Dad was forty four now.

He had been forty three and now he was forty four. That was very old, in Mob's opinion, but she was still going to celebrate his birthday. Even if it wasn't Sunday she was still going to celebrate with dad because, well, birthdays were special occasions. They were like little holidays that were all about you and celebrating the day that you were born. Mob was very glad that her dad had been born forty four years ago today. She was glad that he existed because if he hadn't existed then Sho wouldn't have existed and she loved Sho very much….well also if dad had never been born then she would have never been born and she was very happy that she had been born.

That meant that she got to be Sho's sister.

She got to be Sho's sister and dad's daughter and Minegishi's best friend and also Shimazaki and Shibata and Hatori's very good friend…and what else could she have wanted in life? Well to be able to see her mom again…and to be able to see baby Mukai again…and to be able to go to school…and to be able to be friends with people her own age…and to be able to live in the Castle again…and to have a pet cat…and for everyone in the whole world to be friends and not have any more wars or fighting or mean words…and for the whole world to speak Japanese so she wouldn't have to learn all of these other languages…and for her legs to stop being itchy all the time…and for her little brother to have eternal happiness and joy….

She went back to cooking.

Ok, so she could wish for a lot of things out of life….big deal. This was not her day to be making wishes, it was dad's day, and she was going to make it a good one for him. She knew when he usually came home and she had everything all made for him. Miso soup and nato and bread with ketchup and a big fluffy omelet just like he liked it and warm tea…he would be so happy. He would be so happy and he would have the best birthday ever and he would be so happy and she would make him happy and then…and then they could be happy together. The only thing that would have made her happier was if Sho had been there…but he was off doing his own thing….

So it would just be her and dad.

She could feel dad's aura getting closer. She could feel him coming home and….and everything was done. She played the food up and washed her hands quickly. Dad would be so happy! He liked it when she cooked, he had said so, and also she was wearing that dress that he had gotten her and then dyed blue. He would be so happy to see her in this. He would be so happy and…and that was all she wanted. She practically ran to the door, she had to slow down because she slipped in her sock feet, but she made it just in time for dad to open it and step into the genkan.

"Happy birthday, dad!" said Mob as dad stepped inside. He looked up at her and then took off his shoes. Her smiled shrank down into her normal face. Right. It wasn't Sunday. On days when it was not Sunday he mostly just pretended that she didn't exist. She didn't know why. She didn't know why he had to save all of his love for Sunday…well she didn't want to be smothered either….but she also didn't want him to ignore her….she didn't know what she wanted, actually, since it seemed to be an either or thing…

And she had no clue at all why it had to be an either or thing.

Her love was not an either or thing. She just loved everyone. She loved them when they were nice and she loved them when they weren't. She loved them when they did good things and when they did bad things and when they messed up the thing they had been doing and when they were just plain lazy and hadn't done anything in a while. She loved everyone so much and it was so hard not to smother them…but she didn't. She knew how to spread her love out…

But dad didn't.

He just walked past her. She knew that he was going to go and take a bath now, he did that every night, and she knew that she was not supposed to bother him but…but it was his birthday. The least he could have done was say 'thank you' for saying happy birthday…and also for the birthday dinner that she knew that he could smell…but he didn't say anything. He just tried to walk right past her. He was treating her like she didn't even exist…but she did exist. She wasn't Shimazaki, she didn't have a condition where she thought that she had stopped existing if people didn't pay attention to her…

She was Mob and she existed.

"Dad, wait. I made you dinner….you know…because it's your birthday." Said Mob. Dad stopped walking but didn't turn to face her…and she didn't understand why. She didn't understand why he had to be like this. She knew that the alternative was him smothering her and stopping her from seeing her friends or even leaving his side…but she also knew that…that love could be spread around…like jam on bread…but dad didn't know that. He never spread things on his bread.

No, he dipped.

He always stuck the bread in the ketchup until it was soggy enough to break apart. She had seen him do that time and time again and it had always seemed like too…much. She never dipped her bread in anything. She always got a knife and spread things onto her bread. She knew that things could be spread around and she had been trying to show dad for years but…but he didn't care.

He either didn't notice or didn't care.

"Thank you. We'll revisit this on Sunday. Goodnight." Said dad. He said goodnight even though…even though he hadn't even said 'good morning' or thank you or…or any of the stuff that you were supposed to say and…and she knew what he was like…and she didn't know why she had expected him to be any different on his birthday. She had just wanted to make him happy but…but she should have known that she couldn't…because dad was…well he was dad.

Dad was dad and she was only Mob.

