Minegishi preferred to worry about other people's problems, that way they wouldn't have to confront their own.

This was new. Before, well, they would have found salvation at the bottom of a bottle and the end of a joint. Well there was still plenty of salvation there for them to find, and they had found some there today, but right now they were going to focus on Mob's problems. In focusing on her problems they wouldn't have to think about their own. This was new. Ten years ago, or even five, they wouldn't have given a damn about another human being's problems but…well….Mob wasn't just another person. She was Mob.

And she had a lot of problems.

Her place in Claw, her place in her family, the extremely worrying relationship she had with her father, all of it. She had a lot of problems and Minegishi was happy to help with hers. Maybe if they did nothing but help with her problems then their own problems would wither and die like those grapes they forgot to take off the vine…and now that was a real problem that they had. They needed to focus on Mob's problems because she actually had real ones. Not like whatever the hell was happening with them. They were just…they hated Osaka and they were struck with the truly bizarre feeling that they wanted to go home…and they were home! This was the closest thing to home that they had.

This stupid park.

This had been their home away from home for a time. This park. This playground. The massive tunnel shaped like a centipede that they had slept in when they had been young and in need of a place to sleep. This place…this city…this was the closest thing to home that they had but there was still this part of them that was screaming at them to just go home already….not back to the house but HOME and they had no home…not really…

Well the old house was still standing.

"Mob, are you just going to sit here with me or are you going to go and play?" asked Minegishi as they looked over their book towards Mob. They had been thinking crazy thoughts, the sort of thoughts that made them want to see the old house, see if it was still standing. See if those trees were still there…and of course they were. Those were trees, one that they had grown themselves, and they trusted their own work. Besides, they had great fertilizer.

They were not going to think about that.

Instead they were going to think about Mob. They were going to think about how her eyes kept on darting up from her own book, one of her light novels about a boy and a girl falling in love but being too scared to admit it to one another, to the group of actual boys acting like morons over at the pullup bars. Maybe they should have timed this better…or maybe they had timed this perfectly. They had gone and asked Mob if she wanted to go to the park after their nap but before her incredibly long list of daily chores had been done….and they would have thought that their fearless leader could have put his own shirts on hangers….and now they were here at this park during afterschool times. There were kids around, louder and freer than they had ever been, and louder and freer than Mob knew how to be. They were alike in some ways, them and Mob, but in some ways also very different.

They wouldn't have been content to just start at those boys.

No, they would have done something about…well how they felt. They had been about Mob's age when all of that had started up and they had done something about it. They had been less timid than her, and they were still less timid than her, and frankly Mob needed to learn how to be less timid. She was Suzuki Shigeko. She was the daughter of the most powerful man in the world, she was the second most powerful esper in the world, and she had been ballsy enough to ask out a fucking grown man. She wanted boys, there were boys, and really she would never meet a boy her age unless she got up off of this bench, put down that trashy light novel, and got out there already.

There, see? Weren't her problems so much easier to deal with?

"I'm going to sit here with you." Said Mob. She made eye contact with Minegishi and then looked back down at her book. She had been on the same sentence since….well she wasn't entirely sure how long. She just knew that they had come here to sit in the shade and read and get out of the house. Sho should have come with, he liked parks, but he had been locking himself in the closet all day lately. She had no idea what he did in there but he cursed a lot and also yelled at her when she tried and opened the door. That was his secret club, he had said, even though it wasn't much of a secret if he taped a bunch of signs on the closet door that said 'secret club do not enter' and also….well it wasn't much of a club if it was just him sitting in a dark closet all by himself all day.

Boys were weird.

She would never understand them no matter how old she got. Little brothers and other boys too. Like the ones doing flips on the bars. They kept on falling off and then when one of the boys fell off the other boys laughed at him even though he could have been really hurt….but that was just how boys are. Shimazaki and Sho were the same way…and she really didn't get it at all. Boys were so weird….and also tall. They were tall and…well she liked boys who were taller than her. Not that she liked any of those boys, no, she didn't know them and she couldn't like someone that she didn't know.

But she did like looking at them…because she was trying to understand them….because they were so weird and stuff.

"Mob, come on." Said Minegishi. This was something that they could help with. Mob needed to figure out guys her own age. They did not need another Hatori situation on their hands, first of all, and second of all being away from the opposite sex for the duration of her formative years could not have been good for her. Look at what had happened to Hatori. No, Mob didn't need that. She was clearly going through puberty, and getting into the worst part of it too, and Minegishi would help her though this like they had helped her through pretty much every single problem she'd had since they'd met. It wasn't like she had any parents or anything like that. Her mom was most likely dead and her dad treated her like some kind of sacred virgin/daughter-wife…so, yeah, without some much needed intervention Mob could very easily turn out to be really weird.

