Mob and Hatori were still friends.

She still liked him, she always would, but not like she had before. He was still a nice person but she had seen him very drunk, which had not been very attractive, and also he was in love with her best friend. So it never would have worked out between them. They were just not meant to be. That was ok. He was still a good friend. It was fun to play games with him, he had been the one to introduce her to Minecraft, and also he knew the best shows. Like this. It seemed like it would be something more like a show Sho would have liked, kids in robots fighting monsters, but she liked it too. She liked the main boy. She didn't like him like she liked Kristoff from Frozen but she liked him. They both had dads that could be sort of…bossy…and also he had a power that he had never asked for but still had to use.

Well being a very good giant robot pilot was sort of like being born with psychic powers.

He was a prodigy at piloting his robot and she was a prodigy at having powers. Also he had friends and stuff and she liked about his friends…well most of them. She didn't like this new character. She was very mean for some reason. She didn't get those sorts of characters, the ones who were super mean to everyone for no reason but then they still had friends and stuff. Why would anyone want that? Also the scene where they met her made no sense. Why would she wear a dress with no tights if she knew that she would be out on a windy boat?

"That is so fucking hilarious. I love that part." Said Hatori. Mob nodded. She didn't get it but she nodded. She was sitting on the couch next to him watching what he said was a 'really great show' and also he said that she would love it because 'there were characters she could cosplay as' even though her dresses from the Disney Store weren't cosplay. These were her daytime clothes that she wore during the day. Therefore these were not costumes.

"Um….it's ok. I don't know why she had to slap everyone though. I mean she's the one who isn't wearing any tights. She knew that it was windy so she should have worn some tights." Said Mob. Minegishi laughed from their place on the floor. They were laying down on the floor reading one of their long and complicated books that Mob didn't understand. She knew that book, War and Peace, she had read it when she was eight. It was about war…and then peace…or something. She didn't know. She had been eight, her English hadn't been that good, and she had been mostly skimming so she would have something to talk about.

"But then if she wore tights the joke would be ruined. The best comedy needs a truly absurd set up. Don't you agree, Hatori?" asked Minegishi. Mob was very glad that Minegishi and Hatori were getting on again. She liked it when her friends were happy together. Now they could get along and everyone could be friends and…and stuff.

She didn't get why Hatori shrank down in himself.

The picture on the TV went weird and the audio went back to Japanese. They were watching it in English because Hatori needed to practice his English and Mob liked hanging out with her friends. She wished that Sho could be there, he would have had a great time, but Fukuda had taken him to a place that Sho would have thought was fun but she wouldn't. That was what he had said when she had asked if she could come. It must have been some boy thing that she wouldn't like. Minegishi said that Mob was very girly. Some people liked boy things, some people liked girl things, and some people liked both. Mob really liked girl things but she also liked some boy things. She liked this show, she liked Minecraft, she liked some videogames, she liked to build forts sometimes, and stuff like that. She didn't much like fighting, though, and doing crazy stuff like climbing up houses and climbing tall trees and stuff like that. The boy stuff that Sho liked. That was ok.

She wished that she could have come with, though, she could have pretended to like whatever it was that they were doing.

"Um…yeah. I agree." Said Hatori. He still went red when they talked to him. She didn't get it…well she did. He was in love with them. Well he said that he wasn't in love with them but she knew that he was in love with them. That was how adults were. Kids fell in like and adults fell in love…and that was ok. That was fine. She didn't want to be his girlfriend anymore. She might have just wanted to be his girlfriend because she liked the way he looked and also he was nice to her and stuff…and Minegishi said sometimes these sorts of feelings hit you hard an strong so the best thing to do would be to just get to the kissing.

Not that she wanted to kiss Hatori anymore.

She stopped thinking about that, kissing him, when she heard about how he had peed in a sink because he hadn't been able to make it to the bathroom. Shimazaki said that, sometimes, when you drink too much and take too many things you have to pee in weird places. That was a normal thing that people did. They peed in strange places and that was why he had wanted her to pee in the alley. There weren't any open bathrooms so sometimes you had to pee in the alley…and that was not something that Mob was willing to do.

But she understood that sometimes emergencies happened.

Sometimes you took too much and drank too much and emergencies happened. That was just how it went. That was just something that happened, Shimazaki said, and that was why you had to be careful when you drank and did things, Minegishi said. That was why they were teaching Mob about moderations…and she was very grateful for their teachings. She never wanted to have to pee worse than she had ever had to pee in her entire life and only have an alley…that was the worst. So she could be sympathetic to Hatori…

But that didn't mean that she was going to lay in bed and think about what it would be like to kiss him.

