Sunday was their day.

Dad had said that Sundays were the days that they would spend together. That was what Sunday was now. Sunday was their day. From one midnight to another they had to spend the day together. Mob wasn't complaining. This was better than dad smothering her and ignoring her. She didn't know why dad had picked Sunday, or what had made him ignore her in the first place, or what had made him want to be best friends with her…to give her so much of his love and attention that she hadn't been able to even breathe….but all of that was over now.

Now she and dad were together again.

"Dad, you're on my side of the world." Said Mob

"So I am." Said Suzuki

"Do you have to be?" asked Mob

"Yes. I need this body of water." Said Suzuki

"Are you making a pool?" asked Mob. Dad was building on her side of the world again. That was ok. It was mostly his world now because she had been away for so long. She didn't really mind. She and Sho had their own world that they had been working on with Hatori. She wasn't going to tell dad about that world, though, because he would just take it over. That was what dad did, he took over worlds, that was just how he was.

"No, a lake." Said Suzuki. This was their second Sunday together. Fukuda really had the best ideas. Sunday was the best time of the week. He could spend time with Daughter without damaging her development. She would be able to be independent but also he would be able to spend time with her. He would have to reward Fukuda in some way later.

"Are you going to go fishing?" asked Mob. She leaned over to see dad's screen. The bed groaned as little as she moved. Dad's bed had more springs, it felt like, than hers. Her bed was softer and easier to sink into. She liked beds like that. Dad liked hard beds. She had forgotten how hard his bed was, it had been a while since she had shared his bed, but she was happy to be there with him now. She could go back to her bed later. That made this better. This whole thing was better because it wouldn't be forever.

"No. I just wanted to dig a lake." Said Suzuki. She was leaning over to see his screen even though she had her own laptop balanced on her knees. He let her. He was just grateful to be near to her. When she was near her just felt…better. Calmer. He didn't know what had been wrong with him but whatever it was it had gotten better as soon as she was near him again. He just felt so….

Content.

That was the word for it. He felt content when he was with her. She made him feel content in a way that he had not felt for years. Maybe it was because when she was near her knew that she was safe and happy. That mattered to him, her safety and happiness, because he was her father and he was supposed to be invested in her safety and happiness. That was all. He didn't need her. He didn't need anyone. He just had a job to do so he was going to go ahead and do it. That was all. And he only felt content because when she was near he knew that he was doing what he was supposed to do.

So there.

"Oh…ok. You can have it then." Said Mob. She didn't mind that much. It wasn't like this was her only Minecraft world and also dad was happy and she wanted him to be happy. That was her job, to make him happy, because that way if he was happy then he wasn't mad and if he wasn't mad then he wasn't going to take it out on Sho. Sho had been…not happy…lately. Because dad forgot his birthday. Well dad remembered that his birthday was on the first but he didn't remember that the first had passed…which to Mob was the same as forgetting Sho's birthday all together.

But she didn't tell dad that.

She had wanted to tell dad that he had to say 'sorry' to Sho. She had wanted to tell dad that Sho's feelings had been hurt and this his feelings mattered and that he mattered and that I was wrong of dad to make him feel like he didn't matter. She wanted to tell dad that since he had this much love to give then he should have been giving it to both of his kids equally because they were both equally is kids. She had wanted to tell dad that it was wrong to make Sho feel bad and that when Sho felt bad he got angry and…and that could be a little bit scary sometimes. Even though Mob knew that no matter how angry her little brother got he would always still love her….she still got a little scared sometimes when he got angry.

She still had scars on her arms from the last time she had made him mad.

"Thank you, Daughter." Said Suzuki. He would have to build her something because he was encroaching on her territory. He had said that he wouldn't but he was, he needed her resources, but he would make it up to her if this bothered her. She took these things very seriously, games, because she was a child. She had always taken her games very seriously. He could remember a time when she had been very small and he had taught her to play Chinese checkers. She had been a terrible player at first and she had gotten so upset, her aura had anyway, when she lost…so then he went easy on her because she had only been five or six at the time. Very small.

She was not so very small now.

But he still enjoyed the games they played. He and Masami had never done things like this together. Well they had played endless games of Go in the beginning. She had been good at it. But then Son had come along and then Daughter and then Claw had grown and then he'd had to leave home more and more…and he just hadn't been able to spend time with Masami like this. He wished that he'd spent more time like this with her while he'd still had the chance to. He'd had no idea that he'd been on a time limit with her, that she would be gone from his life in a few short years, but at least he knew now that he was on a time limit with Daughter.

