Mob didn't want to switch beds. She just wanted to be next to someone.
She didn't know why Sho kept on going to her bed in the middle of the night. When you wanted to sleep next to someone you just slept next to them. Well only family, of course, not strangers or anyone like that. She didn't even know why someone would want to sleep next to a stranger or anything like that. Mob certainly didn't. She wanted to sleep next to her little brother so that was what she did, she slept next to her little brother.
Well she tried to.
Sho woke up and went over to her bed while she was sleeping. She didn't understand why he kept on getting up and sleeping in her bed instead of his. It wasn't like she was getting up and carrying him to her bed to sleep next to her. Dad had done that to her and she hadn't liked it that much. Waking up in a place that she hadn't gone to sleep in. That was why she hadn't just picked Sho up with her powers and carried him over to her bed like she had thought of.
She had wanted to sleep near her little brother.
She loved him and he was her brother and she just wanted to be near him but he kept on trying to get away from her and she didn't know why. What had she done to him? She had been sleeping in summer pajamas so she didn't warm him up too much and she had been sleeping without covers too. But that didn't help. She had also been sleeping at the very edge of the bed, so close that she almost feel off, so that way he would have had enough room to sleep comfortably. He didn't have a reason to get up but he did. She didn't know what she was supposed to do.
She wasn't trying to smother him.
She wasn't trying to be like dad. Dad had smothered her with his love. She had been smothered in his love and she should have loved it and…and she had loved it, for a little bit, but then dad…dad had just kept on giving her love. So much love that she had too much of it but she couldn't get away from it because suddenly he was EVERYWHERE and she had no way of getting out and then the love that she had felt coming from him got to be too much and she just hadn't been able to breathe and…
And then it had all been gone.
It had felt, then, like trying to sleep in her summer nightshirt with no blanket while the cold November wind whipped past the house. Dad was gone and he just…he wasn't coming back. He only took Sho to work with him, locked his door at night to keep her out, and even logged off of Minecraft whenever she logged on. He had built so many Claw bases on her side of the map…and she knew that he had only done that because he didn't want her back…and then she was alone. This must have been how Sho felt. Sho was always all alone because he was the kid that dad liked less. He had never known how smothering dad's love could be…and how cold you could feel when dad's love was taken away.
She just wanted to be near him.
But now he was on the other side of the room. He was laying down in her bed. He had taken her dolls out of the bed, taken them off nicely and not thrown them, and now he was laying there on her Frozen pillows and under her Frozen blankets and on top of her Frozen sheets even though he didn't much like Frozen. He liked more exciting movies, movies that were about something other than feelings he had said, and it would have made more sense for him to sleep in his Zootopia bed. That movie was his favorite. There was a mystery and also animals and even though Nick and Judy were in love but didn't know it yet Sho still loved this movie. So he should have been in his bed too. But he wasn't in his bed. He was in her bed. He was awake in bed, her bed, and he was looking at her.
She rolled over.
Now she was looking at him. They were looking at each other from opposite sides of the room. They had always slept on the same sides of the room ever since they had lived in this Castle. This felt wrong, backwards and wrong, and Mob…she wanted to be with Sho so badly. Her bed, his bed, she just wanted to be with him. She needed to be with someone. She wished that she could have slept next to Minegishi but they said that she wasn't ever supposed to come over when their aura got all tangled up with Shimazaki's and it had been all tangled up before so Mob wasn't going to go there in the middle of the night. She knew that she would end up seeing something that she should not have seen if she went over there. She could have slept next to Shibata but he slept on the couch, he couldn't sleep without a TV going, and also she got the feeling that he would roll over and crush her in her sleep. That was why they hadn't ever put baby Mukai in the bed with them, lots of babies died liked that, and Mob was about the same size compared to Shibata as baby Mukai was to her.
She just wanted to sleep next to someone else.
"Big sis….Shigeko….can we talk about stuff?" whispered Sho. He knew that they needed to talk. He knew that if they didn't talk about this then he would just keep on getting madder and madder at her. The thoughts would keep on coming and coming and coming. She was someone who didn't get things, she was super clueless all the time, so of course she didn't get that she had said something bad when she said that dad was treating her like he had been treating Sho for his whole life.
He had even made sure that she didn't know the whole of it.