"I think I like the bleu haired girl better. She's nicer to the boy and I like shows where people are nice to one another." Said Mob. She had a nice school uniform too. She wondered if she would ever end up wearing a school uniform…she knew that she wouldn't. She didn't go to school and she would never be able to go to school. She didn't even know if she could. She…was not good at being with people her own age. Like at the party. At the party she had talked to a girl who was the same age as her but…but she had been so different. She had been more grown up and didn't play with dolls and stuff like that….

Maybe Mob was just a kid.

She was a weird person. She still played with dolls and stuff and that was weird, the other girl had said, and Mob…she knew that she could never go to school and hang out with the other kids and have school adventures and stuff. She was just…not good at it. She would never be good at it. She wasn't like Sho. He had made a bunch of friends at the party. Mob hadn't been able to make any friends…and that was…she accepted that about herself. She was like the boy from this show. He was bad at being around people too but he had made some friends and he was good at his job and stuff. Like she was good at her job. He had friends from his job and she had friends from her job…

So she liked this show, she decided, and she liked the people who she was watching it with.

So she didn't even want to be around the other kids, she didn't, because she already had some very good friends…and they always lived right next door, too. They were in a row house now. That meant that their houses shared a wall. Mob had never lived so close to everyone before…and she was lucky. She may have been weird, and she may have still played with dolls and stuff, but she got to live right next to all of her friends. That was more than a lot of other kids got to do. So she was happy. She really was.

She did wish that she could have with Sho and Fukuda thought.

"Well…maybe we should stop watching here in that case. People in this show can kind of be assholes to each other." Said Hatori. He rubbed the back of his head when he said that. She used to get that doki doki feeling when he did that. Now she just felt…normal. She was even sitting right next to him but she wasn't thinking about him holding her hand and telling her that he loved her and that he wanted her to be his girlfriend and that he wanted to kiss her and stuff…she wasn't thinking about that at all. She was mostly thinking that his skin looked a lot nicer now. He smelled good too. Minegishi had told him how to fix his skin even though it hadn't been that bad. He still had some spots but less of them and also he wasn't as shiny as he had been before…and she liked how shiny he had been…but he looked nice now.

He looked nicer but she didn't get that doki doki feeling again.

She missed that feeling. She had no idea who she would feel it again for but…but she really like that feeling. The feeling of liking someone. The feeling of wanting to be liked by someone. The feeling of wanting to kiss someone….she really wanted to kiss someone…but not Hatori. She wanted to be kissed but she just…didn't want to kiss Hatori anymore. She had been thinking more and more about kissing lately ever since she had been kissed….but she didn't know anyone who would ever want to kiss her…and she didn't even know any boys her own age…

But she needed to stop thinking about this.

She watched TV, she thought about TV, and not the loss of the feelings that she had liked…and she had maybe liked having those feelings more than the person she'd had those feelings for and….and that was just…she didn't know. She didn't want to think about that. It made no sense to miss feelings. Feelings came and went. Missing things was for people and places and stuff. She had to control her feelings or they would control her just like dad had said.

She had to do what dad said.

"Kind of? Are we still talking about the same show?" asked Minegishi

"Well…I mean they can all be sort of assholes…but that's just people." Said Hatori. Minegishi put their book down on their chest and looked over to Hatori. Mob couldn't read the look in their eyes but they might have been being mean based on Hatroi's reaction. Mob would have to ask them why they didn't seem to like him. He had apologized on the plane ride over. She had been able to hear his apology from her spot on the plane. She had to be near dad for the whole plane ride because it had been their day together. She wished that she could have been with her friends and stuff, especially since they had been fighting, but she had to stay with dad. She got the feeling that he was very lonely and that was why he smothered her. She got the feeling, also, that he wouldn't have been so lonely if he had been able to be nicer to people…but she didn't say that to him because he would not have taken that well.

"I'd accuse you of being passive aggressive but I've seen firsthand how dramatic you can be." Said Minegishi. Mob frowned. She had no idea what passive aggressive meant but she knew that they should not have been calling each other names like that…even if Hatori could be kind of dramatic. Sho called him a crybaby. Mob didn't think that he was a crybaby but she knew that he…he had a lot of feelings. Like how he always shouted when he played games and also when he got embarrassed he ran and hid and stuff…but that was ok. Mob was still going to be his friend and stuff.

"Please don't call each other names. I don't want you guys to fight. You're friends…right?" asked Mob. She didn't know if they were still friends. She was ninety nine percent sure that they were but he also knew that Hatori had said some stuff to Minegishi that he shouldn't have. Not just the whole being way too drunk and confessing in front of every one thing, she knew that if a boy had confessed his love for her drunk or not in front of everyone she would have been very embarrassed, but also in what he had said.

She got the feeling that he had said something wrong.

She knew what he had said, he had been speaking Japanese, but she hadn't had any idea of what it had meant. All she knew was that it had made things awkward and also she was never supposed to let a boy talk to her like that. Hatori had said so. Also whatever he had said had been so bad that he had to kotow for the rest of the plane ride after his confession. Dad said that all of her friends were ridiculous and stuff but she didn't see what was so ridiculous about saying sorry when you did something wrong….but she did wish that she knew what it was that he had done wrong.