Because one day he would wake up and instead of their being a little girl there next to him there would be a grown woman.

She'd be a grown woman and she would want to leave him. She wouldn't want to play games and watch movies and chatter on endlessly about the antics of her companions and younger brother. She would want to leave him and travel the world, he knew that he'd had a sort of wanderlust in him back in his younger days and she was his child after all, and she would want to be alone and independent, which he was supposed to want, but also she would meet someone and then she'd marry him and have his children and then he would never see him again and-

Exorcism of his emotions.

Those days were long in the future. He reminded himself that those days were long in the future. She was not Masami. He knew, he knew for a fact, that the day would come when Daughter would leave him. After all that was the natural order of things. Children changed and grew and grew away from their parents. She would grow and she would want to leave….so he would give her every reason to stay. There was the stick and there was the carrot and she responded best to the carrot. She was not Son. He wasn't going to smack her upside the head to get her to bend to his will, the thought of striking her makes him feel physically ill, but he would give her every reason to stay. That was why she had added someone new to her collection of companions and why he had promoted her within the family and also why he spent time with her like this.

He was not going to give her any reason to leave.

And he was going to give her every reason to stay. He had no idea why Masami had left. He had no idea where she had gone to. What he did know was that he was just…tired. He was getting of her haunting him. She was like a persistent spirit…but a wanted one. He wished that…that she had actually been haunting him. That way if she had died then he would have at least known what had become of her. Knowing was better than not knowing and not knowing was driving him mad. He refused to lose his mind so he decided to do the only sane thing he could. He was going to make sure that history did not repeat its self.

He hadn't been able to spend the rest of his life with Masami but he would be able to spend it with Daughter.

That was why he gave her so many reasons to stay. He kept her companions near her at all time, even added a new one, and he gave her more autonomy over her life than he was comfortable with. He didn't like letting her go out into the world, something could happen to her, and she could easily leave him, too. She could just walk off into the distance and he would never see her again…but that was not going to happen because he gave her no reason to leave.

She had no reason at all to leave him. Not as a little girl she was now and not as the grown woman she would someday become.

"You're welcome dad." Said Mob. She yawned at the end there even though she had tried not to. It was one in the morning. Dad had picked her up out of bed and brought her here at midnight. That was how their Sundays went. Midnight to midnight. These were the times that she was allowed to spend with her dad.

"Are you tired?" asked Suzuki. She needed her sleep. He had miscalculated, before, that time that they had stayed up all night together. Sure it had been mutually enjoyable but he had almost ruined both of their sleep schedules and that had been wrong of him. He would let her sleep when she was tired. He so enjoyed sleeping next to her. People were most likely not meant to sleep alone. That was why, before, who families would sleep in tatami rooms. He wondered if the children….no. There was no way that he was sleeping in the same room as Son. He hadn't been able to tolerate it when he had been an infant and now, somehow, he had gotten even worse as a child. He kicked in his sleep and kept odd hours and he woke his sister up, too, which was the worst of it all. Daughter needed her sleep. She needed sleep and she needed peace and Suzuki had no clue why Son just wouldn't let her have that. He had always been a very difficult to understand person, Son, but that was alright. Suzuki didn't need to understand his Son, he just needed Son to serve his purpose, beyond that he didn't really matter.

"No, not really. We can stay up a little longer, at least until this episode is over." Said Mob. She didn't want to go to bed because she wanted to make the most of her time with dad. Dad wasn't giving her too much of his love anymore, just the right amount right now, and she wanted to enjoy it before he either gave her too much of his love and it became scary or he took all of his love away and pretended that she didn't exist.

"You've seen this already." Said Suzuki

"I know. We both have." Said Mob

"If we've both seen this already then why do you want to stay up to watch it? We both know how this is going to end." Said Suzuki

"Because I like spending time with you when you're nice like this, dad, and I don't know how you're going to be in the morning so I want to have as much fun with you as I can now." Said Mob. She knew that it was best to tell dad the whole truth and nothing but the truth. She didn't know if she would wake up and his back would be to her or if he would have pulled her close and suffocated her with his body and his aura again so she was just going to enjoy what they had together now.