He hadn't told her for the same reason that Sho had never told mom how bad things were. He had hidden the stuff that he could hide or he told her that he had hurt himself playing or that he couldn't even remember how he had gotten hurt. He was not a baby. He could take getting hurt. He was not a baby and he didn't need his mom or his big sister to know what had happened. Maybe he should have told her…then if he told her she wouldn't go around saying stuff like…like dad was treating her the way that he had treated him….
But he didn't want to have to tell her.
She lived in the same house that he did and she lived with the same dad that he did. She knew how mean dad could be. This wasn't the Castle. This wasn't room after room after room. They lived close together and even big sis couldn't have been so clueless as to not have noticed how dad was to him…and maybe she was. He didn't know which was worse. Dad was so…so mean to him and if big sis hadn't noticed then…he wanted to walk over there and drag her out of bed by her hair and kick her in the side until she coughed up blood….
He brought his hand to his mouth and bit as hard as he could.
"Ok…but don't chew on yourself like that. You could get hurt." Said Mob. Sho was talking to her again. She didn't care that they were in switched out beds or that it was the middle of the night or that she was freezing or that his bed had crumbs in it. She just wanted Sho to talk to her and be with her and just…they used to be best friends…but now they weren't….and she wished that they could have gone back to the way that things had been between them before. She wanted…she wanted things to be ok…but she had no idea what she had even done to make them not ok.
"It's my skin and I'll do whatever I want with it. If I bite too hard then Fukuda can fix it." Said Sho. He wasn't going to tell her that he had to do this because he had just had the worst thought that a person could have about another. He wasn't going to be dad. He wasn't going to make someone, his future son, with between the spaces between his fingers while Sho beat someone up so badly that they bled….
Sho should not have been having those thoughts in the first place. He wished that he could have been better. Just…better.
"But I don't want you to get hurt at all. I love you." Said Mob
"Now you care if I get hurt or not?" asked Sho. Now she cared? What about all of the times when dad had been hitting him? Punishing him? Making him feel like…like he was nothing more than the gum that dad had found on the bottom of his shoes.
"I never stopped caring if you got hurt or not. I'm always worried about you getting hurt. I'm always worried about you. I love you." Said Mob
"Do you have to say that all the time?" asked Sho. He wished that she would just…stop saying that she loved him. The more that she said that she loved him the guiltier he felt. He should not have been having thoughts, jerk thoughts, mean thoughts, about his own big sis who had done nothing at all to make him feel like this…nothing but act like he knew what it was like when dad didn't like you…but he still shouldn't have been mean to her…but she should not have been saying that…
"Say what?" asked Mob
"That you love me." Said Sho
"Yes…I mean…don't you want to hear it?" asked Mob. Oh no. Was she acting like dad? Was she smothering him? She didn't want to smother him. She didn't want to make him feel anything other than happy. She just wanted him to feel good and safe and warm when he was with her…but maybe that was how dad wanted her to feel when she was with him…and then she had wished all of that love away….and now she got none of it. Well she was not going to take her love away from Sho. She was going to…to break it in half, maybe, but not take it all the way…away. It was going to be like when he couldn't finish his giant churro and she had to help him even though she didn't have enough room in her stomach for more food but she helped him anyway because she loved him.
She loved him but not in the way that dad loved her.
"I…I don't know. I know that you love me but when you say it I just…feel guilty." Said Sho
"But not smothered?" asked Mob. No, no, no. She felt the pendant dangling from her bracelet. She needed to…to calm down. She held onto her pendant and thought about how…how she could calm down…because she was ok. She knew that she had done something wrong and now she could stop herself…because she…she could do that. Minegishi was always telling her that she was a good person and that she was capable and stuff. Minegishi believed in her. If Minegishi believed in her, they were the smartest and nicest person she knew, then maybe Mob could believe in herself.
"No, just guilty." Said Sho. He knew what it felt to be smothered. He knew what it felt like where you just couldn't breathe and…and dad had and had not done that to him. It had happened in the lab and…and she wouldn't have known about that…and he was thinking about it and…and he didn't even know what was wrong with him that he was thinking about that. He was thinking about stuff that happened two years ago. It was over and done with. He was just being weird and stupid and stuff…and that was why he couldn't breathe.
And his shirt was tight.
