There were thousands of glass eyes staring at him.

Pairs of them. Pairs of them in every single color eyes came in. Browns and blues and greens and also some blacks and purples, and yes eyes could be purple, and this would have been beautiful if those eyes had belonged to living people. Not that dolls could be living people. Not that he wasn't already surrounded by living people.

He much preferred the dolls.

Dolls, at least, weren't alive. Dolls were plastic and glass and wire frames and all of that. Dolls were not people. Dolls did not get up and walk around and talk and breathe and live.

It was a Sunday and on Sunday he made his Daughter happy.

Which was why he was spending his day at a multi-story doll museum and shop. He was surrounded by normal people, little girls, and dolls. He was in hell. This was hell. Hel was little girls and normal people and a thousand dolls and a million eyes and the eyes were dead and the people were alive with no auras and….and this was what hell was….

But Daughter was happy so that was what mattered.

Her happiness was his happiness. She was happy here. This was her sort of place. She loved dolls. She loved those little representations of human beings. She didn't think that they looked dead at all. No. She found them pleasing. They were her favorite playthings….and she was still young enough that she still had playthings. She was still a child. He was so grateful that she was still a child. She was a child…not like the children around them were children…but she was still a child and that was what mattered. Still young. He had seen the way she had been looking at Hatori, he wasn't the best at reading faces but he could read auras, and she had been taken with him. She had been looking at him with her aura and her eyes like she had been completely taken with him….and if Hatori hadn't been a homosexual he would have….well he didn't know what he would have done. On the one hand Hatori was in no way shape or form worthy of Daughter….no man that he had ever met was….but on the other hand he wanted her to grow up and have children….he did….but he didn't want her to….well he did…but he also didn't….but it was normal for her to get older and want to be with someone of the opposite sex…but he just was not ready for that…

But it was a moot point.

No matter how taken with Hatori Daughter was he was still a homosexual and therefore he would never be interested with Daughter. So Daughter could be interested in him…which she might not have been. She might not have been because she was only eleven…well almost eleven…and she still played with dolls. She still played with dolls and watched animated movies and still held his hand when they were out and about in this hellish crowd….she was still a child and that was what mattered. She was his Daughter. She was his Daughter and only his Daughter….and she only knew herself as his Daughter.

She knew that she was his Daughter.

He'd had almost lost control the other night. When she had come to him asking about a person called Ritsu. A person from a memory from a dream, she had said, and that….he had felt years get shaved off of his life…and he had also shaved several years off of Hatori's life as well. She had come to him in the night and asked about Ritsu…her brother…the brother who she should not have been able to remember. She had been two, only two, when he had adopted her. When he had brought her into his family. When she had become his Daughter. She should not have been able to remember her biological family. Her only memories should have been of her new family, her real family, but somehow she had just….she just remembered….he had remembered….

Hopefully she never remembered again.

He would have taken sitting there and watching her talk to Hatori like she he feelings for him, gladly taken it, if he never had to hear her ask about her old life…memories that she'd had from her old life. He hadn't imagined that she would ever have been able to remember….he himself couldn't remember being that young….but she had remembered. In a dream. Well….well she'd had thousands of dreams in her lifetime, most likely, and she'd have others…and he just….if he never said anything then maybe she would forget….or maybe if he just….gave her more things to remember….

Then maybe she would forget again.

She tugged him to the side. She wanted to look at another doll display. Well this was certainly the place for her to make new memories. This chaotic….chaos….place. Little girls everywhere. She was a little girl in a sea of other little girls. She was a little girl and this must have been her heaven. Her heaven and his hell. Too many people around. He could command legions of people, his own people, but being out and about with people….being out like this…it was hell. It was hell but he would endure it just to be near to her. Just to know that she was happy….that this was a place which made her happy….

"Wow. Hey dad, look. That dollhouse has electricity and running water. Why would dolls need electricity and running water?" asked Daughter as she pointed to what wasn't even a dollhouse anymore. It was a house for small people. Borrowers…like the stories his mother would tell. The little people that lived in the walls and borrowed things from the family…but really stole….and also had the tails of mice. That was the worst part, the mouse tails, because people were not mice….

Disturbing.

