Seeing all the kids walking by in their school uniforms was weird.

Mob had worn a school uniform once, and she had loved it, but that had been years ago. Now she wore whatever she wanted to wear whenever she wanted to wear it. She didn't have to go to school or…well….anything. She was just herself. Well she was herself and Sho. She had things to do with her time even if those things did not involve going to school. She still had to get Sho up and dressed in the morning, make them both breakfast, find schoolwork for them to do, make them lunch, and a bunch of other stuff. So she wasn't exactly doing nothing…but she did wish, sometimes, that she was a part of those kids she saw sometimes, the ones who would walk to and from school in their uniforms, even though she remembered how much time school took up and how she had no freedom at school and stuff like that. At least without having to go to school she could hang out with her little brother all day. They could do whatever they wanted to.

Like go to the park.

Going to the park in the wintertime wasn't as fun as going during literally any other time of the year but they still liked to go. Sho liked it a lot better than she did, he had said, because he blended in with everyone else. He always had to wear long sleeves and long pants because of his scars and stuff. So she was glad that he felt good about blending in…even though she hated how she had to wear tights because it was cold out and stuff. Still, it was worth it to see her little brother smiling.

Nothing was worth more than seeing him smile.

If she had been in school then she would have missed out on so many of his little brother smiles. She would have been in a different room than him because she was a year older. They hadn't gone to the same school since he was in preschool and she was in kindergarten. If they had still been in school then they would have been in different rooms….or different buildings even. She was almost eleven now…so they would still be in different grades but the same building. They would have….

There was no point in thinking about what could have been.

She thought about what her life could have been like, sometimes, when she watched the other kids coming back from or going to school. She thought about how when she had been little mom had walked her and Sho to school. She thought about how she had learned to put her own uniform on even though there had been a lot of steps. All of the buttons and tying her ribbon and stuff. She got to wear whatever she wanted now, she was glad for that, but sometimes she thought about how if mom had never left then…then she would have been walking back to the Castle from whatever school she would have gone to…and she would have been walking back with Sho…or maybe he would have stayed afterschool and played with his friends…or something like that. She would have walked home alone. If mom had never run away then she never would have made any friends.

She didn't know how to feel.

So she decided to get back to what she had been doing. She and Sho had been trying to see who could swing the highest without using their powers. She had been letting him win, she had the most fun when he was happy and he was happiest when he was winning, but then he told her that she needed to put up real competition…so that was what she was doing. He was just so much better at this than her. He wasn't getting distracted by a bunch of kids walking home from school. She knew that she should have kept her head in the game, like Sho kept on telling her to do, but she just…part of her wanted to be those kids and part of her wanted to be grateful that her life had gone in this direction. She had friends, now, and she knew that she never would have been able to make friends if she had been in school and stuff. Kids her own age had never liked her. They still didn't like her. They had thought that she was weird when she had been little and they thought that she was weird now. She had tried, before, to talk to some kids back at the party.

It hadn't gone well.

That pink haired girl had told her that she had been a baby for playing with dolls and liking Frozen. She liked dolls and she liked Frozen and stuff. She was a kid and she liked kid things and…and maybe she was weird but…but if the other kids thought that she was weird then it was ok because…because she had her own friends. She even had a best friend and her best friend was going to be twenty eight and they still played dolls and watched Frozen with her so…so it was ok. She had a friend and that was ok. She didn't need to play with kids her own age. She didn't even want to and she knew that no kids her own age would want to play with her either.

She knew that the red haired girl coming up to her was not looking to play with her.

"Come on! Stop letting me win!" said Sho. Mob was slowing down, now, so she didn't accidentally kick the girl who was walking right up to them. She probably just wanted to play on the swings too. That was fine. Part of going to the park that everyone used was letting everyone use the park things. This was not their personal park. This was not their backyard back at the Castle.

"Sho, slow down. Someone's coming. I'm going to give her a turn." Said Mob switching to English because it was more polite that way. The girl was right there in front of them now and it was more polite to speak a language that she could understand. People sometimes thought that you were talking about them when you spoke a language in front of them that they didn't understand.