"What am I like now?" asked Suzuki. He didn't feel like anything in particular. Content, yes, but he would be content with her in the morning too. He loved that, her being the last thing he saw before he went to bed and the first thing he saw when he woke up, and he couldn't think of anything that would put him in a better mood. Well seeing Masami again…no. That would be…he didn't know what he would do if he saw Masami again. If he woke up and she was laying there on Daughter's side of the bed. He would be…confused. He wanted nothing more than to just be in her presence one more time but he knew that…that it wouldn't be enough for him to just be beside her.

Masami. Explain.

He would need her to explain and…and he might not have liked the explanation. She had no reason to leave him, he had never once so much as raised his voice to her, but she had still left him and he needed to know why because he just…he could not understand why she would leave. There had been times when an insane thought had crossed his mind, that there had possibly been another man, but he exorcised those thoughts as soon as they had come to mind. He was the one who had been weak, not her, because she just was not capable of it. She would never give herself to another, not in the way that he had given himself to another, and she would never….she would never even think about that. She was Masami and she was perfect and…

And she was not real.

It's a thought that has never entered his mind before. She is real, they made a Son together so he knew that he had not just hallucinated her, but right now in this moment in time she is not real…well she is because she's a human being out there somewhere, but that's just it. She's out there somewhere. She isn't there, with him, in his bed. She isn't somewhere where he could just reach out and feel. He can't be near her, can't have her, can't hold her, can't even feel the endless soft expanse of her skin…but Daughter is there. Daughter is there and she is real and she is someone who he can reach out and feel.

So he does.

Her hair is soft. He lets his fingers find the ends of a long piece at her back. She's never cut it. It's long and soft and she's just so soft and he knows that he has more adjectives in his vocabulary but soft is the one that comes to mind. Soft. She is soft and she is there and she is someone who he can reach out and feel.

"Um…you're being nice?" asked Mob. Weird. He was being weird. He did that sometimes, just randomly touched her hair or her arm or her hand, and she didn't get it. Shimazaki used to do this to annoy her. Was dad trying to be annoying? That would have been so weird for him….and he did weird things all the time but he never just tried to annoy people….and this was weird but she wasn't going to say anything. Even if it did feel sort of…weird.

Probably because she wasn't used to dad touching her.

And dad wasn't used to other people touching him, either. Mob couldn't think of anyone who would touch him and not be scared. He didn't have any friends and mom was gone. His mom and dad were dead, he had said, and she had no idea if he had any brothers or sisters or cousins or anything. Sho certainly wouldn't touch dad or let him touch him like this. So it made sense that dad was always trying to touch her when they were together. This was fine. When you loved someone you did what you could to make them happy. Even though she didn't much like having her hair touched like this.

When Shimazaki had done it she had been annoyed but when dad did it she just felt sort of…weird.

"I'm always nice to you." Said Suzuki. He could not begin to remember the last time that he had been unkind to her. He loved her so much…and he could admit that now. Only because she wanted him to, of course. He could have gone his whole life without admitting it. It went without admitting. He cared for her. He cared for her more than he cared for anyone else living or dead. More than anyone else who is, was, and ever would be. He loved her even though he didn't want to use that word. That was her word for it, love, and it did not encompass all that he felt for her.

"Um…sometimes you can be mean, like when you would pull my hair and push me, and also…um…when you wouldn't let me see my friends and leave the HQ and stuff…but you're mostly nice to me." Said Mob. Maybe dad just didn't know how mean he was. That could have explained everything. That could have explained how mean he was to Sho and how he could be mean to her…and to everyone else…and she hoped that he was just confused about the difference between being mean and being nice. That would have been an easy fix and then she could have had a regular dad who loved her without smothering her and loved Sho and didn't hit him and stuff and also just spent time with her like normal people spent time together…not that she was complaining. She loved her dad so much….

"Oh…well I pulled your hair and pushed you in order to correct you…and because I was angry with you…but I can't see myself treating you in that way again. So you don't have to worry about that. Nothing that you do warrants punishment…and also I kept you in the HQ to keep you safe and near me. Now I realize that in keeping you near my I was hampering your independent development and I am truly sorry for my miscalculation. It is…it can be a daunting task, parenting, and you'll realize this too when you have your own children. I'm sure that you'll miscalculate too but don't worry because I'll be here and I'll keep you from failing in the same ways that I have." Said Suzuki. Daughter with her own children….he has always imagined it. Since Son had been born, and Daughter had been adopted, he had imagined their adult lives. Versions of the children that were not dependent on him for their every need. Versions of him that could carry on his legacy. Versions of himself that could carry on all that he was working for…

But he hadn't gotten versions of himself.

