Sho wasn't getting a birthday present for his dad.
He already drew dad a crappy picture and big sis would give it to him on his actual birthday so there was no point in getting dad anything. Besides, he wouldn't be getting dad anything from this store anyway. This was one of those stores that big sis liked, the kind that sold fancy dolls, and there was nothing that ad would have liked in there. There was nothing that Sho liked in there anyway. But this wasn't about him or dad or even big sis…though he would get her something because he loved her and stuff….this was where he was going to get a birthday present for baby sis.
She could never have too many presents.
And he had to get her a lot of gifts, too, because he had missed her birthday and Christmas and he would probably miss White Day too…so he owed her a lot of gifts. He'd get her a doll. Girls loved dolls. They loved playing with dolls and dressing them up and stuff. Boring stuff like that. He would have rather gotten baby sis something cool but she was a girl and girls liked dolls.
He knew what kinds of things that his baby sister would like.
She would like a doll that looked like her. She was too little for him to know her favorite shows or what she did for fun besides put things in her mouth and stick her arms in paper towel rolls so, really, her being a girl was all that he had to go off of. She was a girl and girls liked dolls so he was here, in a fancy doll store, getting her a doll that looked like her. He hadn't thought that it would be so hard, finding a doll that looked like her since she was Korean and this was Korean, but he supposed that like in the rest of the world Korea didn't have a lot of people with red hair, freckles, and blue eyes.
Well whatever! He was getting her a goddamned doll!
"This looks kind of like baby sis, I think. At least it would if she had black hair." Said Sho. He didn't get it, why all of these dolls had black hair. There were people in the world with other hair colors. It wasn't fair to red haired people like him and big sis if all the dolls in the world had black hair!
"Sho, maybe we should get her something else. These dolls seem a little bit too advanced for a baby." Said Fukuda. He saw Sho's aura flare. He handed him his soda which he should not have had, he was a little ball of energy at the best of times, but it helped calm him down. Fukuda knew that he had work to do, a lot of it, but he also knew that he didn't want to leave Sho all cooped up in an HQ or let him wander around Seoul on his own.
"No, she'll like it. She a girl and girls like dolls." Said Sho with a shrug. Maybe she would want a baby doll instead because she was a baby now…or maybe she would want a kid doll because she was going to become a kid soon. People weren't babies for very long, it felt like, and he knew that the next time he saw his baby sis she might even be a kid or something. Well he was going to be ready for that. He went with the kid doll. He knew that she was a baby and babies weren't good at playing with toys and stuff but he also knew that time moved forwards and she'd be a kid soon. She'd be a kid and then she would want kid toys to play with, not baby toys. Fukuda didn't think sometimes.
"Maybe a doll would be a better gift for your little girlfriend instead of your little sister." Said Fukuda. He wished that he could take it back as soon as he said it. Little sister…that was how Sho referred to her, and it was who Mukai was to him, but he wasn't supposed to come out and say it…but he wasn't at the base, there was no one to overhear him, and that was just him being paranoid over nothing.
"I don't know what kind of dolls Emmy likes…and also if the dolls here don't look like baby sis then they definitely won't look like Emmy." Said Sho. He knew how girls were about dolls. Big sis had a few dolls that she liked to play with. She had a million Elsa dolls and Anna dolls…and Sho had no idea why girls loved the dolls that they loved but he knew that Emmy probably had a preference and he didn't want to get her a bad gift because then she'd be upset. Like how mom got when dad sent her a gift that she didn't like. She'd huff and say something like 'really, Touichirou?' and then she'd be sort of upset for the rest of the day…and he didn't want Emmy to be upset. It was bad enough that he had left her behind…
She would have liked this place.
She would have liked the tall buildings and stuff. She would have liked how there were pigeons everywhere and trees to climb and stuff. She would have liked that it wasn't London. She had said before that she never left London and that must have sucked, feeling caged in all the time, and he didn't want her to feel like that. She was his girlfriend and it was his job to take care of her. That was the boy's job, dad had said so, the boy took care of the girl and made her happy and kept her safe. Well Sho was going to do a good job because he was normal and this relationship was normal and he was the best at having a normal relationship!
