Their room always had two beds in it.

For as long as Sho could remember he had shared a room with big sis. They had probably shared a room for their whole lives, well his whole life, only he couldn't remember it because he had been a baby while she had been…well an older baby. They were only a year apart. Sometimes they were even the same age. Like now. They were both ten. He had just had his birthday in December and she was going to have hers in May. Then she would be eleven and they would be a year apart again. No, not even a year. Just however many months separated their birthdays and stuff.

She would always be older though.

She would always be older and she would always be able to boss him around. Like on the plane. Big sis had bossed him and everyone around…and to be fair to her they had been fighting. He had read, in his book, that when you were mad at another person you had to try and walk a mile in their shoes. Well he wouldn't be literally putting her shoes on, he did not want to wear girl's shoes even if hers did light up, but he would try to see things from her point of view. They had all been fighting and she hated fighting so she had bossed everyone around to keep them from fighting.

So what he did made sense.

She had been upset because they had been fighting and they had been fighting because they had been upset. He had been upset. He didn't know why he had been so upset. Because Minegishi had been there…they always made him so upset. He didn't know why. Well he did know why, they were trying to deraknk him and become Shimazaki's best friend, but Fukuda had said that nobody could ever beat Sho and also Minegishi wasn't that sort of person to him. Even Shimazaki had said that Minegishi wasn't that sort of person to him. So why did Sho feel this way?

He didn't know.

He stared up. There was nothing to look at. It was dark under here. This room had two beds and he was laying under one of them. He was laying under his bed and just staring up at the wooden slats that held his mattress up. He could feel wood below him and see wood above him. He had his binoculars around his neck. He picked them up and put them to his eyes and, yup, he just saw a whole lot of nothing. He closed his eyes. Now he still saw a whole lot of nothing. He closed his eyes and felt the world with his aura. Dad was in the room down the hall. Big sis was in the living room. Above him was the roof. Something alive up there, and small, probably birds. Below him were auras. This was an apartment building, a Claw apartment building, and Sho could feel all the people who lived there. He filtered them out. He just needed to feel the people who were living on the floor below them. In the apartment below theirs.

He filtered out everything that wasn't another esper.

He saw the world with his mind's eye. This was a hard trick. He couldn't keep it up for long. He felt…everything…and then he told it to go away. Now he could feel…there, below him, was everyone. Right next door was Fukuda but he was mad at him…for some reason. Sho didn't know what Fukuda was so mad about. Shimazaki said that a man always stood by what he said. Never say anything that you don't mean, ever, because then you had might as well be lying. Sho didn't know what he had said. He had just said what Fukuda said….but then Fukuda had just told him that there were some things that were never supposed to be repeated…and that was that. He had been mad, not at Sho he had said, but Sho knew that he was just being nice. Sho had done something wrong. Well he had apologized, at least, and now everyone was ok with everyone else.

They had made up before they landed.

Big sis had told them to make up before they landed. She had said that it was important that they land as friends and put their fight behind them. She was always trying to make everyone get along…and Sho didn't blame her. Sometimes things were just better when everyone got along. He agreed…and he felt like a jerk. He had just been so mad…and he didn't even know why. Well he did know why. Because Minegishi had been using his best friend as a pillow…and Shimazaki had been letting them. Shimazaki had been letting them use him as a pillow and they had done much worse stuff together and Sho had no idea why he even cared.

He really didn't.

Sho was in a different category than Shimazaki. There were your best friends and then there were your friends that you did gross stuff with. Sho was a kid, and a boy too, so he was not and would never be in the same category as Minegishi….and that hurt him…for reasons. He didn't know why. He tried not to know why. He pulled his goggles up and opened his eyes. Now he was back to seeing nothing. He wasn't supposed to see nothing out of these, he was supposed to watch birds, but he didn't want to watch any birds. He wanted to look at nothing. He wanted to stay in this small, dark, place and think of nothing until he felt better. That had worked in the past.

He couldn't think of nothing.

How could he think of nothing with his sister constantly walking in and out of the room? He turned on his side and watched her though his goggles. All he could see were her sparkly snowflake socks and that dress that dad had gotten her for Valentine's Day….dad hadn't gotten him anything…but that made sense. Dad couldn't even be bothered to remember his own son's birthday so why would he care about getting Sho something for Valentine's Day…also dad had never gotten him a Valentine's Day present before so it made sense that he hadn't gotten one now. Valentine's Day was for love and he got the feeling that dad didn't love him. Not in the real way.

Not like how he loved big sis.

He watched big sis's feet as she walked around the room. He could have watched her with his aura, too, but he didn't feel like doing that. He just used his binoculars. Fukuda had said not to watch any other birds with them but that was his own sister so it was fine. Besides, he would never cheat on Emmy. He didn't want to and he didn't understand why anyone would. Being a boyfriend was boring, kissing didn't feel like anything, and the only parts that were fun when you did friend stuff with your girlfriend. Well whatever. He had a girlfriend now so if anyone asked he was a normal guy with a normal girlfriend and he did all of the normal things that a normal guy did. Normally. In the most normal way imaginable.

