Mob didn't know anything about knitting.

The whole thing looked complicated. Very complicated. The way the needles clicked together. The way the balls of yarn came together to make something that looked sort of like a sweater. Well it was a sweater. It was Sho's sweater. Shibata was making Sho a sweater for his birthday. A green one because Sho wore a lot of green and also there was what was supposed to be a hamster on the front because Sho loved hamsters. He really did, he had been asking for one for years, but he wasn't going to get one. For almost his whole life he had been asking for a hamster for his birthday or Christmas. Mob didn't know why he kept on asking for a pet when he knew full well that he would not be getting one.

But he could still hope.

And Mob could still hope too. Even though she knew that dad hated animals. He had never once let them have a pet even though they had been asking for years and years. Even back when they had lived with their mom in the Castle they had been asking for a pet, Sho wanted a hamster and she wanted a cat, dad had still said no even though mom agreed and also wanted a pet. Maybe dad would have listened to Mob, she was pretty much mom now dad had said, back when he still liked her then Sho could have had a pet. But he wasn't getting a pet this year for Christmas or his birthday and he wasn't even allowed to get one with his New Year's money either because dad hated animals.

Dad hated a lot of things.

Mob didn't know if dad totally hated her or if he just disliked her. He had just stopped hanging out with her one day and now he didn't even talk to her. He didn't look at her or talk to her or bring her to work with him or any of that other stuff. They hadn't even played Minecraft together. He was still playing, his stuff was on her side of the map now, but as soon as she logged in then he logged out. He was avoiding her and he just wouldn't tell her why. She liked it when he told her what she had done wrong even if it was just to insult her and yell at her and hit her and push her and pull her hair. At least that way she knew what she had done wrong and then she could fix it in the future. But that wasn't going to happen again.

She had no idea what she had done wrong.

"You're doing a great job, Your Little Ladyship, keep it up." Said Shibata. She was very good at holding the yarn, her Little Ladyship, she held it straight and didn't try to tangle it up like a spider's web or kick it around like a soccer ball…not that he had a problem with the way Little Suzuki held the yarn. No way! He was a very good yarn holder! He just…wasn't the sort of yarn holder that Shibata needed right now. Not while he was working on his birthday present, anyway.

He was going to love this sweater so much!

It was green. Little Suzuki wore a lot of green, Shibata figured that it was his favorite color, and also there was a hamster on the front and hamsters were Little Suzuki's favorite animal. It was nice and big, too, so he would have room to grow. The sleeves were extra-long, too, so as better to hide the scars on his hands. The poor little guy was so self-conscious about them that he even wore long sleeves in the height of summer. Shibata had been worried about him, actually, since little people were prone to overheating. This sweater wasn't for the height of summer though, no, this was there to get him through the depths of winter. His birthday was on December first after all. So soon. Shibata hoped that he had enough time to finish this.

And that it turned out better than his last attempts.

"But I'm not doing anything." Said Mob. She was just sitting there on the couch holding yarn and watching Frozen. That was all. How could somebody do a good job of that?

"Sure you are. You're holding the yarn and that's an important part of the knitting process." Said Shibata as he continued to knit Little Suzuki's birthday present.

"I guess…." Said Mob. She didn't really see how she was doing anything by just sitting there and holding the yarn, he was the one doing all of the work, she was just waiting for him to finish this so she could try it on for size. Then she and Minegishi were going outside to do more wintertime gardening even though it was cold and dark out. They had been right. Mob did feel safe when she gardened, though she got the feeling that it had nothing at all to do with gardening. She got the feeling that she felt safe because of who she was with, not what she was doing.

She always felt better over here.

She didn't exactly feel unsafe when she was at home with dad and Sho but she did feel just…not good. Dad was ignoring her and Sho was almost always with Fukuda so, really, it was just her and dad and dad didn't like her anymore so it just felt like she was all alone…and that was the worst feeling ever. Well one of the worst feelings ever. The worst feeling ever was a tie between realizing that your mom was never coming back and having your pretend baby sister taken away from you….and also when your dad held you up in the air by your braids. That hurt too….so maybe it was in it's own category because that was more head pain and not heart pain…or maybe pain was pain.

