Minecraft was a fun game.
If you could actually play it, that is. So could play just fine. He knew what to do and he knew how he liked to play and he'd been having a good time with it lately. Better than when he and big sis had been playing. Maybe it was better this way. She and dad could do their own thing and then he and Fukuda could do their own thing too. So what if dad had just come into their game and took and so what if dad loved big sis more than him. He didn't care. That was the way that it had always been. Dad was trying to take over the world so of course he would try and take over their Minecraft world.
Sho was fine with what had happened.
"Fukuda, come on. Keep up. We have a lot of stuff to kill." Said Sho. He was in Fukuda office again. He hung out there a lot these days. Dad was always hanging out with big sis and that was…fine. Let them hang out together. Sho had Fukuda and Fukuda at least knew how to have fun.
Even though he wasn't the best at playing Minecraft.
"Hang on, I fell in another hole. Let me climb out." Said Fukuda. He was bad at this. He was really bad at this. He didn't even really like this. None of that mattered. Sho liked this game. Sho was happy and his happiness was what mattered. Also he had stopped curing, thank God, and that was just perfect. He was in a good mood and Fukuda was going to keep it that way. Even if he wasn't any good at this game at all.
"Jump. You've got to jump out. Your guy can't just climb like that. His arms are too short to climb. He can only use his arms for mining." Said Sho. Fukuda wasn't the best at this…but that was ok. He was better than dad, anyway. Big sis sad that dad didn't even try to play or anything like that. He just told her what to do and stuff. That didn't sound like fun at all.
Dad wasn't fun at all.
So Sho didn't care at all if big sis wanted to play with him at all. Dad was dad and big sis was big sis and they were together. They had always been together. It wasn't like Sho didn't have anyone. Sho had Fukuda and he was ok. Not as fun as he used to be but Sho had been a little kid back then. Everything had been way more fun back then. He was older not and this was just a part of getting older and stuff like that. Sometimes stuff got to be less fun. Sometimes your sister stopped playing with you and started only hanging out with your dad.
That was ok. He had Fukuda
"I'm jumping. I think that it's too deep." Said Fukuda. When had games gotten this complex? He had played with the kids before but they had been younger back then. They were older and their games were a hell of a lot more complex and a hell of a lot less fun. What ever happened to Space Invaders? He would have thought that at some point Suzuki would have shared that time sink with his kids. He understood that game. He couldn't play until the blisters on his fingers broke but he could at least understand that game.
And no, Suzuki, shooting through your own shields was stupid.
Not shooting through your own shields and just making sure that your timing was right was a perfectly valid way to play Space Invaders. Not that he and Suzuki were going to be going back to their old arcade and having that debate again. No. Suzuki had moved on to this game…and Fukuda could see why he liked it. He had always liked building things. He liked to design and build and control and also he liked things with a million and one rules. That was why he loved kendo and why he had been so good at it. Fukuda wondered if maybe he should have done more when they had been kids to do wholesome hobby stuff with his friend and not, you know, thought he was just playing at conquering the world and all of that. Maybe instead of playing in the fort in the woods they should have done more stuff that encouraged Suzuki's other, non world domination based, hobbies.
Well he could at least do right by Sho.
"Stay there. I'm just going to kill you so you can respawn at the house." Said Sho. Honestly. He needed to be more careful of the pits. How hard was it to remember that you had to jump over them? No matter, no matter. Sho was happy to have someone to play with even if, now, they had to go back to the respawn house and start all over again. They had a lot of stuff to kill. They had to find and kill an elder dragon. Sho wanted that egg fair and square, not just because big sis' boyfriend was good at cheating at Minecraft.
That had earned him some cool points in Sho's book.
He liked games. Even ones that started off boring and then got fun later on. Sho liked the ones that started off fun and stayed fun the whole way through. Like Street Fighter. That was fun. So was Mortal Kombat…actually Mortal Kombat was the more fun game because it had blood and the blood was cool. Only in games, though, not in real life. In real life seeing blood during a fight was scary…even if you were watching it through the spaces between your fingers…
Sho really hoped that dad went easy on big sis' new boyfriend.
"If you have to put me out of my misery then so be it." Said Fukuda. He had a lot of worked stacked up and…no. This was for Sho. Besides, it wasn't like Suzuki could fire him. Also this would teach him to delegate work to more than one other person….more than one other adult. Shigeko was becoming more involved in the day to day running of Claw…and Sho had no involvement at all. Good. Sho didn't need all of that on his shoulders. He needed time and space to just be nine.
Soon to be ten.
