Masami had always loved costume dramas.
She loved them no matter what country they were set in. Britain included. She loved the history and the pageantry of the costumes and the sets and the intricate plots and such. Suzuki had always found them boring. He either watched TV to learn something or to see something so fantastical that it had no hope at all of existing in life. That was why he liked the show that Daughter had shown him, Neon Genesis Evangelion, a name that was far too long in his opinion but a show with a plot that fascinated and fight scenes that could put every season that he had seen of Gundam to shame….thought that was not saying much at all. That had always been Fukuda's show. He didn't understand it. There was a much richer world to explore in the universe of the Galaxy Express…
But that was not what they were watching now.
They were watching a costume drama. A re-airing of a show that Masami had loved. They were airing a marathon in preparations of a new season. It was a show about a family living in a manor house with their servants at the turn of the last century. Masami had been enjoying it…before she had left. He had only flipped to this show on accident but…but Daughter might have enjoyed it. She liked shows with good costuming, romance, and people relating to people. She was her mother's Daughter too, after all, and she had so much of Masami in her…
Even though she did not share a drop of blood with Masami.
She was so much like her mother down to the nightgown she was wearing. A yellow on tonight. Masami had loved the color yellow. They'd had yellow flowers and table cloths and decorations at their wedding. Her insistence. He hadn't cared. He had been there to marry her and he had achieved that goal so what the room they held their reception in looked like was not something he cared about at all. She had cared, though, even though it had been ridiculous….but it had been worth it to see her smile…
He had no idea what she had been wearing that day, what her dress had looked like or how she had worn her hair, but he would always remember the pure and utter happiness she had radiated clear as if she'd had an aura of her own.
He wondered what Daughter's wedding would be like. He hoped that it would be yellow. He hoped that it would be yellow and she would be happy and that she would be marrying….a man worthy of her. There were no men worthy of her, of course, but that wouldn't stop her from marrying. She would just end up marrying beneath herself…but that was fine. She had him to take care of her. Her husband was of no consequence. He would be there but it would be Daughter's day. He hoped that he could remember what she looked like…
How happy she would be.
She was happy now. He could tell. She her a little smile on her face and her aura was calm and…and she was happy. She was always happy when she was with him. He was always happy when he was with her. Not deliriously happy, he had rarely been deliriously happy in his life, but he was a…content…sort of happy. She made him feel content. She made him feel like everything was going to be alright…well he knew that everything was going to be alright, he was Suzuki Touichirou and everything would always work out for him…but when he was with her he found it so hard to worry about the day to day of his life…the things that drove him insane. The things that made him want to start kicking people in their ribs until they spat blood. He wanted…he didn't have those same sort of violent impulses when he was with Daughter. How could he? She was so small and perfect in his arms…
He loved her so much.
He kissed the top of her head. She liked to receive affection…and he liked to give it. There was a gift to it, being able to show her affection, and he would not take it for granted. Not like he had taken it for granted with Masami. He closed his eyes as he kissed the top of her head. He focused on the feel of her. He focused on the softness of her hair. He focused on the softness of her skin under his fingers. Her small hand. The polish on her nails. She colored her nails blue now. She liked blue. She liked blue a lot…
But she would have looked better in yellow.
"Dad?" asked Mob. Dad was getting sleepy. He kissed her a lot when he got sleepy. She had been sleeping in the same bed as him long enough to be able to tell when he got tired. He pulled her in close and held her hand and kissed her and stuff. Not like when Sho got tired. When he got tired he fought against sleep. He tried to stay up and draw or play games even though being tired just made him make mistakes. He was sort of like baby Mukai like that. She always fought against sleep too. Mob had to rock her to sleep because even though she was tired all the time, babies were the sleepiest people in the world it seemed, and Mob was not a baby…but sometimes it felt like dad was trying to rock her to sleep sometimes.
She didn't need to be held and stuff to fall asleep….but that was ok because she loved dad and dad loved her and this was just how he showed his love.
"Daughter?" asked Suzuki. He still had his eyes closed and he was still kissing the top of her head. He didn't know why he was disappointed at the sound of her voice, at her speaking to him, because he was always happy to hear her speaking to him. Even when she was chattering on about the banalities of her day he was still happy to hear from her. From his Daughter. He was happy to hear from her…though he had wanted her to just….be quiet for a moment.
But this was nice too.