So he took it off. He took off his shirt and threw it across the room. He was a boy and he didn't have boobs so he could do that. Even if he had scars all one his chest and stomach he could do that. Big sis had been seeing his scars for years. She was used to them. She was looking at him but she was used to his scars…and now he wanted to put his shirt back on…but also he knew that if he put his shirt back on then he wouldn't be able to breathe again…
"Why did you take off your shirt?" asked Mob
"Because I felt like it. I'm a boy, I can take off my shirt whenever I want. It's not like I have boobs for people to look at." Said Sho.
"You're right, boys are lucky like that. I can turn the heat in this room off if you're too hot." Said Mob. She knew that she wasn't supposed to look at his scars but she couldn't help it. There was a lot of light in their room. The blonds were opened and the light from the outside was coming in. She could see the scars on his chest and his stomach…and she wished that there was something that she could do about them. She wished that she could have fixed them…and fixed their relationship…and just fixed everything that had gone wrong throughout their entire life.
"I'm not hot." Said Sho
"Ok…but if you were hot then I would turn the heat off…and if you felt smothered then I would stop smothering you." Said Mob
"I told you that you weren't making me feel smothered! I told you that you were making me feel guilty!" said Sho. He had stopped whispering, now, and he didn't care. Even if the sound of his voice carried through the house and even if dad woke up and dragged him out of bed for being loud Sho wouldn't have cared one bit. Why did she keep on saying that she was smothering him? Why was she making him think about that? About being smothered?
"That's better…well not better….but I don't want to smother you. I don't want to be like that. Like dad." Said Mob
"….dad's never smothered me. He hits me and shoves me and throws me but he's never smothered me…" said Sho. He didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to talk about the stuff that dad did to him. The way that dad slapped him so hard that his ears rang. The way that dad picked him up by his hair and throwing him into a wall. He didn't want to tell big sis about all the times that dad had thrown him across the room or hit him or made him hurt so bad…he didn't want to tell her about that but….but maybe he had to. Even though he wanted to keep it to himself for the rest of his life he was still going to…to tell her…because she probably didn't even know…and she could not just go around saying that dad was treating her the same way that he had been treating Sho for all of his life.
"I didn't mean like hurting you. I mean that…that sometimes too much of dad's love can make you feel like you're being smothered and I didn't want to make you feel like that. I love you and I want to be with you all the time…and for us to be friends again…and also I just want…I want to be near you. Please? I just feel so…empty and achy all the time…since dad started treating me like he treats you." Said Mob. She had told the truth and nothing but the truth. She had told him the whole of what she felt and…and she might have said the wrong thing. He was kicking the wall, now, and screaming into her pillow and….and she had no idea what she had said or done to make him do this. She needed…she needed to make him stop. To make him feel better. Because right now he was upset and…and she couldn't stand to see him upset.
She got out of his bed.
She stepped on one of his legos as she got out of his bed, and it hurt a lot, but she had to keep going. there was no pain in this world that could keep her from her little brother. Not when he was like this. Not when he was sad and angry and…and like this. She wanted to make this better. She had no idea what she even could do but…but she wanted to make this better.
She knelt down by the bed and put her hand on his back.
"Don't touch me!" said Sho. He had been able to control it for a little while. He had been able to get his feelings out by kicking the wall and biting his hand and…and he tasted blood a little bit…or a lot…but that was ok. So what if he was bleeding? At least it was his blood that was there, not hers, and that was what had mattered most of all. Big sis should have just left him alone until he calmed down. He could have calmed down really fast after he kicked a hole or two in the walls and then they could have been ok but no. She had to go and put her hand right there over his tree and…
And it felt like the lightning went through his body all over again.
The next thing he knew he was on the ground on top of her. He was on top of her and he was hitting her and she was covering her face and…and that was the next thing he knew. He had skipped all of the in between steps and now he was on top of her and…and he was hitting her and…and she was protecting her face and…and he had scratched her and…and he was a bad person…
He jumped off of her.
He jumped off of her and rolled under her bed. He hit his head on her bedframe and probably broke some of her stuff rolling under so fast but he didn't care. He had hurt her. He had hurt her and made her bleed and scratched her arms and…and he was dad. He was dad now. He wasn't Suzuki Sho, he was Suzuki Touichirou….and he hated himself. In that moment he hated himself more than he had hated everything else and everyone one else in the whole world. He covered his eyes. He dug the palms of his hands so hard into his eyes that he saw spots. He was not going to cry. He couldn't cry. If anything she should have been the one crying.
