Dad went to work without her again.

She had asked him if he was taking her with and he said no and then he took Sho and left. That was it. That was the whole of it. Mob wished that there had been more. He could have said no and then told her what she needed to do to make him like her again. She didn't want him to smother her like before but she didn't want him to dislike her either. But he did dislike her. He disliked her and he wouldn't tell her why. He just stopped liking her one day.

But at least Minegishi still liked her.

"Does the mom end up getting better at the end and then coming home and then making friends with Totoro?" asked Mob. They were sitting on the couch at Minegishi's house. They didn't have anything to do either. Back before they knew Mob they had been bounced around different divisions and bases and headquarters where they were needed. Now they had to stay where Mob stayed. Mob didn't think that they minded. They were always complaining about having a lot of extra work to do. This must have been better on them, then, and they must have been happy…right?

She really hoped that they were happy.

"I'm not giving the ending away. I don't know how you've never seen this movie before but I am not spoiling this for you." Said Minegishi as they took a sip of something that they knew that they should not have been drinking around Mob. They needed it, though, even though they knew that they were just slowly poisoning themselves and setting a bad example on top of that. Well they had never set out to be anyone's role model.

Because they knew that they would just end up doing a piss poor job of it.

They were really were doing a piss poor job of being Mob's role model or best friend or surrogate parent or whatever. They had no clue what they were doing. They were just taking this day by day…and on this day Mob was not going to get drunk. Minegishi knew that they had lost control of the situation a long time ago, thanks a lot Ryou, but they did know that they could at least control their own actions and in their own actions they were going to try and set a better example.

Better late than never.

"I've seen this before but when I was really little. I just remember the part with the soot sprites mostly." Said Mob

"That's all you remember? From this whole movie?" asked Minegishi

"Yes. I don't even remember how it ends even though I saw it when I was little. My mom showed me and Sho this movie. She said that she had liked it a lot when she had been little and that she had even seen it in the theatre. We didn't see it in the theatre though, just at home, and I don't remember what happened but I remembered that it was nice…but I do wish that I could remember….and please don't tell my dad that I was talking about my mom." Said Mob. Dad would have been so mad at her if he could hear what she was talking about…and also that she was talking about when they lived in the Castle…but maybe he wouldn't have even cared because he didn't even like her anymore….but he probably would have because even if he didn't like her anymore he was still the boss of her and if he told her never to mention mom again then she was neve to mention mom again…even though she wanted to. She wanted to remember mom and talk about her and…and it wasn't a good thing because dad had told her that she was not allowed to…and also that mom was a traitor…

And also mom had left.

She had just left one day without even saying where she was going or when she would be back or…or anything. She had just left and she was gone and that was it. She didn't love her anymore and…and she still missed mom so much…but also she was sort of mad…and also she was mad at dad, too. He had just kept her close and now…now he was gone. He was gone but also not gone because he still lived with her but now he wanted nothing to do with her and…and it was hard.

She didn't want to feel bad anymore.

She reached for her glass on the table and finished the last of the milk in it. Her glass was short. Minegishi's was tall. Minegishi said that she got a shorter glass and she had to mix hers in with milk because she had to learn moderation. Shimazaki said that moderation was stupid and that going hard all day and all night until your body gave out and you passed out or threw up or you looked around and had no idea where you were or who's clothes you were wearing was fun…even though none of that seemed fun to Mob at all. She didn't tell him that, though, what she had thought of what he had said. Because they were friends and friends had to be nice to each other.

She wanted her friends to like her.

"Have I ever told him?" asked Minegishi

"No." said Mob

"Then I have no reason to start now do I? You know I'm not going to tell your dad about everything that you get up to." Said Minegishi. They pushed Mob's glass towards the middle of the table. They knew that with her telekinesis being what it was nothing was out of her reach but this just made them feel better. Like they hadn't set her down the path to ruin.

"Friends don't tell on friends." Said Mob. She didn't know why she kept on telling Minegishi not to tell dad. She knew that they were friends and she knew that they wouldn't tell on her but…but she still had to ask just to make sure. Because if dad ever found out that she was still talking about mom then he would be so mad at her…madder than he had ever been in his entire life maybe even. Madder than he was now, anyway, since now he was mad about something that Mob didn't even know about and he had been so mean lately….

Well mean without trying to be mean.