"Ok…I guess. There's dinner on the table if you want it and…and me and Sho got you presents…well I got you something, Sho drew you something….and it's all on the kitchen table for you along with your dinner. Goodnight dad. Happy birthday. I love you." Said Mob. She watched dad's aura. It flared out, then tucked in, and then flared out again…and she had no idea if he was sad or mad or glad or…or what. He was just…he was someone who was very hard to read sometimes.

Even by his own daughter.

She wondered if this was how mom had felt. Mom had been the total opposite of dad in a lot of ways. She had always been very open with how she felt and she had loved her and Sho both…but she had never smothered either of them. She wished that dad had taken some love lessons from mom…or that mom had never left in the first place. If mom had been there then she would have made dad a cake even though he hated sweets and she would have had a bunch of presents for him and…and it would have been nice. Mob only had two presents for him and she had only made him a few things for dinner, the things that she already knew how to make, and…and she had thought that she could have made him happy….

But it wasn't Sunday so he wasn't going to let her make him happy.

"Thank you. I love you too. Now goodnight." Said Dad. He went back to walking down the hall and, just as Mob predicted, he went right into the bathroom to take his after work bath. Mob stayed in the genkan, not even a real genkan just a rug on the floor, and listened to the water running. She felt…dad had thanked her and that was what she had wanted…but she had also wanted dad to sit down at the table and eat dinner with her and then open his presents and then be happy…dad happy. Not even real happy. Just dad happy…

But it was not Sunday.

Mob took her feelings and tried to squish them down. She should have known that because this was not a Sunday that dad would not have wanted to spend time with her. She should have known that good times were only for Sundays. That smothering times were only for Sundays. That unless she kept the smothering times only to Sundays that…that dad might either ignore her or get the idea that he needed to smother her again…and she did not want that…

She just wanted dad to love her like normal.

But dad did not love people like normal or do anything like normal because he was dad and he was not a normal person. He was better than normal, he had said so many times before, but in times like these Mob could not see it…and that was a terrible way to think about her own dad. Her dad was her dad and unless she wanted to become an orphan then she had better get used to him. She was almost eleven now, it was only a few weeks away that she had her birthday, and….and she needed to have gotten used to dad by now…since he would be this way forever…

Including on her birthday.

Yes. She was used to this. She was….used to dad. She was so used to dad that she was going to go to her room and…and lay down, maybe. She didn't know. She could go next door but part of her, the hopeful part, hoped that dad would feel better after his bath and then that he would want to celebrate his birthday with her and that…that everything would be ok….and for that to happen then she had to stay home. So she did. Nobody had to be all alone on their birthday.

That was just too sad.

So Mob went to her room. Dad would know where she was, he could sense auras even better than she could, and if he wanted to talk to her then he would. She wanted to talk to him, she wanted to be near him and talk to him, but she didn't because not only was this not a Sunday dad was also taking a bath and she could not see her own dad naked in the bath because that was just…gross. Very gross. She didn't even take baths with Sho anymore and he was her very own brother….so no, she would not be bothering dad.

She went to her room.

She went to her room and took off her dress. Even if dad had dyed it blue for her she still didn't like it. That was a copy of mom's dress and she did not want to wear a copy of mom's dress, she wanted to wear her own dress, so that was what she did. She hung up the dress that dad got her and went digging through her drawers for one of her nightshirts that fit. These were her summer clothes from last year, she hadn't gotten around to getting new ones since it had been winter where she had been staying, and not everything fit right. A lot of it was either too short, too tight in the chest and arms, or both. She didn't know why she had done so much growing at once….but it wasn't all bad.

She looked at herself in the mirror.

She was taller now, which was good, because she was older. She had always been excited to get taller especially when mom would mark her and Sho's heights in the doorway. She had no idea how much taller than Sho she was now, it felt like she hadn't seen him in years, but it had never been about being taller than Sho. It had always been about just being…taller. Being tall enough to swim in the big people pool, being tall enough to go on the big kid play structure. Being tall enough to….she was tall enough to see over the top of the stove now…and she was tall enough to climb onto the counters without a chair…though she just used her powers to get things from up high these days….being tall was still nice in and of its self though….

So growing up wasn't all bad.

She pulled her undershirt in close to her stomach…and then let it go immediately. She should not have been looking at herself like that. She knew that they were there, the bump things, and she had no reason to be looking at herself like that. Well at least she felt more embarrassed at herself than hurt at how dad had been…so that was good. She got dressed quickly. She should not have been looking at herself like that and she had been right to have been embarrassed. She knew that she was going to grow up to look like mom and…and it was nothing to be looking at herself in the mirror over. It was a thing that was happening to her. Just like how her legs were starting to get all fuzzy. She was growing up, she was almost eleven, and she had no reason to just…stare at herself in the mirror like that.