He was normal.

The way that he felt was not normal. He had never liked Minegishi. They had always been big sis' boring friend who was mean to everyone but her. He had never liked them that much but he also had never…disliked them this much. He didn't know what was the matter with him. It was like…like knowing that they had kissed Shimazaki and stuff made him mad at them…and stuff…but that made no sense. That, all of the kissing and adult stuff, put them in a different category than Sho would ever be in….and that was fine. They were just best friends. It wasn't like he wanted to kiss Shimazaki or anything. That would have been weird. That would have been weird and Sho was weird to even think about it.

Now the goldfish in his stomach decided to show up.

There is was, swimming, and he needed it to stop. It always started swimming when he remembered how good that kiss had been…the one that he'd had before…the one that he'd had in the coatroom. The way it felt. The way his heart raced. The way he wanted it to go on forever. He just….needed to stop thinking about it. He just…but now it was there. The fish. He thought about Emmy. He thought about how kissing her had been. She hadn't made him kiss her. That was enough of a reason to like it. He hadn't like it when the pink haired girl kissed him because she had just climbed on him and…and stuff. Emmy asked him if he wanted to kiss….

But she never got the goldfish in his stomach swimming.

He hated this fish. He wondered if maybe his was just broken or stupid or something. Like maybe his fish had escaped from an experiment where they banged it's head in car trunks or something. His fish never swam when it was around his girlfriend but when he thought about some kiss that he'd never should have had or enjoyed…there it went. I just swam and swam and swam and…he hated it. He wished that he could have just been normal already! It shouldn't have felt good, kissing Hideki, and it shouldn't have felt good thinking about kissing Shimazaki either!

Not that he ever thought about that.

No, thinking about that would have been weird. He never laid awake in bed and though about what it would feel like to kiss Shimazaki. He never thought about how it would have been nice and how much he…he never thought about that. He would never think about that. He had never thought about that once in his life and he would take a lie detector test to prove it! He didn't want Shimazaki to pick him up and kiss him and tell him that he was the best friend he would ever have and the coolest guy that he had ever known and-

"Sho? Are you ok? Your aura is being weird." Said big sis. She was standing in front of his bed now. He didn't have to wear his binoculars to see her sparkly socks with the snowflakes on them. They were there and she was there….and he kind of wished that she would go somewhere else because he needed to calm down.

"I'm fine. Go away….please." said Sho. The 'please' at the end made it nice and not at all mean. When you said please and thank you then everything you said was nice…mostly. Maybe if he had said please to Minegishi then the fight wouldn't have gone on for as long as it did or have gotten as bad as it had.

"But…ok. I'll go away if you want me to but…but if you want to talk then I'm here. I know how had everything must be for you. You had to leave your girlfriend behind and also there was that big fight and-" said big sis

"I said that I was fine. I'm not upset about leaving my girlfriend….and why don't you say that a little louder? I don't think that dad heard you." Said Sho. What, did she want him to get in trouble? Dad would kill him, or at least beat him up really badly, if he knew that Sho had a girlfriend who wasn't an esper. Dad had always asked him to try and meet and esper so that his babies would be espers because Suzuki's had to be espers. Even though mom hadn't been an esper and she had still made big sis. She was the Prodigy and Sho was just the Awakened Child. So there was no point in dad telling him who he did and did not have to marry. There was no guarantee that he would even get esper grandkids…and what was so great about being an esper, anyway!?

He didn't know.

He wished that he could just yell all of these things at dad. He wished that he could just go to dad and tell him that he was a fucking jerk and nobody liked him. That everyone wanted him to just go to hell already. That he was a cock sucking mother fucking jerk bastard that nobody in the whole word would ever like. He wanted to beat dad up so bad that…Sho needed to stop thinking about this. He knew that he should not have been thinking about beating anyone up, even his own father, because that was not a road that he wanted to go down again.

"I don't want dad to hear about this….so I won't say it a little louder. Because then he would know and you know how dad is." Said big sis

"Big sis…that means that I DON'T want dad to know that I have a girlfriend. God. Learn sarcasm." Said Sho. She was annoying like that sometimes. Like she had no idea what sarcasm was even though it was her best friend's native language. He didn't know how they were related sometimes…well he did. Through dad. He never understood when people were being sarcastic either. Why should he ever have to learn how to talk to other people? He was dad. He was the boss of the whole world. Who cared what other people had to say?

