Mob liked tea.

Well she had nothing against tea. She didn't mind green tea at all. She would just have preferred coffee. But that was not very Japanese of her, like dad had said, but green tea didn't have caffeine in it, she had said, and then she had been worried that dad might have gotten upset because she had talked back to him but he just kissed her on the top of the head and said 'that is doesn't, Daughter, that it doesn't' and then they had gone on with their day. That had been something that had happened between her and dad. She wasn't with dad, now, she was with Fukuda and she knew that if she asked for coffee Fukuda would not kiss her on the top of her head and agree with her.

Something which she was glad for.

Dad was the only one who kissed her on the top of her head. Well Sho had kissed her on the forehead at New Year's and said that he loved her and stuff, but that was after she had kissed him on the forehead, but she didn't do that regularly because he really hated it and she didn't want to upset him. It didn't upset her when dad kissed her on the top of the head. Sometimes it felt weird, like when he kissed her on the top of her head and just stayed there, but she didn't hate it. She liked it when dad showed her how much he loved her….and she was glad that it was only once a week where he showed her enough love to smother her and stuff and not the rest of her life.

She didn't like feeling smothered.

She hated it, actually, but dad couldn't help it. He just didn't know how showing love worked. Maybe when he was a kid nobody showed him how to show love. He never mentioned his parents, only that he had parents and that they were dead, but maybe he didn't mention them because they hadn't been nice to him. Mob wished that mom was still around. Maybe then mom could have explained to dad how to show someone love without smothering them. Then dad could have showed her love without smothering her and maybe then he could have showed Sho all of his extra love and stuff. Then things could have been better and stuff. Then everyone would be loved and nobody would be smothered.

That would have been great. Mob hated being smothered.

She felt like she was being smothered with now. There was an atmosphere in this house that made her feel all smothered. She was in Fukuda's house. He lived in the house on the other side of theirs. His house looked different on the inside than hers and Sho's. His walls were green, not blue, and he had a fireplace and stuff. His house looked different because his was not a prefab. That meant that other people, not Claw people, had lived in this house before. She could sort of feel them. She could sort of feel the people who had lived in this house before…their spirits.

Neutral spirits.

She didn't bother them. There were neutral spirits everywhere. Sometimes she sensed them, sometimes she didn't, sometimes they sensed her, sometimes they didn't. Mob only exorcised evil spirits because they liked to hurt people. These spirits were just hanging around. They might not have even known that they were dead. If they were the sorts of spirits who thought that they were still alive then Mob was not going to burst their bubble. She had done that before when she had been very little and then the spirits got so upset that they had turned evil and stuff. Then she'd had to exorcise them…and she had felt bad…but dad had said that she had done the right thing, so it was ok, even though it hadn't felt like it was anything even close to being ok. She had felt so bad…and dad had said that she had been being ridiculous. He had been meaner back then. He was a lot nicer now. Sometimes he could be too nice, he could smother her with his niceness, but she wasn't going to complain. Dad loved her and that was what mattered the most.

So it was the ok kind of smothering.

This, however, did not feel like the ok kind of smothering. This felt like the whole atmosphere was pressing down on her. She didn't know why. She was just having tea with Fukuda. Maybe it was because he was being so formal. Not as formal as a real tea ceremony, Mob had seen them on TV and they looked very formal and very boring, he was just formal like they were at work…which in a way they were. She was pretty sure that she outranked him. Dad said that the only person she had to answer to was him…so maybe she outranked Fukuda and stuff…but that didn't matter. She had only brought up how high she ranked once, when Sho had been hurting himself, and she hadn't liked it. Being bossy and stuff. But that had been for a very good reason.

Though afternoon tea was not a very good reason to even think about ranks. In Mob's opinion, anyway.

"I wasn't sure if you still liked green tea or not, Suzuki-san." Said Fukuda. He poured her a cup of tea and then sat down opposite of her. This had not been how he had wanted to spend his day off. He would much rather have been taking Sho to the park like he had asked….but this was important. Fukuda knew that Suzuki didn't give a damn if he overstepped with Sho but this was not Sho. This was Shigeko.

This was Suzuki's favorite child.