Mob didn't know.

What she did know was that she felt a lot better when she was with her friends. There was always someone around who wanted to spend time with her or show her something or do something with her and it was all just so nice. Everyone was so nice here, too, nobody ever said mean things to her or ignored her or made her go away. She loved her friends so much. She wished that she could have lived with her friends but that was not a good wish to make because living with her friends would have meant leaving her family behind and she had promised dad that she would never leave. Also someone had to be home to take care of Sho. She hoped that Fukuda remembered to feed him and also to make him take a bath and brush his hair before and after he got up or his head would be one big tangle later.

She hoped that Sho was ok.

She knew that she should have been watching him, that it was her job to take care of him, and that she was the only one who could make sure that he was ok. Fukuda was a nice person to Sho but he wasn't the person who dad had put in charge of him. Mob was. She knew that she should have gone with Sho but she just…she didn't want to. Fukuda was too different from how he used to be. Not like how her friends were to her now. Fukuda was just….not mean but…but not nice, either. Polite. Too polite. Polite and also distant. She didn't like that and she didn't want to hang out with him.

She couldn't bring Sho here either.

Shibata was working on his birthday present. Sho couldn't be here while his birthday present was being worked on because then he would know what he was getting and the surprise would be ruined and it would all be the worst because what were birthdays without surprises? She wouldn't let that happen. Birthdays were important, especially tenth birthdays, because when you turned ten then you were double digits and stuff.

Which was important.

Mob's whole life had changed when she had turned ten. She got to be in charge of Claw and she got to take care of her pretend baby sister and she learned how to smoke cigarettes and also she had quit smoking cigarettes and then she had started fun smoking and then she had been dad's sort of best friend and now he didn't like her…and other stuff….like…like knitting. Yes, and now she was learning to knit. That was what had happened in her first half year of being ten. She wondered what would happen next.

Maybe she would get a turn with the knitting sticks next.

She didn't want to learn to knit, not really, but she didn't think that she could deal with any more excitement. She mostly just wanted to rest and smoke and just…get rid of all the bad feelings that had started to grow inside of her. She was empty and achy and she didn't know how to make it go away. Well she knew how to make it go away for a little bit but not forever. It was like how Elsa froze Anna's heart with a blast of magic. It felt like she was getting all cold and achy from inside of her and she just….didn't know how to make it stop.

An act of true love could thaw a frozen heart.

But that was just in the movie. This was real life. There was no such thing as true love, Minegishi said, not even in families. Love had to be something that you earned. Love was something that you earned and love was something that you worked to hold on to. If someone was being mean to you or not taking good care of the love that they were given then they didn't deserve your love in the first place. That was how Minegishi saw it. Mob knew that true love, the boyfriend and girlfriend kind, wasn't real because you could only fall in love with someone after knowing things about them and even then you could still fall out of love. Like mom and dad had. Mom had seen dad at the train station and then decided that she loved him so they got married and made her and Sho together but then mom fell out of love with dad and left. If that had been true love then she never would have left in the first place.

So boyfriend and girlfriend true love was probably not real.

But there were other kinds of true love, too, like the kind that Elsa and Anna had. Shimazaki thought that they were girlfriends the first time he had heard the movie. That was Nob's fault for not turning the narration on. They were sisters and they had sibling love and sibling love was the real and true kind of love. No matter how mean Sho was to her, he had been pretty nice to her lately though, she would never stop loving him. The same went for him. No matter how much she had to boss him around he would never stop loving her. That was sibling love and sibling love was the real and true kind of love.

But that was not how parent and kid love went.

Mom didn't love her anymore and that was why she had left. Dad didn't love her anymore either and that was why he never, ever, wanted to hang out anymore. That was just the way it had worked out. Mob knew that there was just something about her that made her very difficult for her parents to love. Maybe it was how she couldn't always control her powers and also how she had wished, when she had been getting all of the love that dad could give, that she could have been free of him because he had been making her feel like she couldn't breathe. Maybe that was what was wrong with her. She could never be what her parents wanted her to be. She could only be herself. She could only be Mob.