December first. On December first it would be his birthday and he would be then. The double digits. That was something. It felt like just yesterday he had been able to pick Sho up with one hand. Now he was almost ten. It felt like they had just been sitting there in the old living room and Sho had been trying to teach him how a Wii controller worked and now…well now Sho was teaching him how a keyboard worked. He was starting to feel his age, finally. Forty three. Closer to death than birth…possibly. He had no idea how long he would live for. He hadn't been aging, not as fast as other people, certainly not as fast as Suzuki. His back was starting to kill him. Well that was what he got for hunching over all day.
He wondered who would outlive who.
"I'll make it a quick death." Said Sho. He knew that it was just a game but he didn't want to kill Fukuda at all. He liked Fukuda a lot. He knew that it was just a game, though, so he had no idea why he felt like this. He killed people in games all the time. Maybe because he always played against the computer and stuff. He played against big sis sometimes…well he had before dad decided to give her all the love in the world. So much love that there wasn't any left for Sho at all…but that was ok because he had Fukuda to play with him and stuff. Shimazaki too but they played different games together since they didn't make videogames for people who couldn't see. That was the first thing that Sho was going to change when he ruled the world. Everything in the world would work just as well for people who could see as it did for people who couldn't. Then everyone could play together.
And also he would have a third person to play Minecraft with.
"Thank God you get unlimited lives in this game. Am I right?" asked Fukuda. He wondered if he should show Sho some games that they both could play. Things that were easy to learn and didn't have a very complicated craft system that, of course, Suzuki could remember. He lived for this stuff. Things with rules. It was even better when he was the one who could make the rules. Maybe they should have designed games together. Maybe they should have done literally anything else with their lives than what they had ended up doing. Designing games, building impractical buildings with spires and tunnels and murder holes, getting on the professional kendo circuit, locking themselves away to master the game of Space Invaders, literally anything other than this.
He had too many regrets.
He hadn't been right for a while now and he could feel it. Not since the fiasco with the baby. Just…how Suzuki could do that to Masami and to Sho and to…to himself. How he hadn't had enough sense not to make another human being. There was a human being in the world, now, another piece of Suzuki…and he had just let Fukuda…well taking the baby away had been the best thing to do. He had to think in the best interests of the child and being raised by a nine and ten year old along with the assortment of degenerates that orbited them. No, taking the baby away had been the best thing for everyone…
Even if it had meant hurting Sho.
He had hurt Sho and…and he seemed as ok as he could be right now…it still wasn't ok. Sho wasn't ok. He was getting out of his violent phase but now he had started cursing. Shigeko…he had done wrong by her too. Masami would have hated him for this, for all of this. He hated himself a little bit sometimes. Everything had been out of control since the thing with the baby…or they had been out of control for a while and he just hadn't noticed.
"Yeah. If we only had a few one ups like in Mario the game would have been over already." Said Sho. Big sis and her boyfriend may have played the game in the most boring way possible but at least they didn't get stuck places. He wished that dad hadn't gone into their Minecraft world. He wished that dad made his own Minecraft world all by himself. He wished that dad would just give him back big sis. He wished that dad knew how to break love in half like a churro…or just keep it all to himself.
Love was a lot like the giant churros they had at Disneyland.
Love was meant to be shared. Love was way too big for one person. Sure you could keep it too yourself but what were you going to do with all of that churro besides throw it up on the spinning teacups? No, you had to break love in half and share it…but of course dad wouldn't know what to do with that. He hated love and he hated churros. Well Sho didn't know specifically if he hated churros but he did know that dad hated sweets and also he knew that dad had never liked saying I love you. Not even to mom. So dad must not have liked love either…and he liked big sis so much that he could show her love because he loved her more than he hated love and feelings…and it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that dad loved her so much and…and he needed to stop having jerk thoughts. He needed to stop having jerk thoughts because he was not going to be a jerk. He was not going to be like dad. He was going to be like himself.
"Do you maybe want to play Mario? Or something else? I mean we've been playing this for a while now and I was just thinking that you might have been starting to get, you know, bored." Said Fukuda
"But we aren't even close to killing the dragon yet." Said Sho
"I know but we already have a dragon's egg." Said Fukuda
"Big sis' boyfriend got me that. I want to get one on my own. I'm ten, you know, not a baby." Said Sho
"Boyfriend? So he's…he's her boyfriend?" asked Fukuda. Sho must have been mistaken. Suzuki had been pretty deep into obsession lately. The eyes. Fukuda could always tell by his eyes. He had turned that obsession to Shigeko and there was no way in hell he was going to let her have a nineteen year old boyfriend, or any boyfriend, at ten and a half….and also in this stage of obsession. He knew that maybe he should have done something about this but, well, they had both been a lot more pleasant all wrapped up in each other.