He really was!
"You know a doll doesn't have to look like the girl who plays with it. Your sister is just…very strange like that. Having so many dolls that look like her." said Fukuda. Shigeko and those little Shigeko dolls…he didn't understand them and he never would. He had never been a little girl, had no sisters, and had no daughters so he didn't pretend that he understood the culture surrounding little girls and their dolls but he did know that if he'd had an action figure or something that looked just like him down to the last detail he would have been extremely creped out.
"Only I get to say that big sis is weird." Said Sho. That came out meaner than he had wanted it to. He had been pretty mean today. He didn't know. Maybe because he was tired. Fukuda didn't believe in bedtimes, he said, not while they were on vacation…though Sho had no idea how this counted as a vacation since they were supposed to be working. Maybe the travelling? But that made no sense, they'd been travelling around the world for years now, so that wasn't it…but it didn't matter. He was just tired because he had been up all night. Maybe big sis had a point when she made him go to bed at nine…she had been right about the no liquids after eight thing…
Not that he would ever tell her that, of course.
Nobody could know that he'd had a bad dream and wet the bed the other night. He would take it to his grave and so would Fukuda. He was ten. He had been too old to wet the bed since…well he had no idea when people stopped wetting the bed but he knew that he was too old to be doing that. But at least Fukuda could keep a secret. If this had happened at home then big sis would have made a big deal about it because everything was a big deal with her and then she might have let it slip out where Shimazaki could hear and then he would think that Sho was the most uncool, most babyish, person ever and then he wouldn't want to be his friend…or he'd be made fun of until the end of time like Hatori…and he didn't want either of those things to happen.
Thank God Fukuda could keep his mouth shut…about somethings at least.
"Sorry, sorry, my mistake." Said Fukuda. He raised his hands up in mock surrender. Sho was so protective of her sometimes…and Fukuda didn't understand it. He would have been resentful if he had been in Sho's place. His father so blatantly favored Shigeko that it was just…sad. Sad to witness. Shigeko wasn't even his child, not biologically, but he neglected his own son and daughter for her….not that the alternative was good either. Sho being crushed under his father's thumb…thank God that Sho wasn't an only child. The neglect was, in a lot of ways, better than the….he hated this word but it fit…pseudo incest between Suzuki and Shigeko. At least Suzuki wasn't trying to recreate Masami in Sho…and thank God that Sho had someone to take Suzuki's attentions from him….
Sho would really have been better off with anyone else.
He wished, he had been wishing for a number of years now, that Masami would have taken Sho with her wherever she went. That there had been some way for her to spirit Sho off and to start a new life with him. A life where he could have been normal. A life where he could have had plenty of friends his own age and plenty of love and stability….and all of the other things that he deserved. The life that he should have had. He should have had his own stories to tell, as Fukuda did, about stupid shit he did when he was a kid in school. A best friend who he equal parts loved and hated, at the time, and just the perplexing situations they would find themselves in….Sho deserved that…
But people didn't always get what they deserved.
"Well don't say stuff like that again. She's weird but only I can say that she's weird…and you're weird too. It's a weird world we live in. I'm weird, you're weird, those people who don't like animals are weird…the world is weird." Said Sho. He ran a hand through his hair. He felt like yelling at Fukuda and he didn't know why…well he sort of did, he was tired, but he just….knew that he should not have yelled at Fukuda. Not at him or at anyone. He was just…tired.
He drank some more soda.
The caffeine would help. He'd wake up and then be back to normal and less grumpy and then everything would be good as new. Yeah, that would be good. Fukuda didn't stop him from drinking his soda. That was good. Big sis was always like 'no Sho, you can't have more than one soda a day or you'll get weird' but he knew his limits. It wouldn't be like that time he had drank a whole bucket of soda at Disneyland and then his heart started beating funny. No, he was fine. He was ten and he could take care of himself.