"Oh….just let her have both swings." Said Sho in Japanese. He dragged his feet down against the ground until he came to a stop. Mob did the same. It was easier, and easier on their shoes, to use their powers to stop but there were normal people around so they could not use their powers. She couldn't wait for dad to take over the world. Then espers would be able to use their powers around normal people and not hide who they really were.

Hiding who you really were was not a good feeling at all.

But dad said that they had to for the time being. The time being had been their whole lives up to this point. She wanted to just be able to be herself but she knew that it would not be happening any time soon. If she used her powers now like she used them in her normal life she would be stared at and people would think that she was an object of curiosity, which was dad speak for people would stare at her like she was a freak.

Like this red haired girl was doing right now.

She was staring at her and Sho like she had never seen other people before. Mob got that sometimes. When they went to places where most of the people looked like Sho people stared at her sometimes. It was because they weren't used to seeing Japanese people. That was the same reason why people stared at Sho when they were in Japan and stuff. They weren't used to seeing people who looked like him. That was all. Mob knew that people had their reasons, that this girl had her reasons, but she also knew that it was rude to just stare at people like that.

But she wasn't going to say anything to this girl because correcting people who you were not in charge of was rude too.

"My brother says that you can have both swings if you want." Said Mob as she came to a stop. She was going to be polite even though that girl was still staring. She was staring at Sho now…oh. Right. Another one of those girls who liked Sho. Mob…she had no idea what to do. Sho might have liked girls…maybe. He had never mentioned one before but she didn't know what happened in his head and his heart. So maybe it would have been mean of her to chase away the girls who liked him…but also she knew that girls like to chase him and catch him and kiss him because it was a game….well no, not realty, because Minegishi had said that it was wrong and that if they had been adults or even teenagers then they could have gotten into serious trouble.

So if it came to that, this girl trying to play catch and kiss with Sho, then Mob would step in.

"Oh, I thought you were his girlfriend for a moment. Sorry. Sho just never mentioned a sister." Said the girl

"How do you know my brother?" asked Mob. Sho really was a lot better than her when it came to making friends with people and stuff. He was just so much better at it. They had barely been in England, just for a few weeks, and he had already made a friend…even though he knew that they were not supposed to make friends with normal people…but Mob could keep a secret. She could keep Sho's friend a secret.

Or maybe more than a friend?

Because Sho's aura was being weird and that girl was smiling at him a lot…but Sho didn't like girls yet. Or maybe even at all. Mob didn't know. She had no idea what went on in his head or in his heart. All she knew was that she wanted him to be happy and stuff. If this girl liked him and tried to kiss him and he didn't want it then Mob would politely tell this girl to get the H-Word away from her little brother and if Sho wanted this girl to kiss him then Mob would keep it a secret from dad.

She didn't want to jump to any conclusions yet even though Sho deserved someone to love him and also if he married this girl their babies would be very cute.

"We met at the corner shop. He was with his blind master body guard buying fizzy drinks and sweets." Said the girl. Sho's aura was all weird. He took a deep breath before he got up off of his swing. Mob did the same. Right. Manners. She had to be polite and make a good first impression on Sho's friend. She knew that this girl probably wouldn't have wanted to be friends with her, nobody her age wanted to be friends with her, but that was ok because Sho deserved to have all the friends in the world.

"Big sis this is Emmy. I met her while I was getting snacks with Shimazaki. Emmy this is my big sister Shigeko." Said Sho. His aura was all nervous. Wow. He must have liked this girl….he liked a girl? Mob couldn't wrap her head around it. For their whole lives he had said how gross kissing and holding hands and all of that other love stuff was but now…well maybe she was just jumping to conclusions. Maybe she just had love on the brain because Valentine's Day was coming up soon. She didn't have anyone she wanted to give special chocolate too, just obligation chocolates, but that didn't mean that Sho wouldn't get any special chocolates. She just wanted him to find someone to love and be happy. He would most certainly find someone, he was the best little brother in the world. She knew that she probably wouldn't find anyone, she didn't know any boys her own age and all of the people she had liked before hadn't liked her back…well Hatori hadn't. There had been that boy that she had kissed back in the Seventh Division but she was never going to see him again.