When it started to get worrying then he would step in.
But he knew Suzuki. Either Suzuki would lose interest when something else caught his attention, he had been talking about rebuilding the eighth division and also constructing a ninth….Fukuda just could not imagine what spurred on this flurry of building…so that would take up his time more than Shigeko ever could. He knew how Suzuki could be though…but Shigeko would be fine. She had always been daddy's little girl.
Sho was the one who needed him…though he was concerned when Sho told him that his ten year old sister had a boyfriend.
"She never said anything but he gets her stuff in Minecraft, like he got her a bunch of character skins and stuff, and I know that when you like a girl you're supposed to give her presents until she likes you back. He doesn't have to give her presents, she already likes her, so he should just get her a ring already….an Elsa ring because I got mad and threw hers, the one that sang, and I don't know where it went…and she hasn't noticed yet but I know she'll be sad when she does…but she'll be happy when her boyfriend gets her a ring and marries her and stuff." Said Sho. He liked this guy a lot…and it would be shame that dad was going to beat him up so bad he bled. Dad could be such a jerk sometimes. He didn't get it. He got scaring the guy so that he never even thought about breaking big sis' heart but drawing blood was going too far.
In life it was scary when fights drew blood.
Games were more fun because nobody actually got hurt. Sho decided that he was going to beat up big sis' boyfriend in a game and not in life. That way nobody got hurt for real and he wasn't a jerk. Also he liked this guy a lot. He wasn't a jerk. He was a nice guy and he treated big sis right. He was giving her stuff in games and pretty soon he would be giving her presents in real life too and then their relationship would be great and then they'd get married and have babies and Sho could take care of the babies and he could bring the babies over to play with baby sis so she could have some friends her own age and it would be great.
"Well….you just tell me if she makes it official, ok? So I can…talk…to him…or her. To someone." Said Fukuda. He wasn't exactly president of the Suzuki Shigeko fan club but she was her father's daughter and that meant that Fukuda was going to have to save her from herself. She was her father's daughter and that meant that she would end up making some very questionable life choices…and Fukuda would have to save her from them…even though he couldn't stop her smoking and drinking and whatever else she'd gotten up to…
Or maybe he could just leave this guy to Suzuki's wrath.
"Ok, but don't tell dad because he's just going to beat this guy up until he bleeds and I don't want that to happen to him. He's nice to her and to me…and I want her to be with someone who's nice to her…and not Shimazaki. He's my friend, not her boyfriend, he can't be two things at once." Said Sho
"I can think of two things he is at once…" said Fukuda under his breath. That guy….THAT GUY. What in the hell did Sho and Shigeko see in that guy? He was the worst, most annoying, sort of person. He hoped that Sho wound up meeting a nice boy at some point and Shimazaki became just a childhood crush, a footnote in his life. Sho was too young for any of that, though. He didn't even know anyone his own age….
But that would change.
A lot of people Awakened in their teens. Claw's youngest recruit, if you didn't count Suzuki's children, was Hatori Nozomu when he had been fifteen. Kids presented even earlier, of course, but puberty seemed to be a trigger. Sho would meet people his own age as he got older. He would meet people his own age and make friends and just…lead a better life than the one he led now. One with friends and people who cared about him…and then he would be able to put all of this behind him. His childhood.
It was nice to have high hopes, sometimes.
"What?" asked Sho as he looked up from his laptop. He hated it when Fukuda said things so quietly. Sho wondered why he did that. Shimazaki said that he said mean things about people but Sho knew that couldn't be true. Fukuda was nice all the time. He wasn't a thing like dad. Dad said mean things about people all the time…and so they could hear him, too, because he wanted people to hear the mean things that he said…because he was a jerk like that.
"Don't say his name or you'll summon him." said Fukuda quickly.
"No, he's not here or at home. Someone tried to leave a bomb at our building so he's with the team that's getting information out of him….which sucks because we were supposed to go sock skating today. They long hallway is getting waxed and we were going to have a race." Said Sho. He had been looking forward to that for a whole day now. He was going to win. Shimazaki may have been taller but Sho was more aerodynamic because he was smaller. Also he had more agility because he was young and Shimazaki was old.
"Sho, you know that's dangerous." Said Fukuda pinching the bridge of his nose. He would have to save Sho from himself as well. He was nine, almost ten, and he had the judgement of a nine, almost ten, year old boy. Sock skating was fun and not a great way to end up breaking his leg. Why did they wax the hallways during the day? It just tempted people. He would have to do something about that…if he ever got back to work.