The man had three children, two biological and one adopted, and his adoptive daughter was his favorite. This was the only one of his children that he gave a damn about. He had abandoned one and the other wasn't much better off. Hell, the baby was the lucky on in this situation. She could have either been neglected or smothered. Fukuda wondered which one was worse. Sho…at least Sho had him. Shigeko had to deal with the new level of obsession that Suzuki had discovered. There was no way that this was going to be good for her…or anyone else. There was no way that this was anything other than a bad thing…

So he had to figure out just how bad things were and then he would be able to act from there.

"I like it. You did good." Said Mob. She smiled. She thought that maybe if she smiled then Fukuda would be less formal. They weren't at work, they were having afternoon tea, and that was not a formal time at all.

"Thank you very much for your kind words." Said Fukuda. It was best to start from a place of politeness. Suzuki liked that, when people were polite to him, even people that he had known for his entire life. He decided to start from here with Shigeko. He knew the crowd she hung around with, that raucous group, but he knew not to start from that place…or even to go to that place. That was not who he was and Shigeko knew it. Pretending to be on that level with her…no. He needed to stay in his comfort zone. He knew that he needed to be careful. He knew what could happen if he messed this up.

Well he knew what it was like when he messed up with Suzuki…and he was not itching to find out just how much like her father she was like.

"Um…you're welcome?" asked Mob. Well that had just made him even more formal than when they had started out. She had no idea how she was supposed to fix this, to fix them. They had used to be friends. They had used to be friends when she had been little…but she was older now…but they could still be fiends. Maybe. She didn't know any reason why they couldn't be…and she also didn't know any reason why they weren't. There must have been something that she had done or something that she could do to make things better between them. He knew that he had said that things had changed because she had gotten older and stuff but she and Sho were practically the same age and the two of them were the best of friends….

Maybe she could fix whatever had gone wrong between them over tea.

"How have you been lately? We haven't spoken in some time." Said Fukuda. He took a sip of his tea to give himself time to answer. Suzuki and him used to talk over tea. He used to check in with him, see if he was getting any closer to the deep end, but then time had happened and Suzuki had a wife and a child and then they had drifted apart somewhat…and it had been the best time of his life…but now it looked like it was time to revive an old favorite.

"I've been pretty good. I've been going to the park a lot with Sho…um…me and Minegishi have been doing indoor gardening….and um…Hatori and I are playing a game called Dark Souls now but I don't think that it's very fun because we keep on dying and…um….I got the caramel out of the waffle maker for Shibata so he could make cake waffles. They were very good. He's been watching this show about British people who bake and now he's just been baking all the time, which is good, but it's not good when Shimazaki also tries to bake and stuff…because he does stuff like put straight caramels in the waffle maker and it makes Shibata mad. He can't say anything, though, because Shimazaki said that he's blind and he can't cook….even though I've seen him cook and also you don't have to see to know that caramels melt and then harden…but I didn't say anything either in case it really did have to do with him being blind." Said Mob. She wasn't sure how much she was supposed to say. She had heard that people didn't like short answer…but she had also heard that people didn't like people who talked too much. There were so many contradictory rules when it came to talking with other people. It was enough to make her head feel like it was going to explode, like she was a shook up soda bottle, but she knew that she was not going to explode. No, she took care to keep her powers under control. Dad was always telling her to keep her powers under control so that meant that it was ok so smoke her pen before she came here because talking to Fukuda could be so stressful sometimes.

And she had no idea why.

She wished that he would have just come to her with a list of the things that she had done wrong so they could fix it. He had used to be there for her like he was there for Sho. They had used to play together. She had been the one to show him how to play Mario Party back when she had been little. He had played other things with her, like dolls, and he had even done the funny voices too even though her dolls didn't need funny voices. It had still been nice, though, back when she had been little…

But she wasn't little anymore…and…and that didn't mean that things couldn't still be nice between them.

"And how about you and your dad. How have you two been?" asked Fukuda. He had forgotten how she could go on. She'd had that problem when she had been a child, too. She had either said nothing or said everything. It was important to be precise with the questions he asked her. She wasn't Suzuki. Suzuki, for all of his social faults had built up something of a rapport with Fukuda. Thirty years together would do that. He and Shigeko, on the other hand, rarely spoke. Not like this, anyway. Not like anything.