"Oh. Wait if you meant the opposite then why didn't you say what you meant and mean what you said?" asked big sis

"Why do you have to ask so many questions?' asked Sho

"Because I am very, very confused right now." Said big sis

"What's there to be confused about? You should pipe down about my girlfriend before dad hears…unless you want him to hear. Unless you think that it'd be a good idea to tell him." said Sho. She wasn't a traitor but she did say a lot of things that she shouldn't have. Like how back on the plane she had told everyone about how Sho had to hide when he got scared and stuff. He could not think of one reason why people needed to know that. If Fukuda wanted to lecture someone about running their mouth about stuff that they shouldn't have then it should have been big sis, not him.

"Um….Sho? Dad is in his room playing Minecraft….so he can't hear us. Also I don't think that it would be a good idea to tell dad about Emmy. I think that he would be upset because she's not an esper. I don't think that you should tell dad about her until we take over the world. That would be better, dad'll be too busy running the world to care, and also if he does I'll be there to distract him. Then you can get married and have babies and call them Shoko and Shigeo and Souichirou and Masa and Asami and Toshi and Ryouko and Hiro and-" said big sis. Nope. He was not even going to think about this. He didn't want to think about what his future would have to be, the one that dad had picked for him, and her own ideas of it. Why couldn't she just think about her own future if she had planned it this far ahead? What made her think that she could just plan his future too just like dad did?! Well she couldn't. She couldn't just sit there and plan what his future kid's names were going to be and stuff! At least even dad had never tried to name his future kids…and not after people they he KNEW! That was even worse!

"Will you stop it? I'm ten. I don't want to think about that stuff. God! You're just like dad!" said Sho. He saw her aura pull away…and now he felt like the biggest jerk on the planet. He had upset his sister again…and he was the worst brother in the world now wasn't he?

"I-I'm sorry. I don't meant to be…" said big sis. He felt bad for talking to her like that but…but she shouldn't have just….just said all of that stuff about his future! She wasn't dad and she didn't get to just tell him what his life was going to be!

"Get married, Son. Have more Suzuki's, Son. The whole family legacy depends on you, Son. I've been hearing that for my whole life and I'm so sick of it!" said Sho. He was talking so badly to her but…but he had no idea how to stop. It was like she had been dad and…and stuff. She had been dad and…and she had been telling him what his life would be and…and he was mad and…and sitting in the dark wasn't helping….

"Um…I didn't mean that you had to do that right now-" said big sis

"But I have to one day. It's like…I don't want to think about this! I'm ten! If dad wants there to be babies around so badly then he can go and find mom and make some more with her…or he can bring back baby sis…or he can just…just not bother me about this!" said Sho. He was breathing hard, now, and he just wanted to be alone…but he wasn't alone. She was there, he could see her, well he could see her socks…and he wanted to see her socks walking away and leaving him alone.

"Sho…I didn't mean to sound like that. That was just something that I thought about, sometimes, what the future would be like for you. Or for me. Those are mostly just names that I want for my kids and…and you can have them." Said big sis. That didn't make it any better. He wasn't a girl. That was stuff that girls thought about, who they would marry and how many babies they were going to have…and he didn't even think about stuff. He had a girlfriend and he didn't even think about that…not that he was going to marry Emmy or anything…he was just…he just didn't know!

"Then you use those names for your future kids and leave…leave me out of it. Ok? I don't like to think about stuff like that. I just…I just want to think about….I don't even know." Said Sho. Big sis was still standing there…and now she was kneeling down. He could see where her dress was hitting the ground. Now she was there kneeling next to his bed and he just wanted to hide there and…and stuff.

"Sho….come out of there. I'm sorry I upset you, little brother, and….and I want you to come out of there." said big sis. She was right there and if he had been meaner he would….he would have kicked her away and…and he was not that sort of person anymore. He was not supposed to hurt her and…and that would have been a jerk move…and stuff….and he loved her and…

And he wanted to leave her alone.

"I'm upset. I'm upset and if you stay here then I'll just….be upset at you…and I don't want that. I don't want to be upset at you and….and stuff. You shouldn't even want to be near me. I was mean to your best friend. Don't you want to leave me alone after that?" asked Sho. Why did she still want to be around him? She had seen what had happened on the plane. She had been a part of it. Now she was just there for him, trying to make him feel better, like she was always doing….

She had always been there for him.

For his whole life she had been there for him….but this was not something that she could help with. She could be there to make him feel better if dad hit him or he wet the bed…which he didn't do any more because he was ten…but she couldn't help him with this. For how he felt. For how he should have felt.

She couldn't help him with this.

Nobody could help him with this. These were his weird and stupid feelings. These were just his feelings that…that he should not have had. What was he supposed to do? Tell his sister that he felt bad because Fukuda was mad at him? The he still wasn't sure what he had done? That the big thing, the very biggest thing, that bothered him wasn't even that Fukuda was mad at him. He felt bad because…because the thing that had upset him the most was how Shimazaki had let Minegishi let them use him as a pillow….