"I know but it doesn't matter. You'll always be here for me. You said so." Said Sho. Fukuda always kept his promises. He promised to always be there for Sho so what if he got hurt sock skating. It wasn't like anyone had ever died from slipping down a hallway that had fresh wax in it.
"You're right…I always will be." Said Fukuda. He would always be there for Sho as best as he could on whatever way he could. Right now that meant keeping him close and shielding him from his father's influence and neglect…and also how his father could get when he was obsessed with something…or someone.
Fukuda did not have the energy to deal with that.
Suzuki had gotten obsessed with Masami, actually, when he had first started seeing her. Fukuda had been there to keep him grounded. To tell him that maybe following her around wasn't the way to her heart. To tell him that maybe telling a woman he had been seeing for less than a month that she was the most perfect person to ever have lived…well she was but that wasn't the point….was not a good idea. He had always been strange when it came to women. He idolized them, worshipped the ground they walked on, but then put kilometers of distance between them emotionally because God forbid even the woman he love know that he was a human being with emotions and wants and needs.
He was so glad that any of that weird stuff that they had done hadn't gone anywhere.
It must have been suffocating to be loved by Suzuki Touichirou. Suffocating was a good word for it. Suffocating was a word that Masami had used. Suffocating and lonely. He had built her a house, a prison, and let her all alone in it with the kids. He had kept himself at a distance but his presence had been everywhere. Masami had told him that. She had told him that one night, one of those few nights they'd had together, while he held her and she just…told him. Told him trapped and crushed she had felt for years….but also how alone…and how when she was with him, there in his apartment, she could finally just breathe….
He was so glad that Suzuki didn't even see him as a friend anymore.
It must have been suffocating to be loved by Shigeko as well. Sho…he saw how Sho was when he loved…or at least felt romantically towards someone. Sho was all nervous energy. Daredevil stunts and stupid games. Running and jumping. Cartwheels and summersaults. He asked for attention, begged for it, but did not trap the subject of his affections near him. Shigeko took after her father when it came to love and romance. She kept the object of her affections near her, closer and closer, even though she was only ten. He wondered what she would be like as a grown woman. He wondered what sort of man she would end up with…well Suzuki would probably pick for her.
If whatever was going on with this guy didn't pan out.
"Hatori! Hey! Fukuda, look, Hatori's here!" said Sho. Fukuda didn't even look up from his laptop. Sho had no idea what he was doing over there. He just knew that it wasn't Minecraft and that he needed to be nice to big sis' boyfriend or he might not like her anymore…and then her heart would be broken. Also Sho had no idea how this guy was a building forts in real life or if he liked animals or drawing or how good he was at sock skating and stuff.
"I sense him. Something you need, Hatori-san?" asked Fukuda. He didn't look up. He needed a moment, just a moment. If this guy was here, the tech department was nowhere near his office, then something was up…hopefully nothing to do with Shigeko.
"Just a paper cut." Said Hatori as he held up his finger. He had an excuse, this guy was almost as short with people as President Suzuki was and he really hated people bothering him maybe even more so than the President himself, so it was best to come in with a reason for being there beside what he had come there for.
He got the feeling that this wouldn't end well for him.
But he had to do what he had to do. She was just a kid and she didn't deserve to end up as messed up as everyone else in Claw. She was such a nice kid…and also he was involved and he couldn't just let anything happen to her. He didn't know what he could do besides talk to the one person who he had it on god authority could actually talk to President Suzuki.
"You seriously came all the way here for that? I don't know what big sis sees in you." Said Sho. Well that settled it. He was beating him up in a game and not in the real world. If he came all the way down to see Fukuda just because of a papercut then, of course, he wouldn't survive being beat up. What a baby. Big sis needed a guy who could take a papercut…and a lot worse, too, since dad was going to beat him up and stuff.
"It's a papercut. But a band aid on it." Said Fukuda. He was not a bottomless well of power. He wasn't Suzuki or Shigeko. He had limits to what he could do and he needed to save his strength for the real emergencies. Not papercuts.
"I actually have something else to talk to you about. Something that concerns Suzuki-sama." Said Hatori. He said so quietly so her little brother couldn't hear.
"Sho, why don't you go do some sock skating before the wax dries?" asked Fukuda. Great. Something about Suzuki. Just what he needed.
"Well if you think it's a good idea…bye!" said Sho. He didn't need to be told twice. It wouldn't be as fun as if he were with Shimazaki but it would have been better than listening to big sis' boyfriend and Fukuda talking about whatever mean thing that dad had done now.