She was not crying.
"Sho? I'm sorry. I'm sorry for making you hurt me like that. Please come out." Said Mob. She used her phone's flashlight to see him. She was laying down on the floor now. It was cold down there even with the heat going. The floor was hurting her scratches too but she didn't care. She didn't care how much Sho hurt her. She loved him and when you loved someone then you didn't care at all how they treated you. She had cared about how dad had treated her and that was how she had ended up losing all of his love. She didn't want the same thing to happen with her and Sho.
She didn't know what she would do if she ever lost his love.
"Get away from me! Why do you keep coming close to me! Every time you come close to me I just end up hurting you! Go away!" said Sho. He tried to push her away with his powers. She didn't let herself move. Her phone flew out of her hand but she herself did not move. She just laid there on floor across from him. The only difference was that now it was dark.
"I don't care if you hurt me. I don't if you come out from under that bed and hit me or slap me or scratch me or jump on me or push me or pull my hair or…or anything. I love you and if loving you means that you're going to hurt me sometimes then that's ok. I don't want to…to make the same mistake I did with dad. I don't want to make you stop loving me like I made dad stop loving me and-" said Mob. She would have said more but this time Sho pushed her with his powers hard enough to make her slide across the room and into his bed. Her ears were ringing and the back of her head was on fire from here it had hit his bedframe. She had slid into a pile of legos, too, and they were digging into the bare skin of her legs and also she was laying on some and it hurt. A lot. But that was ok because at least Sho was out from under the bed now.
Mob sat up.
Sho was coming towards her now and she felt…she felt a little bit afraid…just a little…but that made no sense because Sho was her brother and he loved her. Besides even if she got hurt she could just go to Fukuda…or Minegishi. Yes, they would go and see Minegishi tomorrow and then they would fix up her scratches and stuff with the first aid stuff they kept in their bag. Fukuda could fix her up good as new but that would mean bothering him and Mob knew that he didn't like it when she bothered him about stuff.
She was fine. Just a little banged up. That was all.
"Wil you shut up about that!? Do you think that I want to hurt you? Well I don't! I hate myself for hurting you and I was trying to be a good brother but you just…you never shut up! You never shut up about loving me and…and about how you want me to love you and…and you won't shut up about dad! You won't shut up about dad and…and how you think that he's treating you like he doesn't like you but…but he's not treating you anywhere close to how he treats the people that he doesn't like! That he doesn't love! He's not treating you like….like he treats me! This is how he treats me!" said Sho. He went to hit her but he stopped himself. Instead of bringing his hand down on her he brought it back over and slapped himself across the face just like that had slapped him before. He slapped himself and hit himself and…
And he couldn't stop.
It was either hit her or hit himself and he chose himself. He had hurt her. Even with what little light was in the room from the opened blinds and her phone's flashlight he could still see what he had done to her. The scratches up and down her arms. The way that his nails had dug into her…he was terrible. He was the worst. Maybe she would have been better off if he had never been born at all. Maybe he had been born wrong in every single way that a person could be born wrong and everyone would have been a million times better off without him and…
And she was grabbing his arms.
"No! Don't you ever do that to yourself! If you want to hurt someone then you hurt me but never yourself! I love you and I will never let you hurt yourself! I don't care if my love is being all-all smothery right now I love you and I will not let you do this to yourself! Do you understand me, little brother?!" said Mob. She didn't care that she was yelling as loud as she could and that it was the middle of the night and that dad could have come in there at any time and punished them both for waking him. If dad thought that he could come in there and make Sho feel any worse than he felt now then he had another thing coming! Nobody had the right to make Sho feel like this! Not even their own father! Nobody had the right to make Sho so mad at himself that he hit himself! And anyone who thought that they did would have to deal with her!
Sho did not get to feel like this!
"Let go of me!" shouted Sho as he tried to get his arms out of her grip. She was using her powers to make herself stronger. No matter how hard he fought she just would not let go…even though he wasn't doing anything wrong! He deserved this! He had hurt her even when he said that he wouldn't! He could either hit her or he could hit himself and he chose himself! No matter what she said he would always make the right choice and he would always choose himself no matter what happened!