"Are you sleepy? We can go to bed if you want to." Said Mob. It was late and he'd had a big day. So had she. She and Sho had gone ice skating, she was bad at it but he was good at it, and then they got ice cream because winter was the best time to have ice cream because it wouldn't melt. Then they had gone to a park to play in the snow. It had been nice but tiring…and she was tired…
But dad wanted to spend time with her.
He'd had a big day too. Shimazaki had said that dad had gotten into a big fight. It had actually happened because Shibata backed up his story and Shibata never told lies. He didn't know how. He was too nice to tell lies. Minegishi said that the sugar that he put in most of his cooking made him sweet. Mob didn't know how that worked, sugar making you sweet, but he was a nice person. He had been nice enough to not tell her the details of what had happened….
Mob didn't like that details.
Dad always got into fights. That was just part of being the boss of Claw. Dad was the President and because he was the President people came after him. Some people didn't want to become a part of Claw, she had no idea why, but those people sometimes needed convincing. Fighting was the best way to convince people to follow you, dad had said, but that was because he was a boy and most espers were boys. If Mob was the President, she knew that unless dad decided to go on another away mission she would never be the President of Claw, she would be nice to people. She would give people the things that they wanted and she would be nice to them and then they would want to join Claw and then they could all be a part of the future that dad planned together. Dad was going to be the best President of the world ever.
She just wished that all of the espers in the world would see that so dad wouldn't have rough days that made him tired and cuddly…not that she minded the cuddling that much…
"I'll go to sleep when you go to sleep. We can watch this for as long as you want to." Said Suzuki. He used to go to sleep when he couldn't take any more of Masami's programs….and that had been a miscalculation. He had thought that his time with her had been infinite. Obviously it was not. He would have spent more time with her if he had known that she would leave him…but he could always learn from his miscalculations. His time with Daughter was both limited and unlimited so he had to treasure the gift that was being near her.
Because he wasn't sure if this would be alright, holding her and being held by her, when she grew up.
He so looked forward to the day that she grew up and he could be with her all the time…but on the other hand she would be a grown woman. He knew that it was socially acceptable to sleep in the same bed as your child and hold your child….when your child was a child. Eventually children grew up. He knew that he could hold Son like this if he wanted to, it would be fully within his rights as Son's father, but the idea of holding Son like this felt…not right. Not just because he kicked and tossed and turned in his sleep, according to Daughter anyway. He just…could not imagine sharing himself so freely with his son. Or even his Daughter had she been male….
So of course he wouldn't have held Son like this if he had been a grown men.
Men did not do that. That must have been it. Men held women, not other men, unless those men were homosexual but he did not and would not ever understand that. He had been trying to wrap his mind around homosexuality since the year 1986 and the only progress that he had made was realizing that he was not a homosexual and Fukuda was a terrible kisser. He could never and would never understand homosexuality but he did understand heterosexuality. He understood that men held women because women and men married and reproduced and…and it was a pair bonding experience. He was pair bonding with Daughter…
But it was a parent to child pair bond.
He had no idea what sort of pair bond it would be like when she grew up. What sort of bond that he was supposed to forge with her when she became a grown woman. She was a little girl now but one day she would be a grown woman. He would be a grown man and she would be a grown woman and the only women that he had ever held like this had been women he had been involved with…and obviously he would never have those sorts of feelings for his Daughter because no matter how old she got she would always be his Daughter…but she would also be a grown woman…but even when she stopped physically being a child she would always be HIS CHILD…but she had no genetic relation to him…but she was still his child…and he so wanted to spend every single remaining night of his life with her…but she would also be a grown woman…
He always got a headache when he thought about this so he decided to stop thinking about this.
"OK…but we can change it if you want. We've been watching this for a while." Said Mob. She loved dad, she really did, but this was sort of boring. She didn't watch a lot of shows with real people in them. She liked anime and non Japanese anime and Disney and stuff. She sometimes watched shows with real people with Minegishi. Minegishi liked to watch shows where the people fought but were friends and always acted crazy whenever they were laid up. Mob liked it when the people in those shows got along but she would have preferred anime of some kind. She never said so, though, because Minegishi was the one who was sick all the time so they got to pick.
Well not all the time but in the middle of every month they get laid up and Mob had no idea what was wrong with them….but she would make it as easy on them as she could.
