and she would see him again at home.

They were halfway through the Galaxy Express show.

Maybe when they finished it then he would be allowed to sleep in her own bed again. She had tried, before, to sleep in her own bed but she had ended up waking up in dad's bed again. She wondered why he didn't just sleep in a smaller bed. That was why he carried her into his room every night, he had said, because he didn't like rolling over and finding the other side of the bed all cold and stuff…even though he hardly ever rolled over…and also he was the President of Claw and if he wanted a smaller bed then he could have just sent someone out for one.

But she was not going to be saying anything like that to her dad any time soon.

"Ok, get comfortable. I have a lot to teach you." Said Hatori. Well this could not be. He had to teach her about good games, it seemed, because he could not let her just go on in her life thinking that the Wii was the end all be all of consoles…and also he just really liked Minecraft but had no one to play with. And that was through no fault of his own. He did not take the whole thing way too seriously and he was not a dick, either. Nobody else took it seriously enough and that made them the dicks, not him.

"Um…ok." Said Mob. She didn't know what he meant by get comfortable, these new chairs were actually very uncomfortable, but she did sit a little closer to Hatori than she had before. Even though it didn't make her feel any more comfortable…actually it made her uncomfortable….because she felt nervous…

But also good because they were friends, now, and he was the nicest and coolest friend in the whole world….and also he was very…um….he made her feel...she liked him, ok?!