Hatori levels of weird…and Minegishi knew that the world did not need another Hatori.

"I want to sit with you. I like sitting with you." Said Mob. This was nice. She didn't want to go and play without Sho. There were a lot of kids there and if she went to play she would have been on her own…or worse. Maybe one of those other kids would try and play with her…and she didn't know how to play with another kid. The only kid that she knew besides Sho was Minori and they didn't really play together. They just sort of hung out…and maybe she was too old to play. Maybe she was too old for this place. She knew that she was eleven and eleven was a kid but she felt…well she had no idea how old she felt but she knew that it was an h-word lot older than eleven.

"Come on, I brought you here to play so go and play." Said Minegishi. They nudged her foot with theirs. Mob…she was a kid and she had no ability to relate to other kids who were not her brother…or her friend who was eleven going on twenty one and nobody saw anything wrong with that…not their monkey, not their circus. Mob was their monkey and this was their circus and they were going to be there for her no matter what capacity they needed her in. Even as her wingman.

"Can you come with me?" asked Mob. Shimazaki played with Sho…but he was Shimazaki. One time he had eaten a crayon, well chewed on it, to see what blue tasted like. He did things all the time that people were not supposed to do…but adults could play on playgrounds with kids. Mom used to do that when she and Sho were little, really little, and Mob couldn't remember those days that clearly…it was before she got sick…but she did remember that she and Sho'd had a lot of fun back then…and they could have fun together on their own now…

And also she could have that same kind of fun with Minegishi.

"I'm twenty eight, Mob, you go and play. I'll be here. I've got a lot of reading to do." Said Minegishi. They leaned back and went back to their book. It might have been very good…though they had no idea what it was about. They couldn't focus. They had no idea what was wrong with them. They couldn't focus at the house, they couldn't focus here, they were thinking about home for the first time in forever…they just did not know. All they knew was that Mob had been staring at those boys all day and she had no reason to be so timid.

And Minegishi knew that they could help her with that.

"Um….but there are other kids there." said Mob. She could see kids in uniforms, kids without uniforms, kids her age, kids older than her, kids younger than her, and just…a lot of kids. She had no idea what to do. Sho had always been very good at making friends with the other kids back when they had been little…and even now he was good at making friends. He had a girlfriend after all…not that Mob was sure what the whole story there was since he had told her all the stuff that he had told her…but he did have a girlfriend and he had always been good at making friends and maybe she should act like him….

That would have been a complete and total disaster.

Maybe she could just be herself…but herself was terrible. Minori had said so. Mob pulled the straps of her Elsa bag close. She looked, acted, and dressed like a first grader even though she should have been going into her last year old elementary school soon. She wasn't a first grader but…but if she acted like it and the other kids made fun of her…if a bunch of boys made fun of her...then she had no idea at all what she would do.

Probably be really embarrassed and run all the way home.

"So go and play with them. Come on, I see the way that you're looking at those guys over there." said Minegishi. Mob reached back and held her hair down. Her bangs were floating a little bit though and Minegishi could feel the grass beneath their feet standing at attention for her. God, she really was adorable. Where was the girl who had looked Hatori in the eye and asked to be fuck buddies, well kissing buddies, fully expecting him to say yes? That was the Mob that they liked to see…well not the asking out grown men part…but the confidence part. So if there was some way to find that confidence again then Minegishi would be the person to help her with that.

It was better than dealing with their own shit, anyway.

"I-I wasn't looking I mean…I mean I could never play with them or…or talk to them…or anything like that." Said Mob softly. She felt Minegishi reaching over past her. They closed her book and put it down on the bench next to them. This really was a good spot, nice and shady, and she had no idea why they wanted her to get up and play. They were happy there together….right?

Right?

"Mob, come on, I know you. Besides, you don't have to talk to them. I bet if you just go and sit on those swings over there those guy's are going to fall over each other for your attention. Trust me, I know guys and I've been your age before. They'd sell their own mother to the circus for five minutes of attention from a pretty girl." Said Minegishi. They weren't exaggerating. That was a terrible age. Plenty of guys were the worst…and plenty of girls, too, and Minegishi did not want Mob to turn into one of those kids that was more hormones than brains…but she already sort of was…and that wasn't good for anyone. The best thing to do was to show her that guys weren't everything, or at least not worth obsessing over, and also that guys her age were in reach and she didn't have to ask out her coworker who was nearly twice her age.