"Ok, I won't. Your sister is a…lovely girl." Said Fukuda. Sho was just in a bad mood because he had been up all night watching TV and playing videogames…and maybe nine wasn't too early a bedtime for a ten year old. When he had been ten his bedtime had been eleven but he had often stayed up late watching TV….so he thought that maybe it would be ok for Sho since he didn't have to worry about getting up for school….but maybe he needed to get back on a bedtime. Fukuda didn't know. He'd never had to care for Sho for this long before….and it hadn't even been that long to begin with. God. How had Masami DONE this?
Well she had been his mother.
Fukuda wasn't his father, he wasn't a parent, and he supposed that this was easier when the child in question had come from you. He wanted to make Sho happy, his life had bene anything but happy, but limits…Sho did not do well with limits and Fukuda was not good at putting them down…like now. He was about to spend an insane amount of money on a doll, not that Sho's backpack wasn't full of money and not that he didn't have access to the whole Claw slush fund….because Suzuki just let his kids have money free s the air…but still. This was a lot of money to throw away on something that a baby wouldn't even have been able to play with. She would only be a baby for so long so the thing to get her were baby toys…..
But he wasn't going to press the issue too hard. Nothing good would come of upsetting Sho like that.
"She is….she really is…" said Sho. All of these dolls were making him think of big sis. She was in one place and he was in another…and he would see her again…and he needed to stop being a baby about this. She was fine and he was fine and they were fine. They were….they were….they were normally always together and….and he had been away from her for so long….
He picked up a doll off the shelf.
This one would be for her. He decided. She would like this doll. It looked sort of like her…maybe. He didn't know. It was a princess doll and she liked princesses. He would get her a princess doll and he would get baby sis a doll that was wearing those pajamas that looked like a bear costume. There. Now he knew what to get. Now he could calm down. Now he could just…be calm. Be calm and not miss big sis and not…not want to yell at Fukuda…even though Fukuda was kind of a jerk when it came to big sis sometimes….and he could feel whatever he wanted to just so long as it wasn't anything mean about big sis and he kept it to himself.
"So…you're getting those?" asked Fukuda. He could see Sho's aura…and that was one grumpy little boy. He wondered if Sho still took naps. Was he too old? Fukuda honestly had no clue. Kids were….a lot more complicated than he had ever imagined. They, or at least Sho, could not self-regulate worth a damn, it seemed. Fukuda wished that his parents had still been alive. He really needed to thank them for putting up with him when he had been Sho's age. He'd thank them later once they got back to Seasoning City. It was about time he visited his parents' graves.
Sho could stand to visit his grandparents, too.
Mr. and Missus Suzuki would have loved Sho. He would have run circles around them, of course, but they would have loved him. Suzuki's father would have loved to have someone to share kendo with…someone who wasn't a total perfectionist and, even when he won, spent the whole car ride home telling himself off for not winning by more points or for getting points against himself. No, Sho would have just been happy to play and be a part of something. He would have brought the mood in the car up, not down, after his matches. Mr. Suzuki would have been happy to have a grandson as boisterous and energetic as Sho. Missus Suzuki would have been so happy to have a little boy she could share her love of art with. She could have shown Sho how to do those ink wash paintings she had been so good at…and they could have sketched, too. Missus Suzuki had always been so creative…and Mr. Suzuki had always been such a happy man….
They would have loved Sho.
His own parents would have loved Sho too. Well not mom, mom never had always been the sort to say one thing to your face and another behind your back, but dad would have loved him. Mom….there had been times when Fukuda had worried that she had never liked anyone. She had always been on him about being friends with Suzuki. She had always been on him about making friends with normal people, about how she could tell just by looking that Suzuki had something wrong with him, and maybe he should have listened to her. Dad…he had loved that Fukuda had finally had a friend. He had always loved having Suzuki over even if he agreed with mom that Suzuki was kind of…off. Dad had loved kids and he had always gone on and on and on about how his one regret in life had been marrying mom. She could only have the one kid for medical reasons that he had been too young to know about. They would have been happy, though, to have Sho in their lives. They would have been happy to have had a grandson…and they would have loved Masami too.