Mean without yelling. Mean without pushing. Mean without hitting. Mean without any of the normal things he did when he was being mean…and that was even worse then why he did hit her and yell at her and push her and pull her hair and stuff. Not that he had done that for a while…but she still would have taken him being that kind of mean to her above the kind of mean that he was being now. The kind of mean where he didn't look at her or talk to her or play with her or…or anything. The kind of mean where he acted like he didn't even have a daughter in the first place.

"That's right. Friends don't tell on friends." Said Minegishi as they eyed Mob's mostly empty glass. Suzuki would kill them if he ever found out about this…which was why Mob had been so good about keeping her mouth shut and all of this a secret from her father…though in Minegishi's opinion he was deluding himself if he didn't notice how drunk and/or high his kid had been for the past few years. It was getting worse now but Mob had been at it for a while now and Suzuki was none the wiser. Heh. He thought that he could take over the world. He couldn't even run his own family.

"And they don't tell their friends the endings of movies either?" asked Mob

"Nope. I'm still not going to spoil it." Said Minegishi

"Ok. I hope that it has a happy ending though. I hope that the mom comes back home since she's sick, she didn't run away, and she wants to come back home to her family." Said Mob

"Yeah, I hope it ends like that too." Said Minegishi. She wasn't going to tell Mob that at the end of My Neighbor Totoro the kids die and visit their mother one last time before being ferried to the afterlife on the cat bus…and now that they thought about it maybe this had not been the best movie to show Mob while she was dealing with all the shit that she was dealing. In their defense they hadn't seen this movie since they were about her age. They had only remembered that there was a giant cat in it and that Mob liked cats.

"I like it when things have happy endings. Not like how life goes. That's why I like movies and manga and stuff. It's always a happy ending…or at least it is most of the time. I don't like things with sad endings." Said Mob. She wondered if her life would have a happy ending. She wondered if dad would ever love her again and if they would be best friends but also not the sort of best friends that dad was trying to be with her, before, when he never let her out of his sight and stuff. The sort of best friends who hung out and watched TV and played games and stuff. Not the sort that smothered each other.

But they were father and daughter, not best friends at all, and it was different between them.

She and Minegishi had that sort of best friends friendship that she wished that she could have had with dad…or Sho, too. She wished that she could just relax and hang out and not have to worry about things when she was with dad or Sho. But that wasn't how it worked. When she was with dad then she had to worry about making him happy and making him mad and if he still loved her and if he had stopped loving her and stuff. When she was with Sho she had to worry about taking care of him. She had to worry about if he had done his schoolwork and brushed his teeth and brushed his hair and taken a bath and eaten all of the food groups and if he had gotten enough sleep and all of that. She could never fully relax because she had to take care of him. She had to keep him happy, too, even though she was bad at it. Like the other night when she had tried to sleep next to him and he had gotten mad and thrown her stuff around.

That had been her fault.

She had been the one to wake him up by trying to cuddle with him and she had been the one to sleep in his bed without asking and she had been the one to keep on saying sorry even though he was mad at her. She had been the one at fault there, not him, and she was still so sorry…she was always so sorry. She felt like she had spent her whole life being sorry. She felt like she had to spend every moment of her life being sorry about everything. Sorry that she had mad Sho upset, sorry that she had made mom leave, sorry that she had made dad stop liking her, sorry that she had been born more powerful than Sho, sorry that she had been born with powers that she couldn't control, sorry that she was always full of feelings and that made it hard to control her powers, sorry for the things that she had to do to control her feelings so she could control her powers, sorry for being so….her. She was just sorry.

She was mostly just sorry for being Mob.

She liked hanging out with Minegishi, though, because they never made her feel like she had to feel sorry. Well when she did bad things, of course, like when she walked into their bedroom without knocking and saw them and Shimazaki doing adult stuff that she was not meant to see and also about the times when she had stolen drinks from them and also about how they had made her promise to stop smoking but she still did smoke and also about how they had made her promise not to fun vape that often but she still fun vaped all the time….

At least she knew what she was sorry for when Minegishi made her feel like she had to be sorry for something.

"Life doesn't have happy endings or sad endings. It just has endings." Said Minegishi. They knew better than most people how abruptly life could end. Stories could just end in the middle of a chapter. Not everyone's life ended in a neat little three act structure. Sometimes people crossed the wrong person and then they died. Sometimes people got in over their heads with a bunch of crazies and then got themselves killed for it. Sometimes people got in over their heads trying to plot against people that they didn't have to plot against and got themselves killed. Sometimes people crossed the wrong person, banked on them being big and that person being little, but then got themselves killed when enough time passed that the person who had been little grew up to be big enough to end their lives.