And also Her Little Ladyship, which was what Shibata called her all the time, even though she was neither little nor a Ladyship.

"Hey, Little Ladyship, which one do you want to watch now?" asked Shibata as her movie went to credits. That had been so beautiful. They loved each other so much and there was so much self-acceptance…he could have cried if he hadn't been in the middle of a very complicated stitch. Were the arms even? Well he could always just lengthen the other one.

"We can watch what you want to now." Said Mob. She wanted to watch Frozen again from the beginning but this was not her TV…well it was Claw's TV and she was a high ranking member of Claw…and her dad was the President….but she wasn't going to be a TV hog. She tended to do that. Sho had told her a million times that she was a TV hog.

"No, you pick. You're the guest." Said Shibata

"No I'm not." Said Mob

"Yes you are. You don't live here so you're the guest and the guest gets to choose." Said Shibata

"But everything that's dads is mine and everything in Claw is dad's….so technically this is my TV…and I don't want to be a TV hog. Besides, what I really want to do is to watch Frozen again but I know that you would probably be bored by it because you're a boy and boys don't like Frozen." Said Mob

"….I would love to watch that movie again." said Shibata. Wow! Could this kid read minds? He wouldn't have been surprised at all if she could. That was exactly what he had been thinking! Well either this or more cooking shows. He was learning so much and the guys loved his chocolate cake, the one he had made last time, they hadn't even been able to taste the tomato paste….though with the way Shimazaki freaked out maybe he shouldn't have said anything…though he did wonder where that cake had gone to by the next morning….

"Really? Or are you just being nice?" asked Mob. Sometimes people just said things to be nice…even if the things that they said weren't true. Mob didn't like that, saying things that weren't true, so she just always told the truth but the nicest version of it. Other people weren't like that even though it was a lot meaner to tell a lie than it was to speak the truth even if that truth was kind of mean.

"No, I really like that movie. Especially the part where the other princess' heart unfreezes." Said Shibata. He could see why she was always dressed up like the main princess. That movie was one of the best examples of foreign animation that he had ever seen. He wondered what other good movies she knew. How had they not hung out one on one like this before? He could see why Minegishi was always hanging out with her. She was a great kid. He hoped that if he ever had a kid, not that it seemed likely since he had zero chance of meeting a woman while he was following Suzuki around, his kid was exactly like Her Little Ladyship…and her brother of course. Both of them.

"I like that part too….do you like the part where Anna gets up and her hair is all crazy? Because I like that part a lot. It's funny. It reminds me of Sho's hair when he gets up only his hair isn't as long." Said Mob

"I love that part too. It reminds me of Shimazaki first thing in the morning." Said Shibata

"Shimazaki's hair can be messy? I've never seen it not all…nice." Said Mob

"Oh yeah, and he spends forever combing it too. I don't know how he does it not being able to, you know, see and all…or why he has to tie up the bathroom all morning if he doesn't need the mirror." Said Shibata

"I always thought he did it by feel. That's how I brush my hair a lot of the time. That's how I braid it too." Said Mob

"You do that by feel? Those braids look complicated as hell….sorry." said Shibata

"I don't know what you're sorry about but, no they aren't complicated at all. I just take my hair and then divide it into halves and then those halves get divided into thirds and then I just braid them together. Here, I'll show you." Said Mob. She undid her braids with her powers and then braided her hair again slowly by hand the way that mom had shown her all those years ago. She separated her hair into the two halves and then the three pieces to each half. She didn't do anything to the two pieces of hair that were just longer parts of her bangs. Those didn't get braided, mom had said, because they were supposed to frame her face and make her look cute. She didn't know if she looked cute or not but they did sometimes get all in her face and eyes, like when she was running or playing and stuff, but this was how her hair was supposed to be. This was how her hair had been for her whole life and that was how her hair was going to be for her whole life. This was how she was going to be for her whole life.