"He's gone. What's this about President Suzuki?" asked Fukuda
"No, about his daughter. About Little Sister-sama….I mean Mob. Shigeko. It's about her and…" said Hatori
"Are you seeing her?" asked Fukuda getting right to the point. If he was seeing Shigeko Fukuda didn't know if he should hide him or take the letter opener on his desk and start stabbing.
"No! What the fuck is wrong with you?! I'm not a lollicon! Just because I hang out with her doesn't mean that I want to…what is wrong with you that you would even think that?!" said Hatori
"Well someone could get the wrong idea. Like President Suzuki. You don't want him to get the wrong idea. Trust me." Said Fukuda evenly. He kept his face and his aura neutral. So then Sho was just being nine and jumping to conclusions. Ok then…that was…a relief. Good. She was ten. She did not need that.
"Wait, he thinks that I'm messing around with his daughter? No. I will take a lie detector test right now. I am not into little girls. I'm into weird stuff, really weird stuff, but not loli weird stuff. Check my search history if you don't believe me!" said Hatori
"I believe you. The President may not but-" said Fukuda
"That's who I wanted to talk to you about. Just…can you talk to him for me? About his daughter? Just…she's really stressing out about the way he's been treating her and it's not good for her. Ok?" asked Hatori. So everyone thought that he was some kind of lollicon and that he was after little girls…people had sick minds if that was what they thought! He would do…something….about that but first of all he needed to talk about what he came here to talk about. Later on he would work on clearing his name.
"The way he's treating her?" asked Fukuda. Compared to how he treated Sho she had it easy…fear crept in. He had never been shy about hitting his children. Shigeko…she was closer to her father than ever before….and that left her vulnerable. Stress was her enemy. Stress and pain and fear. She could…she could send them the way of the Eighth Division…but now…this was the middle of Tokyo, not the desert, and more than seventeen people would die if she exploded…
"He's being….if I can speak freely?" asked Hatori. That was a polite way to say it. He had seen that in a movie. Fukuda ranked highly, very highly, and he couldn't afford to mess this up. He could end up demoted and de-ranked…and also bad stuff could be happening to Little Sister-san.
"You may." Said Fukuda. Well nothing good ever came from people asking to speak freely. This was sure to be something big and massive and complicated that had been dropped on his head. He braced himself.
"He's really creepy and it's really fucking her up. He's not giving her space and he took over her Minecraft and he won't let her see her friends or hang out or….well, ok, he won't let her sleep in his own bed…and I hope that it's just because he has nightmares or something. I mean…not to start implying things but I know that she doesn't want to sleep in the same bed as him and if the kid doesn't like it…." Said Hatori. He knew that one wrong word would get him thrown in a traitor hole. Well he could be subtle and polite and all of that shit.
"That's….something. I don't know what you think that I can do-" said Fukuda. That wasn't good…at all. He knew Suzuki and he knew that his type was motherly brown haired women, not little girls, but still…that was, as Hatori had said, creepy. Creepy and weird and…and that wasn't good for Shigeko. He wasn't happy about the person that she had become but…but he also knew how much worse things could be if Suzuki was stressing her out with that kind of weirdness….stressing her out badly enough to possibly explode….
Fukuda could stop her this time.
He hadn't been able to stop her last time. He hadn't been able to stop any of that insanity. Suzuki had tortured his son until he awakened and his daughter….she exploded. She exploded and…and she didn't even remember…but she would remembered if she exploded this time. He wasn't a fan of the person that she had become. He wasn't a fan of….of a lot of things about her but….but even she did not need to be responsible for killing so many people on accident.
"I heard that you guys were friends from childhood. Just…you know. You can like…tell him he's messing his kid up?" said Hatori. He knew that nobody told the President what to do but Hatori knew that if he had a kid he would want to know if he was messing that kid up terribly…and also he would not be making his kid sleep next to him if the kid didn't want to…and also he really hoped that he hadn't gotten himself a one way ticket to a traitor hole…
Fukuda wasn't saying anything…which was worse than if he had just sent him to a traitor hole…
"Thank you for bringing this to my attention. You are dismissed." Said Fukuda. There. He didn't say if he would do one thing or another. He wasn't going to make any promises. He wasn't going to commit to anything. He needed time to think. He needed time to plan. He needed….he needed to assess how deep into obsession Suzuki was. He was starting to disregard social rules…and his own rules about keeping people at arm's length…
And Shigeko was distressed.
He would do something. He didn't know what but he would do something. Talk to him….figure out what to say, first, of course. He couldn't just start running his mouth at Suzuki. No, that wouldn't work. Suzuki…he was a difficult man to deal with but….Fukuda closed his laptop…but he was no more difficult to play than that game.