Really life just sort of ended.

They wondered how their life would end. They had never imagined themselves living this long, honestly, all the way to twenty seven. They had always thought that they would die young, hadn't even imagined what their adult life would be like, and now they were living this adult life and it was…something. This was their life. Sitting with the most powerful ten year old in the world trying to both cheer her up and also make her life just a little bit brighter. They wondered how her life was going to end, Mob's, what her life would be like and what it's conclusion would be.

Hers was easier to predict.

She'd grow up in a cult, drink the Kool-Aid, and end up spending her life chasing her distant father's approval. He would bounce her up and down like a yo-yo and it would mess her up really bad. She'd have trouble functioning without her father and that was what he was banking on. Either he'd keep her by his side forever and turn her into a surrogate for his missing, possibly dead, wife like he had tried out for the past few weeks or he would keep her at arm's length for the rest of her life. She would end up marrying some guy who was just like her father, she already had daddy issues at ten and they would only get worse, and then she'd have some kids she had no clue how to raise and the cycle would continue unbroken. Also there would be substance abuse issues. Substantive substance abuse issues.

So, hey, why not make what was left of her childhood as pleasant as possible?

They didn't know. They just didn't know. They felt like they had been arguing about this with themselves or a hundred years now. Make Mob happy now or make sure that she has the best possible adult life later? They just did not know. They did know, however, that if sitting here watching a movie with Mob was something that she wanted, something that made her happy, then they would do it. They wouldn't be making her another white Russian minus the coffee liqueur. No, one was enough for her. They had to think about her, about what was best for her, and that meant teaching her moderation like they had wished that someone would have taught them when they had been little. Also that meant not telling Mob how My Neighbor Totoro ended.

She could figure it out for herself.

"That was nice. They went to see their mom in the hospital. That was really nice." Said Mob. She reached for her glass but it was empty. Minegishi wasn't going to refill it. They had said that one was enough. She sort of wished that she had been hanging out with Shimazaki. He never said that one was enough…but then again when they watched movies with him they had to turn the narration on and that could be really annoying. Well what was most annoying were the movies without any narration and then they had to do the narration, usually her but sometimes Minegishi if they were in the mood to do extra work, but that was a mean thing to think because she should have been happy to help her friend out whenever she could.

"Right. That's how it ended." Said Minegishi. They were not going to bring up the fact that Totoro was most likely a spirit of death and that the girls had both died in the end. No, that would just end up depressing Mob and she was a pretty depressed kid as it was. They could see where her eyes were going. She wanted to do something about that depression.

"Minegishi, I know that you said that I could only have one-" said Mob

"If you know that I said that I would only let you have one then why are you about to ask me to make you another one?" asked Minegishi with a sigh. They reminded themselves that Mob was ten and that she would act like a ten year old. They also reminded themselves that they had no one to blame but themselves for this. Well they could blame Ryou until their face turned blue but he would never in this lifetime take responsibility for his actions.

"Because maybe you changed your mind…and also I'm thirsty." Said Mob. That wasn't a lie, she really was thirsty, so why not just keep on drinking? She needed to stay hydrated to live after all. There. Now she had a very good reason for wanting to keep on drinking and maybe Minegishi would think that it was a good reason too. Then maybe they could lessen the rules just a little and then Mob could have one more. Only one, though, because she knew that there wouldn't be a third one coming to her. This was Minegishi, not Shimazaki, and even though they were friends who were close enough to kiss and do other stuff together, gross stuff, they were very different when it came to stuff like this.

"If you're thirsty then go in the fridge and pour yourself a glass of plain milk." Said Minegishi. Nope. Not giving in. No matter how much emotion Mob poured into those little eyes Minegishi would not be swayed.

"But also I'm sad." Said Mob. That was also the truth. She was sad and thirsty and she felt better when she drank. So why not keep drinking until she didn't feel sad at all anymore? What was so bad about having just one more? She would stop after one more, she promised herself, and then it would be ok and she could prove to Minegishi that they had nothing at all to worry about.