But that was ok. Dad said that she would never be lonely because she would be spending the rest of her life with him…so….yay….?

She loved her dad, she really did, but the love that she had for her dad was different from the kind of love she wanted to have. She wanted a boyfriend. She wanted a boy who loved her and who she loved back. She wanted a boy who would look at her and think that she was pretty even though she wasn't. She wanted a boy who could see her for who she was and not who he wanted her to be. She also wanted someone who she could kiss because kissing was the best thing ever. That person could not be her own dad, super gross, and she just…wanted to find that person.

She hadn't had much luck so far.

She had thought that it would have been Hatori but then he got way too drunk and peed in a sink because he couldn't make it and….and that was not attractive at all. She didn't know exactly what her grown up life would be like but she was not going to spend it cleaning up pee filled sinks. Disgusting. She also didn't want to be with someone who drank so much that they thought that peeing in a sink that everyone had to use was a good thing to do. So she wasn't going to be giving Hatori special chocolates and asking him to be her boyfriend when she grew up or anything like that. No, she knew that she would probably never get a boyfriend, it was sad but true, and she accepted it.

Just because she would never find love didn't mean that Sho couldn't.

"It's nice to meet you, Emmy." Said Mob. She bowed, too, because that was good manners. She may not have been in Japan but she was still Japanese and that was good manners for a Japanese person. Dad said that no matter what country they were in they had to remember their manners. So that was what she did.

"It's nice to meet you too….Shih-gey-koh." Said Emmy. That was something that foreign people did when they heard her name, they tested it out, even though she knew that it wasn't really a weird name…in Japan, anyway. She just gotten to used to being in Japan. They had spent too long in Tokyo. She would have to get used to being around people who looked more like Sho than her again.

"That's right….Ehm-ee." Said Mob

"You've got a funny accent but that's ok because I bet to you I've got a funny accent too." Said Emmy. Mob wasn't sure what to say to that…or how close Emmy was standing. Mob took a step back. She felt the swing hit her in the back of the leg. She knew that you were supposed to give people a hula hoop of space, she had been taught that when she had been little, but apparently it was different in England.

"Here, you can have both swings. Me and my sister can go play somewhere else if you want." Said Sho. Mob didn't get it. Maybe he didn't like this girl like that, that would have made sense, or maybe he just wanted to play with her and her alone. That would have been very nice of him but she wanted him to be able to play with the other kids. So what if Mob had never learned to play with people her own age? She wasn't going to stop Sho. Besides, she wasn't sure if she even could play with the other kids. Well she knew that she wasn't allowed but she also got the feeling like…like she and this girl were just too different. Not because they were from different parts of the world or looked different or spoke different languages but because Mob hadn't felt like a kid since…since she had been really little. She had felt, for a long time now, like this mixture of being a kid and an adult…and she was leaning more towards being an adult. After all her friends were all adults and stuff…

But she would let Sho have this.

"Don't be daft. I don't need two swings, I'm only one person, and anyway I didn't come here to swing. I came here to ask you some questions." Said Emmy. She took off her backpack and pulled out a notebook. Her backpack was army pattered and almost as big as she was. Mob was reminded of her old school satchel. Hers had been a satchel, not a backpack, because it had been made of leather and opened with a clasp. She had only seen those in Japan.

"I can't tell you about my dad's work, so don't ask. She can't tell you either." Said Sho. Mob nodded. Sho was right to say that, and in English too, because they were never allowed to tell anyone that they were espers or about Claw or anything like that. That was one of dad's big rules. Nobody could know because then if it got out that dad was going to take over the world people would try even harder to stop him and then all of the espers in the world wouldn't be able to come together and come out of hiding and also none of dad's dreams would come true. Mob wanted dad's dreams to come true more than anything else in the world. Then he would be happy and maybe if he was happy then he would take some of the love he gave to her and give it to Sho. He needed all the love he could get.