Dad wasn't laid up but she still wanted to be nice to him. This seemed like something that he would have liked. It was sort of like a documentary about British people who lived in a big house with a lot of servants. They wore pretty dresses. Mob was mostly watching for the pretty dresses. She didn't like the sisters in this because they didn't get along. The oldest one was mean to everyone, the blonde one wasn't nice either, and neither sister took care of their youngest sister. Not a very fun show at all. Well that made sense, this was an adult show after all, and dad was an adult…
But Mob wasn't.
She was a kid and she wanted to watch anime. She and dad still hadn't finished their new show. They had missed too many details and now they had to start from the beginning again. She and dad were on the part where, again, Asuka joined the group. Mob didn't like this episode. She liked the one where the robot went for a walk on it's own and they had to stop it. That episode was why they had to watch the whole series again. Minegishi had told her that the robot hadn't just decided to go for a walk, it had been sabotaged by Gendo and the blonde lady, and that was why they had to watch the whole show from the very beginning again.
Giant robots and the kids who piloted them would have been an H-word of a lot more interesting than this.
"I know. It's a marathon. Twenty four hours a day. We can stay up all night if you want." Said Suzuki. She must have wanted to stay up all night. He could see the way her aura rippled when he said that. She was the easiest person in the world to read. He wished that Masami would have been more like her. Then he might have been able to understand her. She had always been so complicated. She had always been so…unreadable. She had been like the time that he had picked up one of Shimazaki's brail novels. Suzuki knew that he was looking at words, Japanese words, but he had no idea what they meant. The novel had been unreadable. Masami had always been unreadable. He had loved her, he had loved the mystery of unraveling her, but…but he also loved having someone near to him who he could understand in always. Someone who understood him in all ways. Auras made things easier.
"Um….we need sleep. Remember how you said that, tomorrow, you were going to take me somewhere and show me something interesting?" asked Mob. She didn't think that she could stay up all night watching this. Her eyes would have to be held open with tape. This was an adult show and she was not an adult so she had no interest in this…but dad did and she was not going to ruin this. He was happy. He was happy and she wanted to keep him that way.
"We can always postpone that trip until next week. We're going to be spending quite a lot of time in London. Things are…not going according to plan. So we'll be here for a while." Said Suzuki. He was not going to go into the details of his MANY miscalculations when it came to the London problem. There were more espers in this organization and they proved to be less…enthusiastic…about joining him than he had thought. This was such a stressful trip. He would have gone to Korea before…no. No. Once this was over he would be moving along to…anywhere other than Korea. He'd rather send Fukuda and Son than set foot back in the country.
And it had nothing to do with that baby.
She was going on a year old now. She might have been able to stand if not walk…and she would have been eating solid food…and she may have even been speaking. She may have been able to respond to her name. What were they calling her these days? Was she Mi-Cha again? Or was she still Mukai? Or were they calling her something entirely new? He didn't know and he didn't know why he cared. That was not his child. Just because he'd ejaculated inside of Pang Sujin that did not mean that he fathered her Daughter. His children came from Masami and that baby had not come from Masami so, therefore, that was not his baby. Simple. Him not wanting to go back to Korea had nothing to do with that baby.
It had everything to do with her mother.
He hated where his mind went sometimes. He was a man and he thought about women and that was just the way things went. He thought of Masami almost constantly. The sound of her voice, the way the light got caught in her hair, the way she felt in his arms, the way he felt inside of her…and she was his wife so that was alright. The thoughts that he had about other women…about Pang Sujin…that was not ok. The way his mind would go to how it felt, the pure filth of it, taking her on his desk….the feel of her soft skin under his hands…the way she had said his name…the feel of her thighs on either side of him…
He hated his mind sometimes.
He hated the way that it betrayed him. Sex was not a need. Sex was not something that should have entered his mind. He had a wife and she was gone which meant that he had no reason to think about having sex. So those were not the thoughts and memories his idle mind should have conjured up. He had a wife and…and she was gone so he should not have been thinking about her and what it was to hold her and be near her….and he should not have been thinking about Pang Sujin either. He should not have been thinking about what she would have been like in the morning. What it would have been like to hold her. If she had ever finished that novel she had been telling him about. What she thought about the second Galaxy Express film, in his opinion she would have found it inferior to the first, and what she would have thought of this new series Daughter had shown him…
He held Daughter closer.