Because, really, that had been too much.

"I'm not pretty." Said Mob. Well dad said that she was pretty but he was her dad and dads were supposed to say that their daughters were pretty. They also weren't supposed to tell their sons that they were stupid and tiresome and stuff…but Mob was working on that…and she knew that she wasn't pretty, anyway. Minori was pretty, Minegishi was pretty, pretty much everyone was pretty. Mob was just…not ugly but really plain looking…and that was ok. She was who she was and…well even with her eyes all eyeshadowed up she still wasn't pretty.

But that was ok because not everyone in the whole world could be pretty…just like not everyone in the whole world could have powers…and all of that was ok.

"Mob, you are. You're a really pretty girl, you know that? You're pretty and I bet that one of these days you're going to make the boys fall like dominos to be near you. Like now. Trust me, you won't even have to say anything. They'll come to you…not that there's anything wrong with approaching someone but that might be a little advanced for you right now." Said Minegishi

"But….I don't think that I can have a boyfriend. I mean Sho has a girlfriend but I don't think that the long distance is good for their relationship. I read that long distance was a relationship killer…and also I don't think that dad wants me to have a boyfriend. He always pulls me away when boys try and talk to me when we're on out Sunday outings…and also he keeps on saying that he wants to spend his life with me…so maybe I shouldn't ever talk to boys." Said Mob. She didn't know if she wanted to spend her whole life with dad, she loved him but he could be a lot sometimes, and also she really wanted a boyfriend. She wanted a boy to kiss and hold hands with and love and be loved by and maybe that stuff that came later when she got older and stuff…but she knew that she couldn't even have the kissing part now. She moved around too much and even if she didn't dad was…well he was dad.

"I never said anything about finding a boyfriend, God, who has time for that stress? Just go and have fun…but remember that you don't owe anyone anything…but also it's ok to want what you want. So, yeah, go get 'em Mob." Said Minegishi. They nudged her again. She definitely needed to learn how to talk to guys. Her dad…Minegishi couldn't predict the future but they could definitely see Mob describing her relationship with her dad to a therapist in about ten or so years. That was just….Minegishi had no idea what to make of their relationship. It wasn't sexual, Mob would have said if it was and then Minegishi would end up rotting in a traitor hole for trying to kill Suzuki, but it was just…abnormal. The running theory, from Hatori since he was best friends with the President now or something, was that Suzuki had lost his mind after his wife died and now out of grief he turned Mob into a miniature version of her because he sucks at processing feelings.

Everyone else thought that he was just a weirdo.

Minegishi…really hoped that his first act as President of the world for life wasn't making it legal for close family members to marry….because it would have been a damn shame for him to have achieved his life's goal only to be murdered by a dandelion seed or something. Also the whole thing would have been bad for Mob….and even without the incest thing they were getting a real gender swapped Norman Bates vibe from Mob's relationship with Suzuki…

So, yeah, time to go and talk to some guys her own age.

"Um…ok. I do like swings….so that's where I'm going to go…to the swings." Said Mob as she got up off the bench. She smoothed her skirt down as she walked. There were kids to the left of her…and to the right…and they were running and playing and…and she really wished that Sho had been with her. Sho knew what to do. She didn't. She was clueless. If she was clueless in what to do when crossing a playground, the most clueless person who had ever lived, then why did Minegishi think that she could just go up to some boys and talk to them….

Well they had said that she wouldn't have to.

Mob sat down on a free swing. It was hot on the back of her legs…well all of Osaka was hot…but the plastic of the swing was very hot. Hot enough that maybe she should have gotten off. Maybe she should have gotten off and gone back to Minegishi and read her manga and just…stayed where it was safe. There was this old book that mom had read to her, you can't forsake the journey for the safety of your room it had said, and Mob…well maybe this was too much journey for her. Maybe she needed to get back to the safety of her room…or just Minegishi. They were reading and…well maybe something was bothering them. They knew Minegishi, how their aura was when they read, how relaxed it was, and this was not that. Their aura was all pulled in, what little aura they had, and Mob should have gone back to them.

But they had told her to come over here and just…be here. Like she was a kid or something…and she was a kid but…she looked out at the other kids. They were acting like Sho. Everyone was acting like Sho, the boys and the girls. They were running and screaming and…well Mob didn't do that. She didn't even like climbing that much either. Well she had always liked the swings best but she had never really liked climbing without Sho….and she never really went to places where there were other kids without Sho…and she didn't know why she missed her brother so much. She knew where he was, at home, and she knew that she would see him again when she got home…..but she really missed him right now. She missed Sho and also Minegishi, which made even less sense since they were sitting right there, and she just felt….