"Me and dad are doing good. He took me to a big and fancy house, it was called a manor house, and we looked at all the rooms…and then we played in the snow. But then dad hurt his back because he's forty three and can't play in the snow anymore. Um…then I took a bath and we watched more of mom's favorite show but then I got bored so we watched more of Neon Genesis Evangelion, that's a show we're watching together, but then we got to this episode that didn't make any sense so we decided to play Minecraft and listen to a documentary about rice and then we went to bed and then I woke up in my own bed because it was Monday…and um…I had a lot of fun with dad. I don't know what we're going to do next week but I had a lot of fun." Said Mob. She didn't get why he wanted to know about dad. If he wanted to know about dad then he could have just asked about dad to dad himself. They had known each other for longer than Mob had even been alive. Still, though, it was nice talking to him. Even if he was being all formal like they were at work together or something. She thought that this was going well. Maybe if this went very well then they could go back to being friends again.

"Sounds like you two have fun together." Said Fukuda. He watched her aura, not her face, because like Suzuki her aura would give it away. What she really felt about all of that. Her aura….was neutral. He…he knew why. She smelled like skunky citrus. Again with this. He wanted to take her and shake her and remind her of the fact that she was only ten years old…but that was not is place. She would do what she would do. She was Suzuki Shigeko. She was the second most powerful being on Earth. Suzuki had said, before, that he had come to the realization that he could do anything, nothing could ever stop him, when he had been around that age…and then he had decided that he would take over the world just because he could. There was no one on Earth who could stop him.

And there was no one on Earth who could stop his daughter.

So he didn't. He didn't address the drinking and smoking, and had no plans to address the drinking and smoking, but instead he was just going to stick to figuring out how close she was to exploding and then he would work from there. If she was close to an explosion then he would figure out what to do about Suzuki and if she wasn't then…then he would plan his next move while operating under the idea that an explosion was building.

There. Simple.

"We do." Said Mob. She had been saying too much. Now it was time to say less. People didn't like it when you dominated the conversation like that. People liked to have their own turns to speak so that was what she was going to do. She was going to give Fukuda a turn to speak and then maybe he would be less formal and then maybe he would go back to liking her and being her friend and stuff.

"But you know if you're ever not having fun you can tell your dad to leave you alone, right?" asked Fukuda. He cut to the point. Her aura was unreadable so he just got to the point. He knew how Suzuki was about his time being wasted.

"Why would I tell my dad something as mean as that?" asked Mob. That made zero sense. Dad didn't look it but he did have feelings. He had a lot of them, actually, and he had to keep them locked in tight or he could lose control of his powers. Even if he didn't have to keep them locked in tight Mob would still never have told her own father something so mean. Leave me alone was such a mean thing to say. Mob didn't even like thinking it so, of course, she was not going to say it.

"Because I know how…overbearing…he can be sometimes. I've known him since we were in middle school and I know that sometimes he can be a little…overly enthusiastic. He can be that way about a show he likes or a game or…or about people." Said Fukuda. He watched her aura again even though he wasn't sure what he was trying to see. Suzuki was like a pressure cooker. It was easy to see what was just below the surface a lot of the time. Shigeko on the other hand was like a slow cooker. It was hard to tell that she was building to an explosion until it was about to happen…thanks to the magic of chemistry. Maybe he shouldn't have disparaged her. Suzuki might have been a more tolerable man if he hadn't been so high strung and…no. They had gone to university together. Suzuki could not have so much as one drink or he would lose control….and that would not have been good for anyone.

She had better not have been thinking of getting Sho into all of that.

She was into what she was into. The ship had sailed long ago. Sho, on the other hand, was still just a child. He had better control over his powers than she ever would, which was largely why she did what she did he suspected, and he did not need to be introduced to all of that. He was Suzuki's son and…and who knew how he would react to all of that? And also he was just a child.

"Oh. You mean the smothering feeling. I get that sometimes but we only spend one day together so that's ok." Said Mob. She didn't know what she would do if she had to go back to being with dad all the time day in and day out….but she also didn't want to go back to him pretending that she wasn't even alive. She didn't want to go back to that. One day a week was good.