"To show that you can have such an expensive thing, perhaps. Some people have the need to display their wealth copiously like that. Yes, that's the reason. Not for borrowers." Said Suzuki. He wondered if she would have wanted a dollhouse like that. It would have been difficult, logistically, to move such a thing whenever they moved but it would have been worth it for her. He would have given her whatever she had wanted and then some just to make her happy. To make her content. To help her to be content. To help her be content enough that she could forget what she should have forgotten nine years ago.

"Borrowers? Like from the Arrietty movie?" asked Daughter

"I've never seen that film. I'm referring to the people who live in the walls and steal things when the family is asleep." Said Suzuki

"Yes, that's Borrowers like from Arrietty. But they borrow dad, they don't steal." Said Daughter

"They never plan on returning what they take and therefore that is stealing…also they have the tails of mice and I find that exceptionally disturbing. Intelligent mice are disturbing enough but people the size of mice with the tails of mice….that is just not right." Said Suzuki with a barely perceptible shudder. She took her free hand and patted his hand, the one that was holding her hand, and it was…nice. She was….offering him comfort. Comfort which he should have rejected, he was forty four and he was her father as well so therefore it was his job to comfort her, but it was a gift to receive comfort and affection from her…and it was one that he would not take for granted.

He had taken it for granted before.

Masami has always initiated bonding activities like that. She had always touched him and held him…and in an effort not to be weak he had shrugged her off even though he had enjoyed it…and then she had just left him one day. Their relation had been under a time limit and he hadn't even realized it. Well now he did. Daughter was not his wife, she was his child, and their relationship was…and was not….under a time limit. She would grow up one day and then….and then he had no clue at all what they would become. If she would still hold his hand. If she would still be affectionate towards him. If she would still even be with him…and she had to be with him….but she would meet someone else….

And she might have been upset with him if he were to send her husband far away with no hope of him ever returning….

So he allowed her to show him this bit off affection. He would enjoy it while he could. There were so many children around, little girls, and they were just….around. Most were not with their parents, physically with, and the ones that still clung to their parents were much younger than Daughter. He was bad at aging children so he went by their heights. The one's who were Daughter's height were either holding onto younger siblings or standing off in a corner on their phones. So he was grateful to have what he had with his Daughter…

For however long it would last.

"Don't worry dad, mice aren't as smart as people and borrowers are only stories. The ones in Japan, or the ones in Arrietty anyway, didn't even have tails…but they aren't even real anyway so it doesn't matter. Come on, let's see the next dollhouse. That one has a real swimming pool it looks like….even though I don't know why dolls need a swimming pool…but that would be cool to have." Said Daughter. Suzuki made a mental note to have a dollhouse built for her which had all the amenities that a human being would need but in miniature. Yes, that would make her happy and he wanted nothing more than her happiness…

She was so beautiful when she smiled.

Really she stood head and shoulders above all of these other little girls in every single measureable way. She was more well dressed and in better spirits and more well behaved as well. She didn't run around, she didn't bang on the glass displays, and she didn't carry on like some of these other little girls were. Honestly, so many of them behaved like Son…and he would have expected better from little girls. Maybe Daughter was just exceptional. Yes, that made sense. His Daughter was simply the greatest little girl to ever live. Well that made sense. She was the Daughter of the greatest man to ever live…and she was his Daughter even if he did not father her….and she knew that she was his Daughter….and she thought that he fathered her….and she would never know the truth. No, she would not even get close to it. He wouldn't let her. Suzuki didn't give a damn how many days of his life he would have to spend at the doll museum, how many hours he would have to spend packed in with the masses, if it made his Daughter happy….and it made her forget….everything which he should have forgotten long ago.

There's a piercing scream and then a small shoe hits the display behind him.

He held her hand a little tighter as a group of little girls ran by being chased by an even smaller, and shoeless, little girl. He had forgotten how…childish…children could be. Not his Daughter, of course. Never Shigeko. No. She took the time to look at each and every doll display in order. One display and then another and another. Another and another and another. All day. For his entire day. Dolls. Tiny little people with dead eyes and dead skin and dead auras and no auras and….and this was a hell. This place was hell but her land in his was heaven. The warmth of her, the sense of….there-ness….that came with being with her. She was like a rock in an ocean and a tsunami was going on but she was there and she was safe, not the he felt unsafe or anything like that, no he was surrounded by a crowd of normal people and dolls…

And he was fine.