Like she shouldn't have been there.

Like this wasn't the place for her. She was sitting all alone on the swings just like when she had been little. She had felt the same way back when she had been little too. This was what she had always done during recess, well outdoor recess, she had always swung until it was over. Swings were fun because they were something that you could do by yourself. That way nobody got mad at you for being too near them when they were trying to play and also they didn't make fun of you for not having anyone to play with….and when you did try to play with someone they always kicked you out for looking bored.

But Mob wasn't bored, that was just how she looked.

She looked like dad. Dad always looked bored even when he wasn't. Like the time they had stayed up all night together and he explained Claw…all of it…everything from the HQs to the divisions to the cells and squads…and he had bene very excited. His aura had been excited but he just sounded as bored as he always did. He looked and sounded bored and so did she and he had told her, once, that the other kids hadn't liked him much either when he had been a kid. He also told her that it didn't matter if she was liked or not because one day their family would rule the world. Mob…even when their family ruled the world she still wasn't going to force people to like her…and this wasn't even about being liked…

She didn't want to be liked by the other kids. She wanted to be like the other kids…

Maybe. She didn't know. She just…she wondered what it was like to be Sho. He could be really happy sometimes…and he was always finding new ways to have fun, and he never worried about what people thought of him…well at least it seemed like he didn't. He had only told her the truth about who he liked because he didn't want people to think badly of him and stuff…even though that made no sense. Sho could love who he loved and if someone had a problem with her brother liking boys then she would just have to exorcise them….and Sho knew that she wouldn't let anyone not accept him….well she didn't tell dad what to do because he was the dad and she was the kid….but still. She would never have let anyone make Sho feel bad about who he was.

There was nothing worse than feeling bad about who you were.

Because, really, you were who you were. Sure you could be nice or mean but…well there were things that you couldn't help about yourself. Like how Hatori wanted to eat people or like how dad didn't know how people worked or like how sometimes Sho could get really mean…and how she looked bored all the time. She was who she was. She was Mob. She looked bored all the time, the other kids didn't like her, and that was alright because she had a best friend and a bunch of other good friends….and they were all adults…so maybe she would be able to make friends when she became an adult or something. Not that she was there to make friends…well making friends was always a good thing…but she was there to be near other kids and make Minegishi happy and stuff….

And she had been there for a while….so maybe it was time to get up.

The swing wasn't super hot anymore, not burning hot, and….well it was comfortable now…and she could get up. She could get up but…well she hadn't swung in a while. She liked swings and not just because it was something that she could do on her own…so maybe she would swing a little bit and then go back to Minegishi and finish her manga and stuff. She swung a little bit and watched the people as she went up and down. This was easier. Now she at least looked like she belonged. She could see a bunch of girls sitting and talking, sort of like what she and Minori did but without the smoking and stuff, and there were some little kids trying to climb up the slide while some other little kids tried to go down…kids had been doing that back when she had been little too….and there were those boys that she had been looking at…looking in the direction of….and they were looking at her…no, that was crazy. They had been looking in her direction. She looked over at them and then they all looked away and stuff so they had just been looking in her direction. Now they were shoving each other and stuff….and boys were so weird…

But she liked them.

They were like these weird people she wanted to be near and stuff. It was weird. She just…liked them a lot, even ones she didn't know, and it was just…like her brain had thoughts without her telling it what to think. Like she'd be doing laundry or homeschool work or something and then her brain would be all 'hey, if we had a boyfriend we could be kissing him right now' and then she would have to tell her brain to shut up but it wouldn't listen…like now…but she really needed it to listen….so maybe it was time to stop swinging. Yes, this was a great time to stop.

Someone was sitting next to her.

She dragged her feet on the ground to stop herself. There was a boy, one of the ones she had been looking at, sitting on the swing next to her. He was just sort of looking at her…and she had no idea what to do when a boy was looking at her. She just looked back. He looked away, then back to her, and then away again. She wondered what he wanted. She wondered if it was ok to ask. She didn't know. She barely knew how to talk to girls her own age…and boys were a whole other thing entirely. They were just…boys. Like people but also boys…well boys were people too…but boys were different people than girls…

Boys were just…boys….they were people but they were also boys…and she was not a boy.