"Um….but I'm really looking forward to going on this trip with you and stuff…and I don't want to wait. I already laid out my clothes for tomorrow too. So I think that we should go to bed tonight. We can watch this show another time. It's probably somewhere on the internet. Everything is on the internet." Said Mob. She wanted to watch their show, their anime, and she did not want to stay up all night. She had just gotten her sleep cycle to match the clock in England and she did not want to mess it up again…and also she didn't want to watch these sister not get along. The little sister wanted to hang out with the older sisters, it was obvious, and she wanted her older sisters to be into the stuff that she was into. Even if you didn't care what your little sister was into you still had to try. She didn't like fighting games but she still played them for Sho. That was what big sisters did.
She didn't know how much more of this show she could take.
But she would try and take it for dad if he really wanted to watch this. She figured that he liked it. She knew mom would have. She liked stuff like this. Mom hadn't really asked Mob to watch with her but she had just been little…and also Sho was for mom and she was for dad so there was that. She wished that moms and dads could share their love with both of their kids…but that was not how this worked. Well she would try to make it work better, she would share her love equally, with all of her kids…and if her husband couldn't then he needed to work harder at it.
She loved her parents with all of her heart but…but she was a different person than the both of them and she knew how to share her love equally.
"You're right. Very well then. I'm sure that your friend Hatori could find this on the internet for you…and other shows in this vein, too. Your mother…she was very fond of these. I remember the names of some of the ones she followed. You might enjoy them as well." Said Suzuki. He pulled her even closer. She used him as a pillow sometimes, like Masami had, and he found it comforting. She was so warm and soft. He had always shied away from Masami. He had found it uncomfortable having her on his chest like that, and his arms had gone to pins and needles when he had held her like this, but…but that never happened when he held Daughter.
She was small now.
She was small and one day she would not be small…and then he didn't know what he could do. She would share her bed with another…and he knows that it should not bother him the way it did. She would find another and….and that was nature's way. Since the day he had signed that papers that made her his he knew that she would meet someone, marry him, and have his children. The children would be espers and that was what he had been looking forward to. More espers in the world. He still wanted that but…but the thought that someone could just take her away…..away from him….
He would have held her tighter but he did not want to crush her bones.
He can feel her there with him. She is resting on his chest. He can feel the weight of her in his arms and on his chest. He can feel the cotton of her nightgown against his arms. He can feel the glittery thread in her socks, it's itchy, against his legs where his pant legs had ridden up. She was so soft and warm in his arms…and he loved her so much. She was there and…and he had no idea how much time he would have with her…but he would treat the time that he had with her as the gift that it was.
"Right…ok. Let's watch Evangelion now…because if we fall asleep it'll be ok…because we're re-watching the first half." Said Mob. She really hoped that this didn't become their new show…but if mom had liked this then she would like it too. She wished that she had spent more time with mom when she had been around…but not so much that she took mom away from Sho. Mom was for Sho and…and Dad was for her but…but she also wanted to have had more time with mom….
She had been gone for so long.
She had been gone for years but Mob had not forgotten her. She would always remember her mom and…and how much she had loved her…and it was just so weird when dad talked about her. He had said, before, that she was a traitor for leaving but then he just went and talked about her like….like she wasn't a traitor. She didn't know what to make of that so…so she made nothing of it. She didn't want to risk asking dad more about mom. She didn't want to risk asking him if he and mom had laid up in bed together all night like this and cuddled. She had seen them cuddling so few times that if she counted them on one hand she would have had spare fingers…and stuff…and she wanted to know what mom had been…like. Had she and dad hung out? What did they do together? What had mom been like as a kid? Had she had friends? What had it been like when she had met dad? She had asked before but…but mom had gotten mad at her…
And she would never have answers.
She knew that if she asked dad about mom he would get mad. So she didn't ask him. He might have missed her and he might have thought that she was a traitor. Mob didn't know. She didn't know and she would never know so she might as well have just…just sat there and hung out with dad. He was playing with her hair again. He was touching her hair again and…and that was fine. He kissed the top of her head again. That was fine too.
He loved her so it was fine.
"That would be wonderful." Said Suzuki. He kissed her on the top of her head and lingered. She was so like her mother. Masami had always been so happy to spend time with him...and he hadn't realized that it was such a gift to be near her…but he knew that it was a gift to be near Daughter. She wasn't Masami, she liked to wear blue and watch anime, but she was…she was also so much like Daughter…and in some ways she was better.
Daughter liked costume dramas…but she also liked other things….things they had in common…and in some ways that was better.