"But it won't always be one day." Said Fukuda. He didn't know if she was ok with what her father was planning for her life or if she was just too dense to notice. He had no idea…but he needed to figure out what she was feeling….and then he could plan accordingly.

"What do you mean?" asked Mob. She didn't get it an she would rather have just asked then try to figure it out. She hadn't even been able to figure out what had gone wrong between them when she had been trying for years. She wasn't going to try and figure out one more thing.

"What do you know about your father's plans for the future?" asked Fukuda

"First we're going to kidnap the Prime Minster but we're not going to hurt him. We just need to have someone valuable around so people don't try to kill us. Then we'll take Japan first because that's where we were born. Then after that we're going to-" said Mob

"No, I meant for your future. Has your father ever talked to you about his plans for your future?" asked Fukuda. He puts an emphasis on 'your' even though he has no idea if she can even hear it. Suzuki can't hear tones, most of the time anyway, and he has no idea how much she takes after her father. This is his fault. He should have made more an effort to get to know her. She'll grow up one day and all signs pointed to her being the second coming of Suzuki so he had better figure her out sooner rather than later.

"…my future is Claw's future." Said Mob. She and Sho were the future of Claw, dad had said so, and because they were the future of Claw they were the future of the world and because they were the future of the world then they would have to do what dad said all the time and follow his plans for their lives. He had been very clear about that. Mob didn't see the point in feeling one way or the other about it. Claw was going to take over the world and make it better, that was a good thing, but it wouldn't work out if Mob and Sho didn't do their parts. So they just…had to do their parts to make everything work out for dad and for Claw and for the world.

"I mean about his plans for your personal life. Has he given you any indication about what he wants for you when you grow up?" asked Fukuda. He wanted to sigh but he didn't. She was either being intentionally dense, high as a kite, or honestly had no clue what he was even talking about. He would never be able to figure anything out if he got frustrated…so he just chose not to get frustrated.

"He says that when I grow up he's going to build a great big house for us to live in and then we'll be able to hang out all the time and then when I grow up and have kids then he'll help me take care of them. My husband too, I guess, but I don't know who that'll be. I don't even have a boyfriend." Said Mob. She could see the tea in her cup start to swirl around. She didn't want to talk about this with Fukuda. That was almost as bad as talking about this with dad. She had liked someone and now she didn't. Mob didn't know what everyone was so fascinated about. People fell in and out of love all the time. Mom and dad had fallen out of love and they had been married. If Fukuda wanted to know about people falling in and out of love then he should have talked to dad.

"You broke up with Hatori?" asked Fukuda. As soon as he asked he realized that he may have overstepped. That was none of his business. He knew how protective Suzuki could be over his private life. He had no idea how protective his Daughter was over hers.

"…we were never a couple." Said Mob. She wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Just because she had liked Hatori it didn't mean that they were a couple! Also she didn't even like him like that anymore. She could still be friends with him but she didn't know if she could be with someone who acted like that…and also he wiped his hands on his sweater when they were dirty, only drank soda and energy drinks, and also could be a little bit overly dramatic. They were still friends though! Just friends.

"Well I'm sorry either way. I suppose that you'll be spending Valentine's Day alone then." Said Fukuda. He hoped to God that she had found someone else to have feelings for. He really hoped that she had not been planning on spending Valentine's Day with Suzuki. He knew Suzuki, knew that he wasn't capable of anything…like that….but there was an emotional component to his relationship with Shigeko that Fukuda worried about. She was wearing yellow. Masami had loved yellow. Suzuki remembered that Masami had loved yellow. Fukuda knew that he was trying to recreate Masami…and he did not like it.

There was no recreating Masami.

Also this could not have been good for Shigeko. If she exploded then she would take them all with her. He had been in the middle of one of her explosions. He would have died if not for his powers. She had killed seventeen people on accident. That base…a lot of people had been elsewhere at the time. Now they were in the middle of a major city. If Suzuki ever pushed her too far then it would all be over…

"No. Maybe. I don't know. I haven't planned that far ahead. Minegishi said that if I had nothing better to do then I could eat chocolate and watch TV with them. I might go somewhere with Sho but he…he might be busy. So I don't know." Said Mob. She had been about to say something about that girl who may have been Sho's girlfriend. She knew not to tell Fukuda because he could tell dad and then dad could be mad. She would never ruin things for Sho like that.