"Mob…I know. I know that you're sad and I'm sorry that you're sad but I am not going to get you drunk just because you're sad. Ok? It's bad for your brain and your liver and your kidneys and just…it's bad for you. Ok? It's bad for you and I don't want to be a hypocrite but I don't want to ruin your life either so just…is there something else that you want to do right now? Something else that would make you happy?" asked Minegishi

"Something else?" asked Mob

"Not getting high. You can drink or you can smoke but you can't do both in the same day. New rule." Said Minegishi. There. That was a good rule. No mixing substances. She was too young to mix substances. She couldn't overdose on weed but she could give herself alcohol poisoning…and also she could end up mixing the things that she would inevitably get into as she got older…and that would not be good for anyone.

"When we're together or in life?" asked Mob. Shimazaki said that mixing things together was more fun, especially drinking and smoking, because when you started to feel sick from the drinking then you could do some smoking and then you would feel better.

"In life…and I can't believe that I'm even saying this…" said Minegishi. They had come to the point in their life when they had to teach a ten year old not to mix substances….whatever. Their life could have gone a hell of a lot worse. They reminded themselves that their life could have gone a hell of a lot worse.

"Ok." Said Mob. She tried not to seem disappointed. Shimazaki was right. Drinking too much did make you sick but then when you smoked the sick feeling went away. Well Mob had no reason to smoke now because she didn't feel sick so she decided not to make a big deal out of this. She was hanging out with Minegishi and she wanted Minegishi to keep on liking her, they were her very best friend after all, and if this thing with dad had taught her anything it was that people could change their minds about liking you really fast.

"So is there something else, something that does not involve drinking or smoking, that would make you feel better?" asked Minegishi

"Something that would make me feel better…." Asked Mob. Her dad loving her again. Sho being happy. It being Sho's birthday so they could be the same age again. Baby Mukai being there with her. Mom being there with her. Her being able to go and see mom again. A spirit taking her away to go and see mom, it was important that it was a spirit because that way dad wouldn't know that she had gone to see mom. Not like if she had taken a car or something. The spirit could be like a car spirit…or a bus spirit…and it could take her to go see mom…like in the movie that she had just seen…

"I want to ride inside of a cat bus spirit." Said Mob

"….something that I can give you, Mob, something that I can give you…and this is why you shouldn't drink." Said Minegishi

"Oh. Um….in that case…I just want to spend time with you. I don't care what we're doing do long as we can be together. I like being around you. You're always so nice to me and I'm always so happy when I'm around you." Said Mob

"Thanks…" said Minegishi

"So whatever you want to do is ok with me, Minegishi." Said Mob

"Mob…come on. I'm going to show you something." Said Minegishi. They got up from the couch, finished their drink, and motioned for Mob to follow. They walked through the house and out the back door. Mob followed but didn't ask questions. She didn't have the time to even think of any questions, probably, because the walk to the back garden was very short.

"You want to do some gardening?" asked Mob

"No, I want us both to do some gardening." Said Minegishi. They had taught Mob some of their worst coping mechanisms…so maybe it was time to show her one of their best…or at least healthiest. Even if they didn't want to take a stroll down this side of memory lane.

"Ok. That sounds fun. We've never gardened together. You showed me how to use my plant control powers when I was little but we've never actually sat down and gardened before…also why do you garden if you have plant control powers?" asked Mob

"This is why." Said Minegishi. They coaxed a seed out of the ground. It was November, the ground was cold and hard, but with a little push from their powers they could make it work. The keyword being 'little'. A big push, like the one that they were doing, could lead to a mistake. Like the vegetable that they had forced out of the ground and into their hand.

"Oh. We're making tomatoes?" asked Mob as she was handed and unusually heavy tomato with a weird feeling skin. She ran her fingers over it but didn't say how weird it felt. That would not have been nice at all.

"Bite into it." Said Minegishi. Sometimes a practical demonstration was the best kind. They were supposed to be teaching Mob how to use her powers after all and this was a good skill to have in case Suzuki ever stopped feeding her. Not that he seemed like the type but then again nobody ever seemed like the type. If there was an easily identifiable type then there wouldn't be so many parents purposely starving their kids for whatever reasons their sick minds came up with.