She was a girl. She had been a girl for her entire life, and it didn't feel like anything, not really…except for when boys were near her. Boys who weren't family or friends. She felt…she felt like her eyeshadow was all smudgy, she felt like her skirt was somehow both too long and too short, and she felt like…well like she wasn't pretty at all…but also that she was being looked at…but in a good way. Not the way the Fukuda made her feel. More like….good but also….well not bad but…well not good and…

And also her brain didn't always work so well when she was near boys she liked…or just boys in general.

"Um….hi?" said Mob. She felt like she had to say something…and you were supposed to greet people nicely because that was good manners…and she had to have good manners because mom and dad had taught her that….and also she didn't want to be rude….and also she had to say something because she was being looked at like maybe he was trying to say something but he was waiting for her to say something…or something….she didn't know….

So she just said 'hi'.

"Hi…uh…hi." Said the boy. He looked behind her. She turned to see what was happening back there. His friends were waving at him and giving him a thumbs up. She didn't get it. She didn't get boys but boys didn't get girls so it was even. She wondered how people ever got married or became boyfriend and girlfriend and stuff if they were so hard to understand, boys for girls and girls for boys, but she would ask Minegishi later. They knew a lot of things about a lot of things.

Things that Mob didn't know.

"Hi…um….do you want this swing?" asked Mob. Maybe that was why she was being stared at. Minori would have known for sure. She always knew why boys were staring. Boys had all sorts of different looks, Minori had said, and she had been looked at by enough boys that she could figure out immediately why she was being looked at and stuff. She wished that Minori had been there…even though she said that parks were for babies.

"No….I mean…um…I'm Yamashida….um…do you want to see me jump? I can just really far…off the swing I mean." Said the boy. Mob nodded.

"Um…sure…and I'm Suzuki…" said Mob. She…didn't get it. She didn't get it but, well, she didn't get boys. At least she got to be near one…and was this that thing that Minegishi had told her about? How they had said that boys would come to her and stuff just if she was near? Well now…she didn't think too much about this. She didn't look into it too much. She had looked into things too much with Hatori and she had been so wrong…so she just sat there and didn't think about why a boy wanted her to watch him jump off of a swing.

He could jump sort of far, though.

"That was cool, you jumped far." Said Mob. She would never understand boys for as long as she lived…why they did the things they did and stuff….but she could be nice. She was nice. She was always nice.

"Th-thanks…I could have jumped farther but there are a lot of people here, you know? I mean…um…do you want me to push you? I mean it's just easier to go higher if someone pushes you so….do you want me to push you?" asked the boy. Mob didn't need to be pushed on the swings. She was eleven and she had been doing this on her own since she had been three years old. She remembered that she had been three because Sho had been two and still little enough to fit in the baby swings. She knew how to swing on her own but….

Well he was tall.

He was tall and…well she just…liked that he was tall. Also he was being nice to her. Also just…well this was just a thing that boys did for you sometimes. This was something that she understood. Back when she had been in school, when she had been little, when boys liked girls they pushed them on the swings and stuff. She just…well she didn't know this boy enough to know if she liked him…but she liked that he was tall and he was looking at her and…well she liked how he was looking at her and…well….

Her legs were kind of tired…maybe…possibly.

"Um….sure." said Mob. She knew that maybe this was a bad idea. His friends, well they had been shoving each other but that was a friendship thing for boys it seemed, were telling him that he had it…and she had no idea what he had but…well it was nice to be pushed and also he was close when he pushed her…and also he was good at pushing. Sho pushed her sometimes, when he thought that she was swinging too slowly, and he always pushed too hard, so hard that she almost fell off the swing, but this boy was pushing her…well not too hard but not too soft…and his hand was on her back and…

And she decided to focus on the world under her.

She focused on how she could see the whole park. She could see those girls from before, they were still talking, and all of those little kids had moved on from the slide to the jungle gym, and also there were a lot of people walking dogs, and there was someone walking a cat…and she wished that she had taken a picture because Sho would have liked that…and so would Minegishi….wait, they noticed. They were still sitting there and they notice the man walking the cat…and they noticed her, too, now. She waved at them and they waved back at her. They said something that she couldn't hear. She would ask them later when she was done here.

Right now she was just going to enjoy being pushed on the swings.

"Swing on, Mob, you've got this." said Minegishi as Mob waved to them. Well that had worked out well for her. Good. That was one problem solved…well not solved. Mob still had a lot of her shell to get out of, and a lot of socializing to catch up on, but Minegishi had a lot of time on their hands and a lot of their own problems that they were running from so, yeah, come on Mob. Bring it on. They could deal with whatever other problems she had or things she needed help with or, well, anything.

That was what best friends were for after all. Helping you with your problems so they could better avoid dealing with theirs.