Son was Son. He was loud and messy. He was tiresome and quarrelsome. He was also a very talented artist, an area in life that Suzuki had never had much interest or ability in, and also he had much better social skills than Suzuki had ever had. There was so much about him that was different from both himself and Masami…and if he had been a more suspicious man he would have sworn that Son was, well, not his Son. But Masami was trustworthy and Son looked almost exactly like him so, yes, that was his child. Daughter was more like Masami than anything. She had Masami patience, her caring, her domestic skills, her sharp intelligence, and the simple perfection that…that was Masami.

Daughter had been adopted, he knew that she had been adopted since he was the one who adopted her, and he knew that she didn't share a drop of blood with Masami….

But she was so much like Masami it was uncanny. There was that same calmness and joy he felt when they were together…well not exactly the same because, obviously, this was his Daughter and not his wife but he did still feel very good when he was around her. Less like he was on the edge of an explosion. Less like he could lost control at any moment. She kept him grounded in ways that Masami used to. Well of course she was the one who kept him grounded. Now, because she was the one who was there. She was real. She was someone who he could reach out and feel.

And he would always be there with her…and she would always be there with him.

She would grow up. She would grow up and have her own children and he would be there. He hoped that she never took a spouse. Thinking of her as an adult with everything that it entailed…he did not want to think of her like that. As a grown woman. As a grown adult in the same way that he was a grown adult…with those same thoughts about the opposite sex that he had all the time that he just COULD NOT exorcise….he really doesn't want to think of that version of her. He knows that it's nature's way and if women didn't have those same feelings that men did then the species would just die out….so he knows that he can't fight nature…

But he really hoped that she never took a spouse.

He hoped that she just had a lover or several that he wouldn't be expected to meet and socialize with and eventually give his blessing too when she found her most perfect person and decided to marry. No, he would much rather she just have some lover he had no idea about and then she ended up having a child with that man, and anyone who had anything to say about his daughter getting pregnant out of wedlock would have his tongue cut out and fed to him, and then he would help her raise her child or children, he hoped she had between one and ten but really she could have as many as she wanted, and it would be wonderful. He could help her, he had been through the whole raising children thing before, and then they could just…be together. He would give Son the world maybe a bit sooner than planned. That way he would have time to enjoy his time with Daughter and her children. He could have nights like this with her all the time. They would be able to spend time together all the time like this because she would have grown up, her independent development would have been complete, and they could have spent time together like this all the time.

She would be the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes and the first thing he saw when he woke up.

Her. Not Masami. When he slept alone he woke up expecting Masami. When he went to sleep beside her he expected to see her when he woke up. Waking up beside her did not aggravate the wound that Masami had left. Holding her in his arms as she slept, he only did it because she asked him to, also healed the wound. Masami was gone, she wasn't something that he could reach out and feel, but Daughter…she was someone that he could reach out and feel. She would always be someone that he could reach out and feel…and this was alright because parents slept with their children all the time…

Though he would have to ask Fukuda later if it would be odd to share a bed with his Daughter once she stopped being a little girl and became a grown woman.

"…I don't think that I'm going to hit my kids when I'm all grown up and I have them…and also I don't want you to hit them either. I think that…that I would be upset if you hit my kids." Said Mob. No. Dad was not going to hit her kids. She would…she would hit dad if he tried to hit her kids. She had taken care of Mukai and…and if dad or anyone else tried to hit baby Mukai then…then Mob had no idea what she would do but she knew that it would be bad. Nobody hurt baby Mukai and nobody would hurt the babies that she made herself. Nobody would ever hurt her kids and…and they would be her kids. She could stop dad from hitting her kids because she had made them. She couldn't stop dad from hitting Sho because he had made Sho. She wished that there was something that she could do for Sho…something to make dad stop being so mean to him…but she could at least do something for her own kids.

When she had them.

She was going to be someone's mom someday in the future. She had never really given it that much thought. That had just always been the facts of her life. She would grow up and be a mom like her mom was a mom. That was just what girls did. They got married and became moms. Well sometimes they didn't, when nobody wanted to marry them, but dad had said that she had to get married and have kids so that was what she was going to do. She had never given it much thought but now…now the future felt closer. Maybe because Sho had just had his birthday or maybe because it was almost New Year's or maybe because she hadn't felt like a kid once since turning ten. She had turned then and then there had been a baby that she had to take care of and then she had to take care of all of Claw and Sho and then also she had started drinking more, she drank less because smoking made her a lot less sick, and she had started and mostly stopped smoking cigarettes, and also…also just…everything else! She hadn't felt like a kid once this whole year…

Maybe she would be able to feel more like a kid when she was eleven.