Getting older was nothing special.

Dad had said, before, that when you got to a certain age birthdays stopped being special. Shimazaki had said that same thing about turning thirty…and Minegishi just plain was not a big fan of celebrating things….so maybe dad was right not to get excited. Maybe birthdays, getting older, these things were maybe not important enough to break the rule about Sundays for…so maybe Mob shouldn't have been excited to grow up, too. She pulled her nightshirt up over her head…and then took it off again. This one was too tight, too, and also it had no sleeves. That was good, usually, for the summer but bad for her now.

Great. Now she could only wear things with sleeves.

She went over to her drawers and took out her short sleeved nightgown with Hello Kitty on the front. She had gotten this a year ago and it had been too big then…but it fit just fine now. Good. She had never been a big fan of no sleeved shirt but now….well now she could never wear them again. Great, maybe getting older did suck…not that she should have even though about the word 'suck' but, well, it sort of did. She couldn't wear no sleeved shirts, had to wear socks all the time now even in the Australian summer, a lot of her favorite clothes didn't fit, and she couldn't sleep on her stomach anymore without her chest hurting. Maybe that was why dad was never happy about his birthdays too. Aging…it sort of…was not good. It sort of sucked. Dad was getting older too. He squinted whenever he had to read things on his phone, his back hurt all the time, and he even threw his back out if he moved wrong…

So it made sense for him not to be happy on his birthday.

So then it wasn't Mob's fault that he had been unhappy. It wasn't Mob's fault that he hadn't wanted to break the rules about Sundays to spend time with her on his birthday. It wasn't Mob's fault that she wouldn't be able to see him open his presents. It wasn't Mob's fault that she wouldn't be able to have dinner with him.

It just wasn't her fault.

She felt better, then, as she went through her clothes and separated out what did fit from what did not fit. She knew that she should have done this with Sho, that way she could get both of their new sets of summer clothes at once, but Sho wasn't there and she needed….she needed to do something. She needed to do something because she felt better that things weren't her fault…but she knew that the feeling would not last. She knew that her brain would find something else for her to feel guilty about and she knew that if she didn't keep moving, keep doing something, that her brain would catch up to her and start telling her that she wasn't doing enough for dad and that she hadn't done enough for Sho and that there was just too much to be done and she just was not good enough and…

And she worked faster.

She took a big handful of clothes out of her pajama drawer and heard something rolling. She heard it rolling before it hit the end of her drawer. A tiny bottle. She knew what that was, that was from the plane ride from Russia, and she had forgotten that she even had that. She read the label. It took her a minute because Russian was very complicated. She'd had to try and learn a whole new set of sounds and characters, before, and…it took her a minute to read the label. Oh. This had come from a place called the Hotel Moscow. Maybe that was why the bottles were so tiny. She had seen on TV that hotels had tiny things though she had never stayed in one before.

It looked sort of cute, to be honest.

Tiny things were cute. This could have been a bottle of vodka for dolls…but it wasn't a bottle of vodka for dolls, it was for people, and Mob was a person. She knew that Minegishi had told her never to drink alone, that she had to have moderation or else she would end up like Hatori, but she knew what she was doing. She was just going to have one, not four, and also she wasn't going to drink this super fast like Hatori had. He could be so…she didn't know. He was so…she didn't want to call him dumb but…not smart. He could be sort of not very smart sometimes…

So why did she kind of like him again?

She didn't know. She did know that she didn't want to feel bad feelings so she uncapped her tiny bottle of vodka and had some…and drank it down as fast as she could. No wonder Hatori had gotten sick. This tasted like burning…more so than usual. That was good, Shimazaki had said, the worse it felt going down the better it would make her feel…if she used moderation, like Minegishi had said. She was happy to have had such good friends in her life….and stuff. She wanted to see her friends so badly but…but she wasn't going to leave dad alone on his birthday.

She couldn't so something that sad to him.

Maybe she could invite her friends…or just Hatori…over. Dad liked Hatori. Last time when he had come over dad had made him hang out and play Minecraft with him while Mob sat next to them in bed watching Frozen. They weren't good friends, Hatori had still had to sit in a chair and not on the bed with her and dad, but it felt good knowing that she had a friend who dad didn't want to beat up…but she didn't really get Minecraft…

Well she did, it was fun, but dad REALLY liked it.