"Oh…well I figured it was one of those 'if I tell you I have to kill you' sort of things'." Said Emmy as she flipped to another page in her notebook.

"We wouldn't have to kill you. We just aren't allowed to tell you." Said Mob. She had to say something because, well, she couldn't just let someone go around thinking things like that. She might have said the wrong thing, though, or maybe she shouldn't have said anything at all. This was Sho's friend, not hers, and back when they had been very little and Sho'd had friends they had never wanted to talk to her or play with her because she was so weird.

"That's brilliant." Said Emmy as she leaned in very close, again, and Mob tried to take a step back, again. Mob hoped that they stayed in this country for a while so she could learn how talking and stuff worked here. Personal space was difficult, well it had been when she had been little, and now she felt like she was three years old at preschool getting way too close to the other kids again.

"Um…thanks?" asked Mob. She wasn't sure if that was brilliant but she decided to keep her cluelessness to herself. She wasn't going to ruin this for Sho.

"Did you want to ask me anything else?" asked Sho. Emmy looked away from Mob…and then got really close to Sho. Sho had room to take a step back but he didn't. That must have meant that he wanted this girl to get close to him. That was…Mob wasn't sure if she was ready for Sho to be grown up enough to want to spend time with a girl…but she wanted him to be happy. She would always treasure the times that they had when they had been little but now they were both ten, she was almost eleven, and if she wanted to have a boyfriend then it was ok for Sho to want to have someone to love him and hold his hand and kiss him, too.

"Are you kidding? Of course I've got loads of questions for you. It wasn't as though we'd had time for a proper chinwag when we met…sorry. For just running off like that. I was just being daft. Anyway I've got…this many pages of questions for you…and more, too, because now I know that you've got a sister and now I've got even more questions." Said Emmy. She was talking to Sho so Mob decided not to interject. She just sat back down on the swing and let them talk…or was she too close? Did Sho want privacy? Or did he want her to be near in case this girl decided that she was going to try and kiss him? Did he want her to save him from that if it happened? Was he still grossed out by that? Mob had no clue…but being clueless was normal for her. So she decided that the best thing to do was just to sit on her swing and make sure that Sho was ok…but also not step in because she did not want to ruin whatever it was that she was sitting there listening to.

"Well you can ask whatever you want just so long as it's not about my dad's work….I guess." Said Sho. He kicked the ground with his foot a little. She didn't know what he was trying to do but he just got his shoe dirty. The snow was mostly gone and now he was just getting dirty…which meant that she would have more work to do when she got home…but that was ok. Keeping him clean and stuff was just part of her job as his big sister.

"Brilliant. Alright, first of all….which one of you is adopted? You or your sister? Because you don't look a thing alike." Said Emmy. Mob thought that maybe that wasn't the best question to ask…but maybe she just didn't like that question because she had been asked that for her whole life. Brothers and sisters didn't always have to look alike. Mom and dad were both half Japanese. She just got all of the Japanese and Sho just got all of the half. That was all.

"…neither of us. We're brother and sister, we just don't look alike." Said Sho

"Oh. So one of you looks like your mum and one of you looks like your dad? Me and my sister are like that." Said Emmy

"No, I look like my mom but she doesn't look like anyone. That's just because our mom and dad are half Japanese. She just got all of the Japanese." Said Sho. He was just as sick of explaining that to people as she was. He was just as sick of explaining and stuff….but he didn't get mad. That was good. He got mad sometimes and while she didn't mind it if he got mad at her she did mind it if he got mad at someone else….well not 'mind' but if he had to be mad at some then it should have been at her. She could take it. That was part of being a good big sister, sometimes your little brother got mad and stuff and you just had to wait it out, though he had been very good about that lately.

