Minecraft was not a boring game.

Sho just didn't have a lot of patience inside of himself. That was because he was only nine years old and stuff. That was all. Mob had a lot of patience. She had so much patience that she was going to keep on mining to craft and crafting to mine and also she was going to put another floor on their fort because they needed more space for their chests and stuff. They needed more chests to store their stuff and they couldn't get more stuff until they stored the stuff they had in chests and they couldn't store things in chests until they had more space for the chests.

And this was fun.

It was sort of like the Lego Friends build your own dollhouse she used to have only this was in a videogame and also Sho hadn't smashed this one. Well Sho had minded through their wall but she and Hatori had fixed it. This was more of their house than her and Sho's…and the thought makes her laugh even though there's nothing at all to laugh at. She's just…she's happy…and stuff. She's just happy and stuff. She's just so…so…she feels really happy when she plays this game.

Even when she plays alone.

Hatori had to go because his party was on a raid in another game. He said that he would come back on around one or two in the morning. Mob hoped that dad fell asleep on his own so she could wait up for Hatori to come back. He was so fun to play with….even if he did call her little sister sometimes. She didn't know which one she disliked more. Suzuki-sama or Little Sister. What was so hard about calling her Mob? It wasn't a hard word to say and it wasn't hard to write, either. She didn't understand people sometimes. Like how Shimazaki called Minegishi by their given name even though they didn't like that….well they had stopped trying to stop him so Mob didn't know….

But she did know that she didn't like being called 'Little Sister'.

She didn't want to be his little sister. She wanted to be his girlfriend when she grew up. Then they could hold hands even though his always had stuff on them and then they could kiss, too, and it would be really nice…even though Minegishi told her that he was not worth waiting for because he had probably never kissed anyone before. Well that was ok. Mob knew how to kiss. She'd show him how.

She laughed again.

Well it was somewhere between a laugh and a scream. She pulled her nightgown up over her face even though nobody could see her. Dad was in the tub and Sho was in bed and she had taped over her webcam, too, because Hatori said that people liked to watch you through them. Nobody could see her or hear her and she had no reason to hide her face but she still did. She had been thinking thoughts again, all kinds of thoughts, and maybe she should not have been thinking like that. She couldn't help it. Her mind would just be going along like normal and then out of nowhere it would be all 'wouldn't it be nice to kiss Hatori' and then she would be all embarrassed and stuff.

Her mind was a traitor sometimes.

She wondered if it was normal to like someone this much. She had never seen mom get like this over dad and dad….she couldn't even imagine him and mom holding hands and kissing let alone being married and stuff. Well they had kissed, Sho had seen them kiss when he'd been little, but Mob couldn't picture it…and also she didn't want to imagine that. Mom and dad kissing each other. Gross. Well she wanted them to be happy and if she turned around and mom and dad were back there kissing she would have been happy because mom had come back….

She would have had to be happy.

Because she wanted her mom back. She did. Even if mom had run away and left her and Sho all alone with dad…and stuff. She still wanted her mom to come back to her and…and stuff. She did. Then they could have been a family again. Then mom could be the one to put Sho to bed and wake him up and make sure he ate all of his food groups and did his school work and took baths and changed clothes and stuff. Then Mob could have a break…but there was no point in thinking about mom coming back because that was never going to happen.

She had left three years ago. She wasn't coming back.

Mob accepted this. Dad said that there were things in life that people did best to accept and she accepted that her mom was gone. It would have been nice to have some help around the house and all but…but Mob was ok. She also would have liked to have someone to tell her if this was…if the way she felt was ok. If thinking about someone, about a boy, all the time was ok. She had thought about boys and stuff before but now it was just…worse…and she didn't know if it was ok.

Well Minegishi said that it was but they weren't married.

They'd never even had a boyfriend or a girlfriend, they had said, because they didn't believe that one person could belong to another like that. Mob didn't think that it was one person belonging to another, being in a relationship, but two people giving themselves to each other and stuff. She wanted to care about someone enough that she and him were together and agreed to be together and…and just were who they were together. She wanted someone to look at her and not see the person that they wanted her to be but the person that she was.

She wanted to be Mob.