"That sounds like a really fun time. Tell me how it goes." Said Fukuda. There. That was good. Suzuki wasn't going to do something unbelievably creepy like take his Daughter out for Valentine's Day. That had been…well Fukuda didn't like to think about it but that had probably been when Sho had been conceived. He had been the one to give Suzuki the mother of all pep talks that day. He had been nervous, as nervous as he let himself be, about his date with Masami. If Fukuda could have gone back in time he would have…left everything alone. He would have left everything alone because that had been when Sho had been created and he loved Sho like a son. Suzuki should have loved his son like a son….or at all….and he should have loved his daughter like a daughter…

Not like a smaller version of his wife.

Fukuda might just have had a bad mind to be thinking that way about Suzuki. He knew him and he knew that he may have been capable of some truly terrible things, Fukuda didn't even want to think about the terrible things he had done, but doing things like that to children…to his own daughter…well that was a line the man would not cross. One that he had never even thought about crossing. No, it was all emotional…but at least Suzuki knew that taking his daughter out on Valentine's Day would have been going too far…

Thank God for the small miracles.

"Do you still like assorted chocolates the best?" asked Mob after she finished sipping her tea. Shimazaki's was better but Shimazaki but liquor in his tea so that made sense. She wasn't going to complain about the tea…even though she felt like she needed a drink really badly. The atmosphere in here was getting to her. She sort of felt like opening a window even though she knew that opening a window would not have done anything to fix this feeling she had.

"What?" asked Fukuda. He had been thinking too much. That was his problem…well he had to think too much. When talking to Suzuki it was best to always be one step ahead, preferably three, but one would do. Shigeko…he had no clue how many steps he had to be ahead when it came to her.

"I wanted to know if you still liked the assorted kind of chocolates." Said Mob. She knew that she was spoiling the surprise but she also knew that if she gave him chocolates that he didn't like then they might have ended up drifting even further apart than they had already. She wanted things to go back to how they had been before…or at least back to something close to how things had been before.

"Right. For Valentine's Day. I like assorted chocolates but you don't have to get me anything, Suzuki-san." Said Fukuda

"I want to. You're one of the people that I've known the longest in my whole life. I've known you for as long as I can remember and…and I want to give you something for Valentine's Day." Said Mob

"You really don't-" said Fukuda

"Please don't tell me that I don't have to. I want to. One Valentine's Day you're supposed to give gifts to people who you love and who are important to you. You're important to be me because I've known you for my whole life and…and also you used to play with me and Sho a lot…and now you just play with Sho…and I don't know why." Said Mob. She hoped that she was making herself clear. She wanted them to be friends. She still cared about him and she wanted him to care about her…not even as much as before. Just a little. Enough to at least call her Shigeko or even just Suzuki instead of Suzuki-san. They weren't at work. He didn't have to call her Suzuki-san.

"Well….alright then. I suppose that there's nothing that I can do to stop you." Said Fukuda. He has no idea what she was getting at. None at all. He just…could not understand her. Trying to understand her…it was like trying to understand Suzuki…but when he was drunk. She was even harder to predict than her father…

But at least she wasn't going to explode.

There. That was what he had set out to find out and now he knew and now…now he could just rest easy. He could rest easy knowing that she was not going to explode any time soon and now he could get back to figuring out how to get Suzuki's mind off of his daughter. Maybe he could get him playing Space Invaders again. He had always been able to get lost in that game…or maybe just introduce him to a woman who could stand his presence and also knew how contraception worked. Or maybe something else…he didn't know…

But at least he knew that once Shigeko left he would have time to think.

"I guess so. I mean….it's Valentine's Day." Said Mob. She didn't get it. What did Fukuda see in her that was so wrong that he didn't even want a Valentine's Day gift from her? What had she done that was so wrong? And if she had done something so wrong to Fukuda that he didn't even like her anymore then why didn't he just come out with it already? How was she supposed to fix something when she didn't even know how she had broken it? And if things were so broken between them then…then why had he invited her over for afternoon tea in the first place?

She didn't know. Maybe just because he liked tea too.