"No! Not until you say that you'll never hit yourself again!" said Mob. He was strong but she could be stronger. She had to be stronger. Right now she had to be big enough and strong enough to stop him from hurting himself because there wasn't anyone else to do this. They didn't have a mom anymore and dad was in his room either sleeping or ignoring them…so the job fell to Mob. That was fine. She didn't care what she had to do just so long as she could keep Sho safe. That was her job as his big sister.
"I don't know why you would even care! It's either I hit you or I hit myself and I'm going to hit myself because I shouldn't hit you!" said Sho
"I don't care if you hit me! I don't care if you beat me up even! I just don't want you to hit yourself! Ever! I love you!" said Mob
"If you love me then you'll let me go!" said Sho
"No! Not until you promise me that you'll never hit yourself again!" said Mob
"I can't promise that!" shouted Sho
"Why the H-word not?!" asked Mob
"Be-because if I do then I know that's a promise I'm going to break! I love you and I don't want to hurt you so I have to hurt myself!" said Sho
"I already told you that if someone has to get hurt then that someone is going to be me! Now promise!" shouted Mob
"No!" shouted Sho just as loud
"Yes!" shouted Mob
"No! Stop bossing me around!" shouted Sho
"I will boss you around and as your sister and the second highest ranking member of the family and also as your direct superior in Claw I am ordering you to never hit yourself again Suzuki Sho!" shouted Mob so loud that her throat hurt.
"You're not my superior in Claw! I'm next in line to be President! I'm the son and you're the daughter! You can't outrank me!" shouted Sho
"Well you're not President yet and also I'm the one who dad trusts to write memos so I'm your superior and also your sister and also dad says that I rank as high as a mom in family ranking and-and-and I never want you to do that again! Do you hear me!? Do you understand Japanese!?" shouted Mob. She was…angry. She was so angry and…and she could not ever remember being this angry once in her entire life. Everything not bolted down was flying through the air. Her hair was all around her like she was in the middle of a wind tunnel. She felt like…like she was going to explode….
She needed to calm down but she couldn't.
"Do you understand this? Fuck you! Let go of me!" shouted Sho
"No! I will not let you go until you promise!" said Mob
"Y-you're acting just like dad right now! He's bossy and he tells me what to do and-" said Sho
"I don't care who I have to act like to get you to never do that ever again! You are never, ever, EVER TO HURT YOURSELF AGAIN!" said Mob
"Stop screaming! You're going to wake dad up and then when he comes in here I'm going to be the one who's in for it! Not you! You're never the one who's in for it and even when he does hit you it's like baby hits! He never leaves bruises on you or makes dents in the walls with you and-and-and you shouldn't have been saying that dad was treating you like he treats me! You've never even seen how dad treats me but if you don't let me go then you're going to see firsthand how dad treats me and then you'll never say something as…as hurtful as…as dads treats us…the same…because he just…doesn't…and he never will…because…" said Sho. He was crying, now, like a baby. Like baby sis. He was crying like a sad little baby and…and he couldn't stop. No matter what he did he just could not stop his tears from falling.
Like a baby's.
He felt like a baby, then, while she held him in her arms. She had let go of his arms and then she had pulled him close. She was rocking back and forth and shushing him like he was baby sis. She was rubbing his hair and telling him that she was sorry that she had yelled at him and she was smooshing his head into her chest and she didn't have boobs, not really, but her chest was kind of pointy and uncomfortable and also sort of weird because this was his sister and…and also he was not a baby…but also nice. He was just so…so tired. Tired of being mean and tired of being angry and just…just tired.