But she was a whole lot of other people who weren't Mob. She was big sis to Sho and she was Suzuki-san to Fukuda and Her Ladyship to the Awakened and also to Shimazaki because he liked to tease her and Her Little Ladyship to Shibata and Little Sister-sama to Hatori and Daughter to dad…and the only person she was Mob to was Minegishi. At least one person let her be herself….which was nice….and she did love Minegishi but I wasn't the doki doki sort of love. It was like how she loved Sho and dad and mom and stuff.

She wanted the doki doki kind of love.

But there was no point in thinking about something that was never going to happen. Dad said that there was no point in dwelling on the impossible. Hatori didn't like her like that and he was such a great guy that by the time Mob was his age some girl would have probably asked him to marry her and he would have said yes and then he wouldn't have time to have lunch with her or play games with her or even to call her Little Sister-sama or…or anything.

But that was ok.

She had their Minecraft game and that was enough. She pulled her face out of her nightgown and went back to work. She had to get this fort really nice. If she got it really nice then Hatori would come back from his game and be impressed with her…and then maybe he would call her Mob instead of Little Sister-sama…and it would be really nice.

She smiled.

But then she smiled a little less. She smiled a little less as she felt dad's aura move. He was done with his bath. That meant that he would want to go to bed. She had to go to bed with him. She wasn't allowed to sleep in her own bed anymore. She didn't know why. One day dad had just decided that she had to sleep in the bed with him. He said because he didn't like rolling over to the other side of the bed and finding it empty. Even though he could have easily just gotten a smaller bed or turned on the heat or something. He could have turned the air back during summer when he had started carrying her to his bed.

It was fall now.

Winter was coming and winter was even colder than fall so, of course, dad wouldn't let her go back to her own bed. Spring could be pretty chilly too. Spring could be chilly and then it would turn warm and he would put the air conditioning on way too cold and then it would stay that way until fall and then they would just keep going around and around. Even though Mob had her own bed and she…she missed sleeping in the same room as Sho…and Sho must have been bothered too even if he didn't say anything…

She missed Sho even though he was in their bedroom fast asleep.

She kept on playing. She would stay there playing until dad came and got her, she decided, because she didn't feel like waiting in bed for him so they could get back to the Galaxy Express. She liked spending time with dad and all but also…also she had been spending a lot of time with him lately. It was like he was trying to make up for all of that time that he had been away from her or…or something. She didn't know. All she knew was that there wasn't a lot of room to breathe, sometimes, and not just because dad rolled over once and almost suffocated her.

Which had been an accident, he had said so.

If dad asked her to come back then she would. But if he didn't ask her then she would stay on her computer until Hatori came back. She didn't have a bedtime so she could stay up as late as she wanted to….and also she could always put her head down and take a nap if she had to. She still had to get up in the morning and get Sho up and dressed, too, along with sure that he brushed his teeth and his hair and also ate a well-balanced breakfast of more than just soda and pop tarts.

She had a lot to do.

In game and out of game she had a lot to do…and maybe she should have just done her out of game stuff. Maybe she should have just logged off and closed her laptop and put it back, it's home was not the kitchen and things belonged in their homes mom had said so, and then just gone to dad's room and watched TV with him until he got tired enough to fall asleep. That was what she had to do. What she wanted to do was stay there and wait for Hatori but…but she never got to do what she wanted to do…well she did sometimes…but not when it counted. Not that this counted since it was only a game and games were not real life and real life counted…and real life people counted…so maybe she should have just gone to dad…

Dad was coming to her.

She sat up straighter and smoothed down her hair and nightgown. She tried to look normal…even though she didn't know what she was so worried about. It wasn't like she was doing anything bad. She was just playing Minecraft…though dad hated gamed and fun of all kinds…but that was normal for him…and it wasn't like he was going to hit her or anything…well it was always an option…though she could not remember the last time her dad hit her…

But it was always an option.

"Daughter. You're here." Said dad. Mob nodded. What did he want her to say? He could see that she was at the kitchen table. He could see her with his eyes and with his aura.