She wished that she could have been playing Minecraft with him…and Hatori too she would have to invite him…and then dad could have been happy…but it was not Sunday…and also playing Minecraft with dad wasn't very fun. He liked to stay up all night playing. He had kept Hatori up all night. Mob had fallen asleep sometime during frozen and had woken up before the sun, she had needed more blanket but dad was sitting on it, to them still playing Minecraft….and as much as Mob loved Minecraft she didn't want to play it all night with dad being all bossy…well he was the President he could boss around whoever he wanted to…but still…

It was his birthday and if he felt like coming into her room and telling her to play Minecraft with him then that would be fine….

But he didn't. She could feel his aura moving through the house. She could feel him in the kitchen…and he was eating the food that she had made…but he didn't even ask her to join him….she finished her tiny bottle of vodka. She felt a little sick from drinking so fast, and her eyes were getting all watery, but…but she felt better. Dad could do whatever he wanted, he was dad, and it was his birthday. On his birthday he could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted…which was also what a normal day for him was because he was the President of Claw and he would be king of the world and stuff soon….

So this was ok.

She would stay in her room not to leave him alone but if he didn't talk to her until Sunday…well that was ok. She was ok with that. She really was. Even though she wished, as she went through her clothes, that he would knock on her door with his laptop in his hand and tell her to get her laptop and to get Hatori because he knew Minecraft things and then they were all going to go and collect materials for him so he could make another Claw base then…then that would have been fine too. Because he was her dad and she loved him so much and she just wished that he could have a happy birthday…

And maybe she had wished too hard.

She hadn't thought anything of it when she had felt his aura moving from the kitchen and down the hallway again. She had just thought that he had been getting ready to either work in his room or relax. She would have expected her laptop to come to life and tell her that dad was in their shared world or something. She would have expected him to walk right past her door and get to his own room…but he didn't. He stopped right in front of her door…and he just sort of stood there for a while…and she stopped what she had been doing. She stuffed her tiny vodka bottle into her pile of clothes, she was only allowed to drink socially, and she waited for dad to let himself in like he always did because he was her dad and the boss of her and he could open whatever doors he wanted to whenever he wanted to and there was nothing that she could do about it….and she shouldn't have wanted to do anything about it because he was her dad and she didn't get to tell him what to do.

He told her what to do.

But he wasn't telling her anything. He was just standing there….and this was weird, even for him, not that she would ever call her own dad weird or anything like that. No, that would have been mean…and especially on his birthday, too. She loved him and she would never call him weird or point out that hanging out in front of her door and not even saying anything or knocking was weird…

Maybe he was waiting for her to say something.

"Hi dad…you can come in if you want." Said Mob. She stood up and walked to her door. She would open it for dad if he asked her to…or he would just open it himself. This was her room but…but it was his house…and she had never cared if he came into her room before…and she was just being weird and stuff. She wanted dad to come in. She wanted to spend time with dad…she really did.

She did….even if he had been sort of mean to her she still wanted to spend time with him…

"No I…I just wanted to…to thank you for dinner. You are a very accomplished cook and you should be proud of your skills….so thank you. Also I will open your gifts on Sunday. Sleep well, Daughter." Said dad. His aura was all pulled in like he was scared of something…but she had no idea what. Of her? No, that made no sense. Dad loved her and he wasn't scared of her. She would never do anything to hurt him, anyway. She couldn't have ever even hurt him if she had wanted to. He was bigger and stronger than she was.

"Dad, we can hang out together if you want to." Said Mob

"No…it's not Sunday. On Sunday I can spend time with you so…so wait until Sunday. It's for your own good. I know how you like to watch others open gifts so we can do that on Sunday…and we can visit with your friend again…and we can watch those films you like….but on Sunday. Only ever on Sundays and…and I shouldn't even be thanking you now but I will…so thank you, Daughter." Said dad.

"Thanks dad….we can do presents on Sunday if you want….and happy birthday. Have a good sleep." Said Mob. She felt….better. Maybe it was the warm and light feeling she got from the vodka or maybe it was about how dad had talked to her and stuff…but she felt better. She felt like….like maybe that was what it was supposed to feel like when your dad loved you without smothering you. She felt so good…and the only thing that could have made her feel better would have been if Sho had been there…and she loved him so much….but that was ok because she was not going to smother him. Dad hadn't smothered her so she was not going to smother him.

She was just going to be happy.

She laid down in her bed and just….let herself feel happy. She would go back to what she had been doing in a minute. Right now she just wanted to feel all happy from dad being nice but not smothery…and also the warm swimming feeling she was getting from drinking…she was just going to be happy and forget. Forget how bad she felt about dad and getting older and dad getting older and just…feel good for a little bit. It was dad's birthday and…and she had made him happy...

And that was all that she had ever wanted….to give him a happy forty fourth birthday.