She wanted to feel like a kid again before she had to find a boyfriend and then get married and have a kid. She hoped that Hatori waited for her to grow up but Minegishi said not to pin her hopes on that and she was going to listen because Minegishi was smart and they knew a lot of things about a lot of things. She didn't know who she would end up being married to but she hoped that he was taller than her and liked to play fun games and liked the same movies she liked and also….also that he was nice to her. That was the big thing. She mostly just wanted him to be nice to her. No mean words, no hitting, and no smothering either. That was the sort of person that she wanted to be married too…but she had a long time before all of that.

She hoped that she got to be a kid for a little bit longer before she had to be an adult…even though she had no reason to think that being eleven would be any easier than being ten.

"They're your children. Discipline them as you see fit. I trust your judgement. You're doing a very good job raising your brother." Said Suzuki. He had no idea how she would correct their children without striking them but she had her ways. She got Son to eat and sleep and bath without striking him once. Masami must have taught her how to do that…or it must have been a mother thing. Mothers were the softer parent. Fathers were the ones who did most of the discipline. Not that he would be undermining her when it came to their, her, children. No, she was a good parent to her brother at ten so she would be an amazing parent to her children at…

At whatever age it was that women were capable of bearing children.

"I'm…raising Sho? But how does that work? I mean I watch him because I'm older and you promoted me but I can't raise him….because I'm ten…and he's ten too. We're both the same age." Said Mob

"No, you're older. You'll never be the same age as him. Your birthdays are just very close together." Said Suzuki. He wondered if she would ever do the basic math needed to figure out that she and her brother were only half a year apart. Did she know that it took nine months to make a baby? What did she even know about human reproduction? She must have known something since she had never asked him, thank God, and anyway he wasn't about to start that conversation up with her.

"Ok…but I'm not old enough to raise my brother…and also he's my brother." Said Mob. She had no idea what dad was even saying. She was taking care of him but she wasn't raising him. She made him do his school work and take baths and eat his food groups and change his clothes and stuff but she wasn't raising him or anything like that. She was just a kid.

"You need to have more confidence in yourself. When I was your age I had boundless confidence and look at where I am today. You are very capable, the most capable little girl that I know, and I….I love you for that. You're impressive Daughter, remember that, you are the most impressive little girl that I have ever met." Said Suzuki. He moved their laptops to the side and hugged her after he said that. He had seen Masami do that, before, when the children had been small. She said something positive towards them and then she embraced them. Daughter did the same thing to Son. Fukuda did the same thing to Son, too. This was socially acceptable. Also she had asked him, before, to show her more physical affection.

This was alright.

He could see why people enjoyed this. She was warm and soft and there. Her aura was there and his aura was there and this was nice. He didn't hold her for long, though, because he didn't know how long it was socially acceptable to do this for and he didn't want to harm her in some way. Her independent development was a very fragile thing, it seemed, and no matter how badly he wanted to hold for the rest of her life he knew that she would be useless to him if she never developed the ability to stand on her own two feet.

"Um….ok. Thanks dad. Let's….let's play some more before bedtime." Said Mob. Dad could be so weird sometimes. His hugs were weird. Kind of stiff, very stiff, and short. Also he never hugged her so being hugged by him was weird…and he had been saying weird stuff again…but he was bad at talking so that was ok. He was bad at making himself understood. She wasn't actually raising Sho, she was a kid and Sho was a kid and kids did not raise kids, so dad must have just been messing up what he was trying to say.

She was dad's kid after all.

She was bad at talking too and she wasn't going to tell dad that he was worse. No, that would have been mean, and she was not going to be mean to him. Not when he was trying to be nice. He had been so nice to her when he had said how impressive she was. That was…that was nice. Him telling her that was nice…and him saying that he would never hit her kids was nice too. That was nice. He had been nice to her lately, very nice, and she wasn't going to complain. Dad hadn't hit Sho in a while and he was letting her spend time with her friends again and also he was letting her have that big party and…and a lot of other stuff. Things were better now. Things were better now and…and she had to make sure that they stayed as good as they were now. That meant sitting there with dad and being nice to him and…and letting him be nice to her.

So she would, every Sunday, from midnight to midnight. It wasn't so bad. Pretty ok, actually.