"Hi, dad. I'll come to bed in a minute. I just have to log out and stuff." Said Mob. She kept her aura calm. She had finished off that vape pen that Shimazaki had given her and now she was back to normal vape…which did nothing to make her feel good if a bit spacey and also hungrier than she had ever been in her life. She needed to stay calm, though, because dad hated it when she was anything other than calm.

"What's that you're doing there." asked dad as he came up behind her. Mob moved the screen so that he could see it. Now he would get mad about her wasting her time with games and stuff. She waited for him to start up with how she had to do school work and help run Claw and stuff like that.

"It's just a game, dad. That's all." said Mob. She waited for dad to say something mean to her. He said nothing. He just kept on looking over her shoulder. She could feel his aura against hers. The hairs on the backs of her arms and neck were standing up. He was really tall and stuff. Much taller than her. She had always known that he was taller than her, he was her dad after all, but she was always most aware of that fact when he stood near her.

"Why is it so….blocky? I thought that today's games had become something closer to photorealistic." Said dad. He tapped her screen even though it was not a touch screen…and now there was a finger print on her screen…but she said nothing.

"This is just the art style I think." Said Mob simply. Hatori had said that this was supposed to be a throwback to the past but also futuristic and he had lost her after a while. She didn't care what the game looked like. She just wanted it to be fun. And it was fun….well it had been. She knew that dad was going to rain on her parade soon. He was good at that.

"So it's the aestic?" asked dad

"What's an aestic?" asked Mob

"The look and feel of something. Was this meant to look and feel like the games from my era?" asked dad. Mob didn't know what his era looked like. He was born in the 70s and she had never lived in the 70s so she had no idea what the 70s looked like…though she was ten now…so he was talking about the 80s…which she had also never lived through. She knew what retro games looked like….but how did he know? Dad had been alive when the retro games had been new and not retro but…but that would have meant that he would have played them….and this was dad. It was hard to think of him as a kid sitting at his kitchen table playing videogames….or maybe he had gone to arcades, maybe? She didn't know. That was a lot to think about at once.

"I don't know why it looks the way it does….it might be trying to be retro….and you played games? You? When you were my age?" asked Mob. She couldn't believe that. She had always imagined little dad as being, well, a smaller version of current timeline dad. Just shorter and stuff.

"Yes. I was a child, once." Said Dad. He had a tone there that Mob couldn't read…and she didn't even have the brain space to try and figure out his tone or his aura. She was too busy trying to think of little dad. She had always figured that little dad was just like current timeline dad…and she…she knew so little about him. She wanted to know more. She had no idea if it was ok to ask but…but she wanted to know and…and if he got mad at her then he got mad at her.

"What did you play? I mean what sorts of videogames did you play?" asked Mob

"All sorts of games." Said Dad. Well that was…not helpful. Mob wanted to know. She wanted to know so that she could….so that she could maybe know more about the kid that dad used to be. She didn't know who her mom used to be, she had left before Mob could have even thought to ask, but dad was there and she would ask him. She just…she had no idea what she would do with that information when she got it but…but she wanted to know.

"Which ones were your favorites?" asked Mob

"When I was ten years old? Space invaders had been a very popular game for some time. I also enjoyed Asteroids, Galaxian, Missile Command, Pong…yes, those were my favorites. Space Invaders alone took up at least six hours of my day during summer breaks." Said dad

"You…you played those games? You? When you were a kid?" asked Mob

"Yes, Daughter. I don't understand why that is so difficult for you to comprehend." Said dad

"Because…because I can only think of you at this age, I guess. It's hard to think of you being my age." Said Mob

"Yes, I suppose that it would be…though you know that I was a child at some point. You and your brother were given my old toys after all." said dad. Mob needed a moment to remember what he had been talking about. The Treasure Room. It had felt like a lifetime ago when she and Sho had first found that room, when they had found dad's old toys, and when they had….when Sho had…well it had been an accident. Hitting her in the face with a shinai had been an accident. She hardly even remembered how much it hurt….because it hadn't hurt that much, probably, and also….also she shouldn't have made a big deal about that. She had gotten Sho punished after all. Even though it hadn't been that serious at all.