He could not tell his sister about how that had made him feel.

That was her best friend, for one thing, and even if they hadn't been her best friend the he still wouldn't have told her about how he felt. How he had felt on that plane. How he thought that he felt. If he didn't know any better he would have thought that he….liked….but that would have been stupid. Boys liked girls. Well some boys liked boys but dad would never have let him be like that…and also people would make fun of him. Because it was gross. It was gross just like how…how everyone had said that it was gross…back in the coatroom…

But none of that mattered because he did not like Shimazaki like that.

"Sho…I wish that you had been nicer to Minegishi, they're my best friend, but if something is bothering you then I'll always be here for you. No matter what. I mean…that was a lot and…and I'm sorry about how mean I was to you and to everyone on the plane and…and if you want to talk I'm unpacking our stuff so…so you can talk or help me or whatever. Oh! And don't worry, I won't touch your toys or your art supplies. I put your Zooptopia bedding on your bed so…so if you want to come and sleep on the bed instead if under the bed then…then you can come and lay down on the bed. I'll fluff your pillow, too, while I'm up here." Said big sis. He could see her using her powers. He had closed his eyes again and he could see her with his aura. She was so bright. He could barely make out what she was doing. It was hard to see her…

But it was easy for her to see him.

He didn't want her to see him. He didn't want her to see him being all…like this. She was totally clueless but…but he didn't want her to see him like this and then just…just see how he felt. How he had been feeling. How he just…wasn't normal. She was his big sister and she would love him no matter what but…but he didn't want there to be any 'what' at all. There had been enough 'what' between them over the years and he didn't want to add any more 'what' to the list.

He just wanted to be like everyone else.

"Ok. Thanks for making my bed. I'll come out when I come out." Said Sho. He opened his eyes. He watched her get up. Her dress rose up from the floor and he could see her socks now. He could see how one of her socks had come down. She didn't fix it. She just walked away from his bed. She walked out of the room and…and he didn't need to watch her to know what she was doing. He heard a dresser drawer opening. She was putting their stuff away.

He didn't want to help.

He knew that if he got up then….then his own feelings would make him say or do something mean…just like on the plane. Fukuda was right. He shouldn't have said what he said…and also he shouldn't have felt what he felt. Fukuda hadn't said that. He had said, before, that he shouldn't have been friends with Shimazaki because of how he felt, how attached he was, and maybe that was a good idea…but he just didn't want to stop being friends with Shimazaki. He was the coolest guy ever…and he was nice…and he was…he was always really fun to hang out with and…and Sho wanted to hang out with him even though he had let Minegishi use him as a pillow…and that shouldn't have even bothered him but it did…sort of like…

Sort of like he liked Shimazaki.

But he didn't. He didn't because that would have been a stupid way to feel. Not only were they both boys but also Shimazaki was thirty and Sho had just turned ten. Even if Sho had been allowed to like another boy, even if Sho had been made for some other reason besides making new Suzuki babies and ruling the world, Shimazaki would never have liked him. He was just a kid. Shimazaki could be his best friend but not his…more than best friend. Not his Emmy. He would never have been Shimazaki's Emmy because he was so much older…but he had liked big sis…well he had said that he hadn't like big sis like that but then if it hadn't been true then why had dad beat him up? Well maybe dad had been wrong…but dad was never wrong. He was dad…and stuff….but either way there was no way that someone as cool and awesome as Shimazaki would ever have liked someone like Sho. He didn't even like people like that.

He had said so.

He didn't like people in the boyfriend and girlfriend sort of way. He had said that he wasn't even sure if he could feel that sort of feeling…and even if he had been able to feel that he would never have wanted to be with Sho…and Sho didn't care because he didn't like Shimazaki like that. He had a girlfriend anyway. He had a girlfriend now and…and even if he didn't like her…well that was normal because the boyfriend thing was boring…Shimazaki had said so.

So Shimazaki would never have wanted to be his boyfriend then.

Even if it was in some ultimate, alternate, universe where Sho had been born in a different family where he had a brother instead of a sister so then there was someone else to make new Suzuki's….even then Shimazaki would never have wanted to be with him like that. He was Shimazaki Ryou. He could be with anyone he wanted…and he didn't even like guys like that. He liked Minegishi and stuff…well he liked hem enough to do gross stuff with them….and he never would have done that with Sho even if he had been Shoko…

Not that he wanted to be Shoko, no, he was happy being Sho.

He just wanted to be a better Sho than he was. He wanted to be a better Sho but he wasn't a better Sho, he was this Sho, and he was stuck being this Sho…and that was just the way that it was. This was who he was, he was this Sho, and…and he just had to try and be a better Sho than he was. He had to try and…and maybe he should have just come out already and tried but…but…

But for now he was just going to stay here in this room. This room had two beds and he was going to just stay under this bed for now.