"Sho, you're going to be ok. I never should have grabbed you and I never should have yelled at you like that. All of that was so wrong of me and I am so sorry…and I just want you to know that…that if dad does come in here then…then I'll make sure that he beats me up worse than he's ever beat you up. Ok? I'll tell him that this was all my fault…which it was." Said Mob
"No…don't be stupid. If he beats you up just as badly or worse than he beats me up then you'll die. You'll die and I don't want you dead…or even hurt…and I never should have hurt you. I don't know what's the matter with me. It's like I just…explode, sometimes, and there's all of this anger in me and….and I don't know what to do with it so I break things and I hurt you…and I hate myself for hurting you so…so I just wanted to hurt myself then because I deserved it and…and I love you." Said Sho
"Sho….never say that again. Never say to me that…that you hate yourself or that you deserve to hurt yourself ever again. You don't. I don't know why you would think that you would but you don't. it's ok to explode. I exploded to. See what I did to the room? We both explode sometimes and that's fine. I just…I just never want you to explode at yourself, ok? Just hit me if you need someone to hit." Said Mob
"No. I'm not going to hurt you. I don't…I don't want to be that person anymore. I don't want to be dad anymore. I want to be better than that and…and I never want to hurt you. Ever. I love you and when you love someone then you never want to hurt them…ok? So please don't ever let me hurt you…and I guess that…that I'll try my best not to hurt myself anymore…even if I deserve it." Said Sho
"Sho…why would you think that you deserve that?" asked Mob. She wished that Sho could see himself the way that she saw him. She wished that she could do an eye transplant or something so that he could see what a wonderful person he was. So what if he hurt her? She wasn't complaining. She knew that even if he hurt her he still loved her. That was what love was, knowing that no matter how badly someone treated you they still cared about you, and she had made the mistake of rejecting dad's love so now she didn't get any anymore. Well she would not make that mistake with Sho.
"Because I hurt you. Because I exploded when you kept on talking about how you think that dad treats us the same now, it's been bothering me for a while actually, because he just…he doesn't. Even if he's pretending that you're invisible it's still not the same as…as him treating you like you're nothing. Like you're the gum that he found on the bottom of his shoe. Like…just….he treats you better and it really hurt me when you first said it and then…then you kept on saying it and you made me madder and madder…and then you kept on crowding me all the time like how you were in my bed and…and also how you just never stop telling me that you love me and…and I just couldn't take it anymore so…so I just exploded and hit you…and I'm so sorry." said Sho. He was crying again. She was rubbing his hair again. She was rubbing his hair and rocking him back and forth and shushing him and her boob was poking him in the eye and he knew that he looked ridiculous but…but he didn't care. He still loved her and…and he loved how she made him feel.
Like he was loved.
He hadn't felt like this since…since mom. Since he had been little and mom had held him like this. She had rocked him back and forth and shushed him but her boobs hadn't poked him in the eye which made the whole thing better but he wasn't going to tell big sis that. He was just going to cry and be held and be held while he cried and…and he just…he was so tired…
He wanted to go to bed.
"Sho…why didn't you tell me how you felt from the very beginning? I never want to make you feel bad. I never want to make you feel like you're going to explode and…and I never want to make you cry like this. I love you, little brother, and I will never stop loving you…and I will never on purpose make you feel bad. You matter the most to me and…and I love you so much." Said Mob as she rubbed his hair and rocked him back and forth. This was all that she could do. She wished that there was some way that she could just take all of his bad feelings and exorcise them so…so he could just be…be ok already. That was all that she wanted was for her little brother to be ok…and….and she was so mad at herself for not thinking of how he felt. She should have made more of an effort to think about how he felt…and also she should not have yelled at him before….
She was such a bad big sister sometimes.
"I don't know…but I should have. I should have told you and also…and also I shouldn't have hit you and…and I'm sorry." said Sho
"I'm sorry too. I should have thought about you and how you felt and…and I just wish that I could make you feel better." Said Mob
"You-you did. Just…just you did and…and I love you, big sis." Said Sho. He lifted his head up and untangled his arms from hers before he hugged her. He hugged her tight. He knew that she needed a hug….that he needed a hug….that they both needed a hug more in that moment than they had ever needed hugs in their lives. He had been such a bad big brother and he wished more than anything else that he could just hug away all the bad feelings that existed inside of both of them, that he could smother them to death, but he couldn't…well he could try.
He could and would and did try.
"I love you too little brother." Said Mob. She and Sho stayed hugging like that until they just couldn't hug anymore. Until they got too tired to hug, until they could barely keep their eyes opened, until they had to lean on each other to stay upright. It was at that point sometime in the hours between night and day that they decided to go to sleep. In their own beds.
The used their powers to clear off the floor and then put their mattresses down like futons. They took two one person beds and made a two person bed. Then they each laid down on their own mattresses, closed their eyes, and went to sleep.
They didn't want to do anything but sleep and be near each other.