Minegishi said that it was something that she could know about when she turned eleven….in May…and it was only January.

"If Minegishi wants us to be. It's…still a little complicated. You'll understand when you're older." Said Hatori

"What's there to understand? You're either friends with someone or you aren't." said Mob. She wished that she could just grow up faster. Her birthday wasn't for months. Maybe when she turned eleven she could understand all of these complicated adult things….even though she really had no idea what was so complicated.

"Mob, relax. We're friends…or at least friendly. Ok? Now watch your show. Trust me, you do not want to miss any details. It's dense. Think of it like one of Shibata's sponge cakes." Said Minegishi

"It sounds hollow when you drop it on the floor?" asked Mob. She didn't mean anything mean in that. She just remembered the funny thing that had happened when Shibata had made a traditional British sponge cake. He had to do it because they were in England, he had said, and that it was a traditional thing that they had to have. But then Shimazaki had popped out in front of him and he dropped the cake and it hit the ground, made a hollow sound, and spun around a few times as it bounced. That had been funny…but maybe she should not have laughed…because Shibata had worked hard on it…

Even if he had forgotten a couple ingredients.

"It'll crack the wall when you throw it?" asked Hatori. He laughed, then, and now Mob felt bad. She hadn't been trying to be mean but sometimes she said things but the meaning behind what she had said was different from what she had meant. People made meaning from you said, sometimes, so you had to make things as clear as possible. Dad had said that. Dad had told her that he loved the way she said what she meant and meant what she said…and stuff….but sometimes she still had trouble talking. Like now. She didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings…but she might have….because she felt his aura getting closer.

"Hey! I'm going to figure this out one of these days…and you both love my cooking anyway." said Shibata from the kitchen. He was making them dinner. Mob didn't know what he was making but she hoped that he was watching the stove this time.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be mean." Said Mob. She got up off the couch and bowed to him. She didn't know if this was one of those bowing times but she was going to because she had to be nice to her friends. She also had to set a good example for people. Dad was always saying that she had to set a good example for Sho and that probably also meant that she had to set a good example for everyone, too, because it was important to be what you wanted other people to be. She had read that in one of Minegishi's books. It made sense.

"I know you weren't, your Little Ladyship, and don't worry. I've got another cake going for dessert and this time I remembered to use cake flour…and eggs." Said Shibata

"Watch the stove." Said Minegishi from behind their book. Mob wrinkled her nose. She smelled….she hoped that wasn't dinner that she smelled. That had smelled really good before.

"Oh no!" said Shibata. She felt the house shake as he ran back into the kitchen. She wondered if dad could feel it back at the house. She wondered if he was lonely. Well he didn't have to be. He could come over there and be with them if he wanted. He was the President of Claw and he was going to rule the world someday, he could do whatever he wanted, and maybe he would have been a nicer person if he was less lonely. He used to be friends with Fukuda, Sho had said, but now they weren't. She wondered why. She also wondered why Fukuda had been so grumpy lately. Sho thought that it was because he was getting old and old people got grumpy. Probably because they knew that every single birthday brought them closer to death. Shimazaki said that.

He said that after thirty every single year of your life just brought you closer to death.

Mob didn't want dad to die. She wanted dad to live a long time and be her dad and hang out with her and stuff. He could be sort of nice when he wanted to be. Kind of like how he hadn't punished her when he found out that she had been drinking at the party or like how he hadn't gotten mad when he figured out that she liked someone. He could be nice….to her….now she just had to figure out how to get him to be nice to other people….and then eventually to Sho…

Maybe if she spent more time with him.

They could watch this show together. He would have liked it. There were robots and monsters from space and fighting and stuff. Also there was a dad in the show who was kind of like him but not as nice. So maybe this could be their new thing to watch together…because she was getting tired of documentaries and watching Galaxy Express on a loop….he would like this a lot. The new girl defeated the angel with hopscotch. Dad would think that it was funny, absurd was his word for funny, and then he would tell her about giant robots all night. It would be a good time.

But not nearly as good of a time as she had with her friends.

She always had the best times with her friends. Even now that they were just watching TV together. Even though they weren't even all together. Shimazaki would come back later, he had gone out to find fun he'd said, and then he would come back and they could all smoke and watch more of this and eat caked and just….have fun together. Like friends were supposed to. They were all friends there and they would all have fun together. They could have fun together today and tomorrow and the next day and the next. They could even all hang out with Sho too…if Fukuda would let him…but Fukuda could join them too if he wanted to. They could all have fun together. Things were always more fun when they were together.

Especially when they were all together….because that was the best thing about having friends now wasn't it? Just being able to have fun together.