And he needed to stop thinking about what could never be.
"Yeah. These are good….I think. I don't know. Gifts are kind of hard." Said Sho with a shrug. He had to pick out something nice…but it was hard. The things that he thought were nice baby sis probably wouldn't like and he had never been able to understand girl stuff like this…and it was kind of hard…but also he knew that even though it was hard he couldn't just give up. His options were either pick something or give up and he chose to pick something.
"They can be but I think that you're doing a great job." Said Fukuda. Reassuring. He had to be reassuring. Even if Sho had been grumpy all day….but that was alright. This was part of taking care of a child. You had to put up with a lot. You had to put up with their moods and their fits….and at least Sho hadn't had any fits yet. He was just…in a bad mood. That was all. He could deal with this. This was easier, actually, than dealing with Suzuki's bad moods.
Anything was better than dealing with one of Suzuki's bad moods.
As violent as he was in his forties he had been even more violent in his childhood. That had always been his first impulse…and Fukuda had no clue where that came from. His parents had been such nice people. They had always been so nice to him, they had always treated him so well, even though he had always been so cold to them. They had always been nice to him even though Fukuda doubted that he had ever said so much as 'I love you' even once. No, they had always been so warm and loving…the most loving people that Fukuda had ever met in his life…and they had given him whatever he wanted…but he had still been the way he was. He had still been cold….either hot or cold. He could have been either cold or unresponsive, as he had been when his parents told him something that he had not wanted to hear, and he ran hot when he was all alone in a place where he could be free to break things…
Sort of like Sho only he hadn't had an excuse.
Well Sho had an excuse and Fukuda would be right there for him. He would be there for Sho in the times when he cursed like a sailor and kicked holes in the walls and he would be there for Sho now in the times when he was just tired and grumpy. A nap would do him some good. A nap and…and he would make have to start watering down the soda or transitioning him to sparkling water or something because all the sugar and caffeine could not have been helping….and Fukuda was a healer but there was only so much he could do for exhaustion. Sho needed sleep. He could put Sho to sleep…and maybe that would be the thing.
Later, once they finished up here.
"I don't feel like I am." Said Sho. He wished that he knew the perfect gift to give to baby sis…and the perfect gift to give to big sis too. Both of these gifts said the same thing. That he was sorry. Sho was sorry that he had missed so much of baby sis' life and he was so sorry that he had been such a jerk to big sis back in Russia….and also for most of their lives. Maybe he was just a jerk and it was his destiny to be a jerk to everyone around him. Maybe he couldn't escape being a jerk because it was in his blood…like dad was….
But he didn't want to be a jerk.
He wanted to be nice person, a good person, and a good brother. He was going to be a good little brother and a good big brother. Even if dad's jerkiness was in his blood….it was Sho's blood and Sho was not dad. He was half of dad but that didn't mean that he was a clone of dad or something. He was himself and…and he needed to be better…and stuff…and also he needed to find some way to let Fukuda know that he was sorry for being a jerk earlier, too.
"Well I think that you are, Sho. I think that you picked out some great gifts and that your sisters are going to love them." Said Fukuda
"You….you aren't just saying that?" asked Sho
"No, I think that you're doing just fine." Said Fukuda
"Thanks." Said Sho with a yawn. He was tired…kind of very tired…but he would sleep at night like a normal person. He didn't take naps. Naps were for little kids and babies. He was neither of those things. He was ten and he didn't need a nap. Sleeping during the day….he could do that if he ever turned back into a baby or when he turned into an old man.
"How about after this you and I head back to the HQ? I'll get some work done and you can take a nap in my office. How's that sound?" asked Fukuda. Sho was yawning and he had these pronounced grey bags under his eyes….and Fukuda just now realized that he had no clue how Sho had been sleeping this trip. He knew that Sho had been carrying on late last night….and then there had been the time he wet the bed…and Fukuda always tried to go down around ten in whatever country he was in and Sho was always up while he went to bed…
Sho needed a nap.