"But it hasn't been washed. You're always supposed to wash fruits and vegetables before you eat them. My mom said so…but please don't tell my dad that I was talking about my mom." Said Mob. She remembered how mom would always wash the produce after it had been delivered. She'd let her and Sho help, too, and it had always been a fun time…helping mom and stuff….but now that time was over. Mob was ten, not five and that part of her life was long over. There was no cat bus coming to take her to see mom. Mom was gone. She had left. She had run away because she did not want to be found. She hadn't even left a note. How hard would it have been to have left a note? Just a note telling her family why she had left. Just a note telling Mob why she had stopped loving her? Why didn't she just say something? Why didn't dad? Why didn't either of her parents think to just say something? Things would never get Mob, Mob couldn't get better, unless she knew what she had to fix!

"I won't tell him anything now bite the damned tomato." Said Minegishi. That came out a little more harshly than they had meant. They kicked themselves even though they knew that Mob couldn't read tones to save her life.

"Ok." Said Mob. She bit into the tomato and…and almost spat it out. It was…hard. Hard and starchy and just…not good. She didn't spit it out though, that would have been rude to her friend. Instead she chewed and swallowed because even though she was the more powerful esper it was still very important to be polite. Dad had said so.

"Mob, don't take another bite. That was nasty as hell and we both know it. I'm surprised you managed to even swallow." Said Minegishi

"It was….a food." Said Mob. She didn't want to be mean but she didn't want to tell lies, either. So she told the truth. That was a food. She had chewed and swallowed it and now it was sitting heavy in her stomach. That was a food which she had just eaten.

"It was a mistake. I planted tomatoes and potatoes next to each other and then I forced them to grow too fast and they fused into that abomination. That's why I garden. I have power over plant life but that doesn't mean that things don't go wrong. It's one thing to use plants for fighting and kil-more fighting. It's another to actually make something useful grow." Said Minegishi

"So you garden because you want good vegetables?" asked Mob

"That and….I think that you're old enough to hear this." said Minegishi. Honestly they thought that Mob was still too young to hear it but she regularly drank and got high, too, as a ten year old so really Minegishi didn't have a leg to stand on. They didn't want to talk about this but…well they also did. They had been promising Mob answers to so many questions for so long and also, maybe, they didn't want Mob to feel so alone and other such clichés. Maybe it would be good for Mob to know that she wasn't alone in the terrible childhood club.

"Old enough to hear what?" asked Mob. She scooted closer. She was sitting on her knees and she didn't care if they were getting cold and dirty from the ground. Minegishi was finally going to tell her something from her 'questions not to be answered until she was ten' list. Mob knew how rare this was. She decided to listen as closely as she could. She wanted to record this on her phone, too, but that might have been rude and she didn't want to run the risk that Minegishi would stop sharing.

"Mob when I was a kid….things weren't very nice. My parents weren't the best people. I had powers and they…they didn't. They didn't even know what powers were. From a young age I could talk to plants…well anyone can talk to plants but when I talked to them they listened and talked back. Not with words but with…I guess feelings would be the best way to put it. They talked back and my parents…thought that I was crazy. So they did some very bad things to me and…and it was hard growing up. They didn't treat me well. You can have specifics when you're old enough to understand them but just know that my mom and dad did not treat me well. I spent a lot of time in the back garden once the rest of my powers came in. I spent a lot of time learning how to grow food and just…being somewhere safe. So that's why I garden. Food and safety." Said Minegishi. They didn't look at Mob. They couldn't look at Mob. They couldn't look over and see the look in her little eyes and…and they just wanted to be alone.

They always wanted to be alone when they told someone.

They hadn't even told her anything. Nothing. Not even the surface of it. The only person who they had ever told the full story to had been Ryou and the next morning they had jumped on the first assignment they could get their hands on and spent a month tracking down and killing a rival esper group hiding in central Russian. They would have been there for longer but they had been very efficient. They had to be. That was the only way that they could be alone.

They weren't going to leave now.

They felt Mob's arms around them. They felt her aura around them. They were not the sort of friends who hugged but this…this was ok enough. Nice enough. Or more than enough. She was a nice kid, Mob, and it was a shame how her life would probably end up going.

But Minegishi could at least make what was left of her childhood decent.

"I'm sorry that happened to you, Minegishi, and also thank you for telling me that…and I won't tell anyone else. I feel like it's a secret. Friends don't tell on friends." Said Mob. She hugged Minegishi and then they hugged her back. They didn't say anything else about how they had mean parents too and how they felt bad a lot of the time too. They just showed Mob how use her powers to winter garden.

They worked together to make the garden grow. It was a nice time. Mob always loved spending time with her very best friend.