I remember. Back when Sho and I found the Treasure Room and stuff." Said Mob

"The junk room, you mean." Said dad. Mob stopped herself from frowning. She knew that it had been one of the many junk rooms in the Castle but…but those had been some fun toys…and also playing in the Treasure Room was one of her best memories. Well not the part where she got hit in the face with a shinai but the parts where she and Sho had gone exploring and played together and…and all of that other fun stuff. Stuff that felt like it had happened a lifetime ago…even though it wasn't at all.

"They were treasures to me and Sho." said Mob

"Well you were small children. I can get you real treasures now. Just name it and it will be yours." Said dad

"I don't need any treasures." Said Mob. She didn't want anything fancy in her life. She just wanted her family to be happy, for Sho to be safe, for dad's dream to come true, and for Claw to find all the espers in the world and bring everyone together. She didn't need fancy clothes and jewelry and art and whatever else was in real life treasure chests. She wanted a lot of things but she knew that dad couldn't just go into a store and buy them so she said nothing. Sometimes it was best to keep the way you felt to yourself.

"Then why does your game have so many treasure chests?" asked dad. He touched her screen again. He touched her screen and he left another finger print but she didn't feel like it, like telling him to stop, because this was just so….so not normal. Him being open like this. She had no idea how long this would last for and she didn't want to pop the soap bubble of whatever this was. He was being opened with her and he was interested in what she was doing…and this was so rare…but nice.

"Those hold my inventory. See? This is all the stuff that I've found." Said Mob. She opened up one of the chests. Dad was still…weirdly interested. He leaned over her shoulder even more. She sort of wanted some space…but she knew better than to ask him for space.

"These look like materials." Said dad finally

"Yeah, you mine things to craft with and you craft things to mine with. Also you build stuff and sometimes there's player vs player but not in this world. This is still just a practice world. Me and Ha-me and my friend and Sho have been building in here for a while." Said Mob. She wasn't going to say anything about Hatori to dad. She didn't want to get Hatori beat up.

"I see…and this entire structure is your doing?" asked dad

"Yes. See, I'm the one who made the Claw symbol…because we're all Claw." Said Mob

"That doesn't look like an HQ though." said dad

"No, it doesn't, because it's not. It's just a fort house we made together. I just put the Claw symbol there because we're all in Claw…but I can take it off if you want me to." Said Mob

"No, leave it. You…you've done something interesting here. I…I have an interest in this…it could be good for…design." Said dad. He did that thing where he didn't look at her and pulled his aura away. She didn't know why he did that. He always did that when he said nice things, he said that he didn't like to show weakness around her. Even though being nice was not showing weakness.

She didn't get him sometimes.

She loved him and she would never think that he was weak. He was her dad and she loved him. She had no idea what was so bad about telling his daughter nice things. When she had her own kids she would tell them nice things every day. She would stay there with them and never run away and tell them every single day at least one nice thing. Even if it was something as simple as she liked the game they were playing. That was what dad must have meant…and she so wished that he would just say it already and not be all…like this.

"Do you like it, dad? It's ok to tell me that you like it. It would make me happy if you said that. I know that you don't want to look weak in front of me but I don't think that it would be weakness to tell me that you like the game I'm playing." said Mob. Dad's aura moved a bit and for a moment she had thought that she had made him angry. She almost put a barrier around herself on accident…but she stopped herself.

Dad wasn't mad.

His aura just looked like that sometimes. He was thinking about something. That was how he was when he thought about things. How he looked when he thought about saying nice things to her. Even though it made no sense for him to be so upset and stuff. She didn't understand him. She wished that mom was still around so she could explain dad to her…but maybe mom didn't get him either. Maybe that was why she had run away. Maybe she had left because

Wondering why mom had left was pointless.

"Yes. This looks like something with a valid application in….life. Please carry on with what you were doing." Said dad. Mob didn't know what he meant by 'valid application in life' but she knew that he did want to watch her play…and maybe he just didn't want to say it that he wanted to watch her play. He could be like that sometimes. He was afraid to say totally normal stuff sometimes…even though she would never think that he was weak even though he was always afraid of that. She may have been misunderstanding, though, so it was best maybe, to ask him what he meant.