But, apparently, it had been the wrong thing to say. Sho's aura snapped to life at that. Fukuda had no clue what he had said wrong now. There was nothing wrong with taking a nap. Hell, he wished that he could take naps. Doing the work he had to do and taking care of a kid at the same time…it was all exhausting! Very exhausting! And he just needed a nap or something…but he was the adult here and he had to get all of this work done in record time so he would have time to cart Sho around the world to see his baby sister and girlfriend.
The things he did for Sho…but it was a labor of love.
"I don't need a nap. I'm ten, ten year olds don't take naps. You just don't know that because you don't have any kids." Said Sho. That had been mean, he knew that he had been mean, and he wished that there had been some way for him to grab the words out of the air and cram them back into his mouth because he couldn't believe how mean he had been…but there was no way to do that because he was not a wizard and this was not an anime. Still, though, he should have been nicer. Fukuda couldn't help that he didn't know about kids because no girl had ever wanted to marry him and have kids with him. That was just the way that it had worked out and Sho should have just….been nicer.
"Sho…that wasn't a very nice thing to say….but I'll let it slide because you didn't curse and you're tired. When people get tired or stressed the first thing they lose control of is their mouths…and I'm not going to be mad at you." Said Fukuda. Well Sho certainly knew how to hit him where it hurt…but that was alright. He was tired, he was little, and he didn't know what he was saying. Sho was just a child and he as not going to read too much into what he said. He had been lashing out, that was all, and Fukuda…he was not going to let it get to him.
Sho was just a little boy.
He was a little boy who had gone through a lot. He was a little boy who didn't know how to self-regulate and…and he had no clue that his bedtime had been important. Shigeko…it pained him to even consider it but….but she was good at playing the part of the little mother. Somewhere in his things he had to piece of paper with the instructions that she had written out. She had given him a list of instructions like she was the adult and he was some babysitter…which in some ways he was. Yeah…he needed to look over that list again…especially since they were looking at weeks of this.
Until the end of April at least….yay….
"I'm sorry….it just came out. I didn't mean to be an asshole." Said Sho. He didn't get what Fukuda looked so freaked out for. He had been speaking Japanese, not Korean, so it wasn't like anyone around there could understand him…and even if they could who cared? He was pretty sure that he was in the free part of this country.
"Language." Said Fukuda. He wondered if there was some way to make this stop….or at least get Sho to cut down on it. A more powerful esper or not, blind or not, he was going to make Shimazaki Ryou pay for teaching Sho that it was ok to do all of this goddamned cursing.
"Sorry." said Sho even though he wasn't. He got the feeling, sometimes, that Fukuda wanted him to be little forever…but that was not how it worked. Fukuda was not the boss of time and Sho would grow up and he would curse as much as he wanted. That was what happened when you got bigger, you got to curse, and you got to get good at it too. He wished that Shimazaki had been there. He had always said that Sho was good at cursing.
"It's alright. How about we pay for those and then just…take a rest. Not a nap but a rest. We could have some green tea and watch Zootopia again or…well anything other than a scary movie. How's that sound?" asked Fukuda. If Shio fought him he would go as far as watch the one about the Korean zombie train. That was it. No more of these gory movies…they were poisoning Sho's mind and he'd grow up weird…or something. They could not have possibly been good for him.
"Ok…we'll watch Zootopia again…and rest." Said Sho. Fukuda was old and he deserved a rest. They had been out for a while and Fukuda had been busy with work before all of this. They could take a rest if he needed it, he was forty four now which was very old, and Sho….well he couldn't let Fukuda rest alone. He was getting pretty tired. Who would have thought that buying presents could be so exhausting…and he had only been shopping for the girls in his life…
He hadn't gotten anything for dad's birthday…and he had no intention of getting anything for dad's birthday. Sho was tired enough and dad wasn't worth the effort.