Really he was. He had no reason not to be fine. No reason at all. He was Suzuki Touichirou. He was fine and he was always going to be fine…so why did he feel like this? Why did he feel like….he didn't feel like anything. He didn't feel like he was trapped and stuck and….and those words were synonymous…and now his thoughts were all….fine. His thoughts were fine and he was fine. He was the most fine. He clutched Daughter's hand in his. She was soft, so soft, and so warm. She was soft and warm and she was like a beacon of warmth and light in this storm of people. Her physical body and her aura, too. He let his aura meet hers. He held on to her. He held on to her aura and kept himself there with her. She was the only other esper within his passive range. No one else. Nothing else. Just him and her there together. Her hand in his. His hand in hers. Her aura in his. His aura in hers.

And the thousands and thousands of glass eyes staring at him.

Now there was a pair of brown eyes meeting his. A pair of living brown eyes looking up at him. Her eyes were almost black, Daughter's, and his were blue. Had she noticed it yet? That her eyes were different. She must have. She wasn't blind. She could see and she must have seen, by now, the differences between her and him. Her and her brother. Her and her mother…if she could even still recall her mother. If she could still conjure up the image of her mother within her mind. He could….he could see Masami if he tried hard enough and for long enough…

He didn't have to try very hard.

He could see her there, in Daughter's eyes, in her brown eyes. Masami's eyes…they had been different….not as close to black as hers….but her eyes were black-ish….but he could still see Masami. This was the sort of place she would have loved. She loved museums. She loved them and she loved going places with him….and he hated going places. He hated being surrounded by people, normal people, and he hated being so far removed from other espers. So far removed from people who were like him….

You're being ridiculous, Touichirou.

That was what Masami would have told him. She would have told him that he was being ridiculous just like she had always said when they had been out and about. He remembered….they had been at a museum. The Tokyo museum of art. She had been big with Son then….and maybe that trip had some effect on him. He did turn out to be an amazing artist. Better than Suzuki had ever been, anyway. He could recreate images from life and he could create them on his own, too, from his own mind. Son was so gifted…and it had been a while since he had gotten some of his creations….he so wished that Daughter could draw. Then he could have had some of her creations adorning the walls of his office. Then it would have been like having her near him always…

He always wanted to have her near him.

She was so like Masami in this moment. He had taken her to the Tokyo art museum when she had been…he had no idea how many weeks pregnant she had been but she had been very big with Son. She'd have been better off being at home and off of her feet but she had told him….what had she said? That she was beginning to feel completely cut off from the world. She had said that it was hard being all alone in the house all day…he had been making an effort to be near to her since she was bearing his child and he hadn't wanted Fukuda in the house with her…not that he didn't trust Fukuda he just hadn't like the idea of another man anywhere near his wife. It had been a primal urge, there, the urge to keep his wife all to himself. He trusted her, he always would, but it was the rest of the world he could not trust. Masami was the most perfect woman who had ever lived. What man wouldn't have wanted her? No man could ever have resisted her perfection, her kindness, her intelligence, the softness of her skin and her hair…and the way he could just stare at her for hours and hours and never get bored of her…

He feels a hand struggling in his.

"Dad, can I be the one to hold your hand….I mean I like it when you hold my hand but your hand is a lot bigger than mine and you're stronger than me….so can my hand be on the outside and yours be in the inside?" asked Daughter. She was facing him now. Her back was to one of the glass displays, this was a castle and she loved castles so this much have been something important to her to get her to turn her back on a miniature version of her dream home, and….and maybe…..maybe he had been holding on to her hand too tightly….

His knuckles were white.

He'd hurt her. He had been hurting her…and small hairline fractures form in the glass in front of him. He had been hurting her…and it wasn't as though he had never punished her before…but he hadn't had cause to punish her in a while…and the thought of punishing her makes him feel sick….and he hadn't even been punishing her. He had been trying to keep her near him, to keep him safe, because this was a big place with a lot of people and she was so small and it would have been easy for her to just slip into the crowd and disappear from his life forever….and he didn't want that at all…

He didn't know what he would do without her.

"Yes. That's fine. Look at the castle." Said Suzuki as he let go of her hand….and he feels cold….but then she takes his hand and he feels warm again. Her hand is holding his now…and she has such small hands. She's so small. She's taller now than she had been before but she was still so small compared to him. He could have lifted her….if he had wanted to either use his powers in public or break his back in half…..and he doesn't…but he wants to. He used to have had the ability to pick her up with ease…when she had been small. She had been so small and he had been 'daddy' to her and not dad…

Why couldn't she had remembered that?