"I didn't know it worked like that. Brilliant. Well I've got loads more questions. Which one of you is older? I think her because she's taller." Said Emmy. Mob didn't know if height was a good way to measure age. Sho was sometimes taller than her. Well he had been for a little bit but then she had started growing again. She was just a little bit taller than him. She knew that it bothered him but she also had no idea how to stop growing. The whole thing was just annoying. A lot of her dresses were getting too short and stuff. Even the Belle dress that dad liked it when she wore.

"She's ten. We're both ten but she's almost eleven. Do you have a lot more questions? Because I don't know if I want to stand here all day answering questions." Said Sho. Mob got the feeling that he had just said something rude. He should have been more polite to her. That was no way to talk to a friend…or someone you might have liked…or someone who might have liked you.

"I've got loads more…but you're right. I shouldn't just ask you questions. Sorry…I can be a bit odd sometimes. I mean people tell me that I'm odd sometimes. I'll go away if you want." Said Emmy

"It's ok. People say that I'm weird too." Said Mob. Maybe she shouldn't have said anything since nobody had been talking to her. You weren't supposed to just start talking when nobody had said anything to you. That was rude and she was being clueless but she didn't want anyone, even someone who she had just met and might have been planning on kissing her little brother, to feel that way about themselves. That they were weird. She knew how it felt to know that you were weird. It was not a good feeling at all.

"Not as odd as people think that I am. It's alright. I don't always know when to go and-" said Emmy

"Um…you can stay. If you want to. I mean…um…I want you to stay?" asked Sho. Mob didn't know why he was asking. He knew his own feelings and stuff….oh….oh…..oh! He DID like her! Mob was going to give him so many hugs later. All of the hugs. She had always wanted him to like someone and now he did and now he would know how good it was to like someone and…and stuff…and she was just so happy for him!

"Oh….alright. Um…I was just going to ask you about how you liked England, what was different, if you missed Japan, what eating raw fish is like, if you like Dragon Ball, things like that…" said Emmy. She brushed some of her hair behind her ear. Sho wasn't looking at her and she wasn't looking at him and…and Mob felt like maybe she shouldn't have been there. She felt sort of like she was out of place, like she was an extra person, like when she went to visit her friends and Shimazaki and Minegishi were laying together on the couch listening to the TV or music or a book or something and Shimazaki was using Minegishi as a pillow and they had their hand in his hair and stuff….

She felt sort of like she should not have been there…but she didn't want to just leave Sho…but she also didn't want to be an extra person in…whatever this was.

"I like England ok, it's not that different from Japan….well not super different….um….I guess I miss Japan a little. Raw fish is good. It's like…eating raw fish I guess. Dragon Ball is ok. I mean I haven't seen that much of it but I like the fights…I like anime with a lot of fighting in it. Fighting games too." Said Sho

"Oh! Do you like Mortal Kombat?" asked Emmy

"Yeah, of course I do….you do too?" asked Sho

"Of course I do. It's bloody brilliant. I like it when they get injured and bleed and such. I used to play a lot of Smash but-" said Emmy

"Nobody ever got hurt for real!" said Sho

"See? You get it. It's like…I just blew you up with a bomb. You should at least be bleeding or something. Plus it' hard to find someone to have a good match with. Most people just fall off the world all the time. My sister is such a booger like that. She really winds me up, you know? Mum and dad make her play with me and then instead of just playing she throws herself off the world. I swear, she's mad. She completely mad." Said Emmy. Mob didn't think that it was such a bad thing, to throw yourself off the world so your sibling could win, but she knew that it bothered Sho…but she had no idea what she was supposed to do in that case. She wanted him to feel good and win…and also Sho got mad when he lost, too, so it was best to just let him win so he could feel good about himself. She wanted him to feel good about himself…and also she didn't like fighting games that much…and also she didn't think that Sho should have been playing fighting games because he liked to fight in real life too…but that was…whatever made Sho happy. That was what mattered. Whatever made her little brother happy.

"Yeah my big sister does that too. She just wants me to win because she's nice like that." Said Sho. Mob smiled. Sho thought that she was being nice and not annoying. He hadn't called her annoying in a while. He had been really nice to her lately. She hoped that he was nice to her forever…but if he mean to her again then that was ok too.