"That still looks pretty complicated." Said Shibata. He would have rubbed his eyes in disbelief if he hadn't been holding his knitting. THAT was how she did that? He was glad that his hair kept it's shape no matter what. Hair was pretty damn complicated. He was never complaining about how long Shimazaki tied up the bathroom for in the mornings ever…but he did reserve the right to complain about Minegsihi's multi hour long baths.

"No, not really. No more complicated than what you're doing. I don't think that I could ever do something like that. I've been watching you all night and I still have no idea how you do it." Said Mob

"It's not easy but it's not hard either. It gets easier the more you do it. See? You just sort of…loop the yarn around the sticks and then just…do that." Said Shibata as he did another stitch. She watched him in fascination. He had missed that, kids watching him in fascination, though it was his own fault that he lost the tiny train conductor job. He maybe should have asked the kids before he picked them up and hugged them…but he knew better now.

"That still looks really hard." Said Mob. If she hadn't been holding the yarn she would have rubbed her eyes in disbelief. It was amazing how two metal sticks could make the yarn just…go together like that. How did he do that? And how did people even invent that? How did people look at yarn and look at sticks and then just decide on a very complicated motion to put it all together? She would never in her whole life be able to do something like that. Never, ever.

"It's not. Here, you try. It's not that bad when you get used to it." Said Shibata. He handed her the knitting needles. It didn't matter if she messed it up, he could just fix it later. It may have been a very important present for her little brother, Little Suzuki was an awesome kid, but at the end of the day it was still just nothing more than a collection of yarn that he had stitched together. That was all. Even if she undid all of his very long and tedious work it would be worth it to see her smile. She had been so down, lately, and a little person like her should never, ever, have been so unhappy.

A little person like her should not have been drinking or smoking either but he wasn't going to tell her not to do what made her happy.

She had been so down lately because her dad had become cold and distant to her…and also almost impossible to be around too but Shibata didn't care about that. He cared about those poor little people. Her Little Ladyship had been so close to her dad and now he had just tossed her out like last week's fish…but maybe that was a good thing because he had been getting a little too close for comfort…not that Shibata was going to start throwing accusations around. He knew how hurtful it was to get those kinds of accusations. Still, though, if the kid was clearly unhappy then you put the kid down. Otherwise you got fired from your job as the tiny train conductor at Wee World….or from being the President of a world domination cult. Not that anyone could fire President Suzuki…

Though he did need a firm talking to about how to treat little people.

He wished that he could have done more for her, she was so clearly sad and just…not weepy sad but more like depressed sad…and she was too little to feel that way. She had her whole life to be depressed because the world was a very depressing place. People hurt people, even the people they loved, and they didn't even realize it a lot of the time. People judged you and decided that they didn't like you without even getting to know you. People were just the worst sometimes and the world could be so depressing…but that was ok. The world would be remade into something better one of these days and maybe people might end up being a little bit better to each other.

Well not with Suzuki ruling it.

But he was getting old. He was constantly rolling his shoulders and rubbing his lower back. He was forty something by now and soon he'd be old and then he'd leave the world to one of his kids. They were both such good candidates. Little Suzuki was so spirited and fun but her Little Ladyship was the sweetest little girl in the whole world….things would be so great once one of them came to rule the world. It would probably be Her Little Ladyship because she was the older Suzuki child.

It would be so great but that time was far away. He had to focus on making her feel better right now.

"Did I do it right?" asked Mob as she did what he did. She got the feeling that she had done it wrong. She had probably messed up and now he wouldn't like her anymore and he wouldn't want to be her friend and stuff like that and she probably should have just quit and she was messing up Sho's present and she would ruin his birthday just like she ruined everything and-

"You're doing a great job! Keep it up!" said Shibata even though she wasn't. But, hey, it was just yarn. She wasn't doing anything that he couldn't fix later. Besides, he had fixed that frown on her face and that was a win in his book.

"…ok…" said Mob. She didn't think that she was doing that good of a job but if he said so then…then that was ok. This was ok. She was ok. Maybe she was doing something right for once. Maybe she was being a good person for once. Maybe he wanted to be her friend and he wouldn't just suddenly stop liking her…maybe she was even good at this….

Mob didn't know anything about knitting but she did know that she was having a very good time.