Why on Earth could she not have remembered the times that he had spent with her when she had been that small? The time that he had taken to show her how to use her powers. The time that Masami had forced him to spend with her so she would bond with him as a parent. All of those stories he'd read. The hours he'd spent throwing balls and disks and such to her in the backyard to teach her hand eye coordination. The times where she would sit on his lap during meals and pick off of his plate even though she had her own food right there…with that cat on it…and when she had been small she had been obsessed with that white cat….and now it was the ice queen….

She was still dressed like the ice queen.

A blue shirt with her picture on it and a blue skirt. Her shoes were blue too and they sang when she walked, well he had asked her to turn that feature off, but they could….and she loved the ice queen now…but she was getting older and there was the chance that…that she would like something else. That this time in her life would just be a distant memory….a memory that would come to her in the night….but better this time come to her in the night then…then the times that had come before these. The times when she had lived in Seasoning City. The times when she had been called Kageyama. The times….the times before these times…

These were the times for her to remember.

"Dad….if you don't want me to hold your hand you could just say so…I mean…please don't break the glass. I like it here and I think that if we break things then we'll get kicked out." Said Daughter. So she did notice the cracks in the glass…but that's fine. She's fine.

"You're fine. This is fine. Do you like that castle? I think that you would if you spent more time looking at it." Said Suzuki. He pointed to the castle. The one in front of them under glass. Was that what she wanted them to live in? He knew that she liked European royalty…and she called their old home the castle. Yes, he could build her something like this.

It would be wonderful.

Just him and her….and whatever children she had of course. Just him and her and the children. Eating meals together, watching television together, playing games together….and it would have been socially acceptable since he would have been bonding with his family, and they would also teach the children to use their powers together….and he so looked forward to that…and then after a long day they would retire to their room and watch whatever new and fascinating show she had found for them, he'd have to put them to making more ice queen movies for her and also more Evangelion movies….also for her….but he would also partake if that was what she felt like watching….and then he could hold her and they'd drift off to sleep and she would be the last thing he saw after closing his eyes and the first thing he saw when he opened them again in the morning….

And it would have been perfect.

"I think it's great, dad, I really do. I like castles a lot. Well castles and palaces….I think that I like palaces better, though, but castles are nice too." Said Daughter

"Well there's no reason that you can't have both. Our home will be whatever you want it to be." Said Suzuki. He didn't care what she built just so long as she was happy. Why would she leave a place that she had designed herself? Maybe he should have let Masami choose their home…..he had just bought the biggest one and then the two next to it…but maybe if she had designed it then she would have been happy enough to stay….

But that didn't matter. He'd build Daughter the house of her dreams and then she would be so happy that the thought of leaving wouldn't even cross her mind.

"You've said that but…um…what if I wanted to go back to the Castle? I mean….I mean our old home….where we lived…before here." Said Daughter. Suzuki…remained calm. He remained calm and his aura did not flare and his powers stayed under control and he did not pick Daughter up, shake her, and tell her that they were never going to go back there because that was Masami's home and they were not going to disturb it. Ever.

Ever.

Under glass. He would put it under glass. He would have the whole thing put under glass. He would have the whole thing kept exactly the way that she had left it….well as best as he could keep it. He had been there before…and he had disturbed the whole thing….but…but he would never return. He would let the dust settle again and nobody would ever set foot in that home again. Ever. For the rest of eternity.

Ever.

"No. We're never going back…now look at the houses." Said Suzuki simply. He wouldn't even entertain the idea. They were never going back. If she wanted their old home then he would have it recreated for her. He would have it recreated down to the furnishings for her if that was what she wanted. She could have it all. Masami's closet, her wardrobe, her vanity table, her perfume shelf, all of it. She could have it all….in replica.

In replica.

"Um….yes, dad." Said Daughter. There. Problem solved. She would stop asking him about the past…about going back to the past….and she…she just….she needed to forget the past already. The past was in the past, he had heard her say that a thousand times…from her song….but she must have believed that at least a little bit. She had to. It was the truth.

The past was in the past.

And he hoped to God that she would just forget the past already. Just….forget their old home and…and the one she'd had before it. Every time she brought up the past he feared, not that he ever feared, that she would just…just remember it all…and then he would lose her forever.

And he could not have that.