"You…you want to watch me play?" asked Mob. Dad dragged a chair over with his powers and sat down in it. He sat close enough so that he could see the screen. Mob could smell his soap and…had he been using her shampoo? Oh. Well she owed Sho an apology. She decided to let it go. She was too busy trying to wrap her head around….this.

Dad wanted to play with her.

Dad never wanted to play with her unless it was something that he liked to play. They had played all night games of Chinese checkers when she had been little. Back when they had lived in the Castle she and dad had stayed up all night playing…would this be like that? Would this be like when she had been little? Did she even want that? Did he even want that? He was the one who was always saying that the past was in the past….and stuff. Even the good parts of the past. When dad had been nice but not all…in her space all the time…and mom had been around…it had been such a nice time….

Would this be a nice time too?

"Yes. Carry on. Show me what you can do." Said dad. He said it in the same way he told people to show them their powers…like he was sizing them up…and Mob had no idea why she was being sized up right now. She was his Daughter, she wasn't one of the people he had to size up…and also this was a game, not powers, and he had no reason to want to see her play this game…or to be so close to her…

"Um….ok. Well I can go outside and get more materials and then I can come back and get back to making the second floor." Said Mob. This was….weird. Why was he so interested in this? Didn't he want to do things that he liked? This wasn't like him at all….but that wasn't a bad thing. That was a nice thing, actually, a very nice thing even.

"Second floor? What's that tall thing then?" asked Dad. He touched her screen…and she said nothing even though everyone knew that you were only supposed to touch a touch screen. This was not a touch screen. This was just a normal screen…but dad might have just thought that every screen was a touch screen. He wasn't that good at computers. He needed her to work the Netflix for him even though he had seen her do it a thousand times.

"That's our viewing tower. It's for viewing the world, not storage, and that's why I have to build a second floor. We need the second floor so we can have more room for our stuff. I mean we could build outwards but it makes more sense to build upwards because-" said Mob

"You get a better vantage point." Said dad. Mob nodded. That was what she and Sho had figured too. A lot of HQs were in tall buildings because dad wanted to be able to see his enemies in all directions and stuff….even though Mob didn't know why anyone would oppose Claw. They were good people and they tried to bring espers everywhere together. Some people just didn't believe in dad's dreams….even though that made no sense. It made about as little sense as having a fort without a viewing tower.

"That's right." Said Mob. Dad reached over and then pulled his hand back. Mob tensed a little even though he hardly ever hit her. The option was always there but he didn't hit her. He put his hand on her back and patted her a couple of times. She felt his hand against the back of her night gown. He was strong, she knew that he was strong, and she expected every pat against her Elsa and Anna nightgown to hurt but it didn't….which meant that he was trying not to hurt her since out of all of her Frozen night gowns this was the thinnest.

"Good thinking. Also you can build underground as well. You can make a strategic retreat underground and then escape through a series of tunnels….are there tunnels in this game?" asked dad. He was leaning into her space now even more so…but this was ok because he was interested in this…and it was nice. She had showed him something new. Usually he was the one who showed her stuff.

This was nice.

It was like he was seeing her…well he must have been seeing her because he was all in her space and stuff….but this was also like he was seeing…Mob. He had seen something that she liked, that Mob liked, and he liked it too. He didn't say that it was dumb or boring. He liked it and…and he liked her. She knew that he liked her, he was always carrying her to his bed so he must have liked her…but now it felt like he liked HER.

It was nice.

"Yes. Sho was working on one." said Mob. She wondered how Sho would have felt if he knew that dad was looking at their Minecraft world….well he wouldn't be that upset, probably, since he said that this game was boring…so this was ok. It was ok to share this with dad.

"Show me." Said dad. Mob did as she was told. She showed dad everything. The more she showed him the more he wanted to see. His eyes did that thing where his pupils shrank but, for once, it wasn't at her. He must have really liked this game…which was nice. She liked this. Even though since he liked this game that meant that she would have to spend more time with him and they would play together but…but she wanted that. Of course she wanted that. This was her dad. This was her dad and she loved him and she loved spending time with him.

Also this was a whole lot better than watching Galaxy Express over and over again.