"Lucky. Mine's a booger. Have you got any other brothers and sisters?" asked Emmy

"No, just big sis." Said Sho

"Does she play too?" asked Emmy

"Um…I don't really like those kinds of games." Said Mob. She didn't much like being talked about like she wasn't there…but that was ok. Sho was making a friend, or maybe more than a friend, and that was ok. She was so happy for him!

"Bloody hell…I've not got my Gameboy. Next time I see you I'll bring it. I mean if I see you again. I mean I will see you again, right?" asked Emmy. She was smiling at Sho and looking up and she was red…but maybe it was just the cold. She turned red in the cold. Maybe because she had red hair and Sho had red hair…and she had never seen two red haired people together and stuff. She was happy for Sho, that he had someone who looked like him. He was lucky like that. No matter where they went nobody ever looked like him. Now someone looked like him. She knew how it felt when nobody looked like you.

"Yeah. We come to this park a lot. Well I do. I mean I do while I live here. We move a lot so if you don't ever see me again it's because we moved." Said Sho

"You just move all of a sudden like that? For your dad's work?" asked Emmy

"Yeah…it kind of sucks but-" said Sho. Mob wished that he wouldn't say words like that…but she had heard him say so much worse than that…so maybe 'sucks' was ok….but maybe he shouldn't have been saying that stuff at all…but they would just talk about that later. Not now.

"I know that you can't tell me but can you give me a hint? Like are you in the yakuza, I Googled, or-" asked Emmy. She should not have been asking and if she knew that she should not have been asking then why was she asking. Mob didn't know of a polite way to ask someone to shut up…so she would leave this to Sho. Even if he was a little bit impolite. People were not supposed to ask about Claw. Dad had been very clear about that.

"You look really pretty today." Said Sho suddenly. Mob held down her braids with her hands. That was…she was so HAPPY for him! She was so happy that he had found someone he liked, and that was something that boys said when they liked you, and she loved him and she love anyone he loved even if they were sort of weird….she was so happy for him!

"Um….thanks. I didn't do anything different um…you look nice too. I like your coat…and….um…hair." said Emmy. Mob knew how she felt. She knew that feeling where you were all nervous and your brain stopped working and you had no clue what to say and stuff. She decided to go and play on the play structure. She had been in Emmy's place before, not with her brother because he was her brother, but Mob knew how it felt when you insides turned to mush and your brain stopped working and stuff. She knew how it felt and she decided not to make that feeling any worse for her. It was sort of weird that someone felt like that about Sho, about her own little brother, but…but that was ok. She wanted Sho to be happy. She always wanted Sho to be happy and if having a girlfriend made him happy then she wanted him to have a girlfriend.

She went over to the climbing thing.

She climbed to the top and watched Sho and his girlfriend. They were swinging together. They were swinging on the swings together and…and it was weird. It was weird because…because she almost never saw him playing with another kid. Seeing him with another kid was weird, seeing him with a girl who he liked and who liked him, and….and stuff. She was happy for him but also…also this was just a little bit weird…because he had a girlfriend now and…and she was just a regular girl in her school uniform. She knew that dad would be upset that he had met a girl, that he liked a girl, and probably that she wasn't an esper too…but she would keep a secret. She was happy for Sho, one of them should have had someone at least, and she just wanted him to be happy. That was all….

But if she just wanted him to be happy then why did she feel weird?

She wanted him to be happy, she wanted him to have a girlfriend, she wanted him to be loved…but also she wanted to be loved too. She wanted to be loved and…and to have a boyfriend…and stuff. She wanted to have someone to talk to and hold hands with her and kiss her…and she just wanted….it was getting close to Valentine's Day. That was it. She just….had love in her head because it was Valentine's Day. She wanted good thing to happen for Sho, she loved him, and what could be better than her own little brother getting everything that she had ever wanted?

Nothing, nothing at all could ever be better than that.