Fukuda didn't know how he felt about Claw crashing and burning.
On the one hand Touichirou was certifiably insane and his plans to take over the world were just as insane as he was. It was best for everyone involved the Claw just crashed and burned until it was nothing more than a footnote in the history of cults and terrorist organizations. On the other hand he'd spent most of his life working on this thing in some way or another and if the whole thing just crashed and burned then the past thirty one years of his life were just….wasted.
Wasted.
Thirty one years. Wasted. Gone. Just…gone. If this thing crashed and burned then….he had wasted his life. From thirteen to forty four he would have wasted his entire life. He just…could not have had that. The rest of the world would have better off if Claw fell apart with Shigeko at the helm but he…well he had no idea what he would do. Career wise….he'd missed the boat twenty years ago. That boat was gone. The only thing he knew how to do was be Suzuki Touichirou's best friend, push paper around, and heal the idiots around him. He could always work for the yakuza…that was where most espers ended up….or he could make it as a healer without the crime…but all of his connections were in the underworld…..he didn't know. He just…he had no idea.
He had no idea about a lot of things.
"No! Don't get on the wheel, Sunflower. Cookie's going to bite you!" said Sho from his desk. He kicked the desk when he said that…and Fukuda didn't have it in him to say anything. He barely had Sho in here. His little assistant. His assistant who he didn't really need assistance from. Sho…he needed to be a kid for as long as possible. He was only ten, not even eleven, and he needed to just…hang out and watch his hamster show and play videogames and eat copious amounts of jello and just…
Be more of a kid than his sister had ever been.
When Shigeko had been ten years old she had taken up drinking very expensive cognac, smoking Peace cigarettes, and doing whatever drugs it was that she had taken up…not to mention whatever it was that she got up to with the men in her life. At some point that child went off the rails…and that was partially Fukuda's fault. He should have watched over her better. He should have been there for her. He should have kept his promise to Masami….but what could he have done? There was no way to stop Shigeko from doing anything. She could have torn him apart with a flick of her wrist. She was more powerful than any eleven year old girl had a right to be….
In terms powers and in terms of rank in Claw.
Fukuda's phone vibrated. He closed his eyes and took a breath. If this was more nonsense he would…well he didn't think that he would do anything…but he would think about it. He thought about it a lot. Taking phone and throwing it against the wall until it broke. Sticking his head out the window and screaming as loudly as he could until he lost his voice totally and completely. Marching up to Shigeko and telling her that she was an eleven year old girl and that it was high time she acted like it. He wanted…he wanted to say and do so many things…but all he did was click his phone open.
"Hey, big sis changed the party theme again. Now it's Halloween, the Beatles, and things that feel like pudding." Said Sho. He read from his own phone…and Fukuda wished that he had waited. It was adorable when Sho said it, he was still young enough that he could be considered adorable, but it was infuriating when he read it. He…had invested pretty much his entire life into this insanity so it was only natural that he wouldn't want to see it crash and burn.
Especially over a party.
Shigeko didn't like being called Miss Suzuki so maybe she would have preferred going by Miss Red Ink. They had finally, FINALLY, gotten back in the black and now she was up to it again. This party was hemorrhaging money. Parties were for investors, high level cult leaders, and powerful criminal types. Parties were not for filling the entire Tokyo HQ with balloons, having a room based on Starbucks of all things, and also…according to this there would be a swimming pool full of various puddings….and he was the one who was going to have to figure out the logistics of a swimming pool full of various types of puddings….and also there would be gourmet pudding skins for dinner….just…..
God damn it Shigeko.
"Hey, check it out! Big sis listened to my idea! We're going to have dogs too!" said Sho. Fukuda took a deep breath and kept scrolling. Shigeko was renting dogs so that everyone would have dogs to play with and/or ride….and how in the hell were they going to ride dogs!? How were a bunch of grown adults supposed to climb onto dogs and….just….what the hell?!
"That's….something." said Fukuda as he forced himself to calm down. Sho had suggested this. He had suggested this because he was only ten and as a ten year old he didn't even have the mental capacity to think through these logistics. Shigeko was older…and not by much…and she was always at least a little bit high or drunk….they needed Suzuki back. Between this party, giving everyone generous raises and Halloween bonuses, and the new unlimited jello bars she was having built wherever there was a proper lunch room they were going to end up finishing out this year in the red…again.
Damn it, Shigeko.
And damn it Suzuki for letting this happen. Every time he got dumped he did this. Every. Single. Fucking. Time. Fukuda told him to stay away from that woman. Fukuda told him to focus on taking over the world. Fukuda all but taped his pants to him. Still he went and did that stupidest thing possible…and Fukuda had to bring him back from this. He should have done it a while ago but he just…did not have the energy right now. Not with Shigeko running the asylum and having to take care of Sho….and also just….the malaise of living…he just did not have the energy to deal with Suzuki after he'd been dumped. That was it.
And maybe a small part of him wanted to watch this thing burn to the ground….a stupid part of him since this was pretty much how he supported himself…he didn't know. He needed a drink even though it didn't really do anything.
"What's wrong, you don't like dogs anymore?" asked Sho. His pupils were tiny there, tiny black dots in a sea of blue, just like Suzuki's got…and he wasn't going to compare Sho to his father. He wasn't anything like Suzuki. Sure he could be short tempered and obsessive about things but he was his own person. He was half of Masami. He was a good kid…and the tiny pupils meant nothing.
"No, I like them. I was just thinking about how we were going to have all of these things in the party. That's all. Just adult stuff. You just keep on watching your hamster show." Said Fukuda. He wasn't going to shatter Sho's excitement about this party. This was going to be one of the few happy memories he'd have in his life…and Fukuda wasn't going to ruin it for him. Let him be ten and be excited for swimming pools of pudding and dogs to pet and ride. Fukuda could worry about the adult stuff.
There had to be at least one adult here in Claw.
"It's a livestream." Said Sho
"Isn't that the same thing?" asked Fukuda
"No, it's different." Said Sho
"Alright then. Well whatever it is you just have fun with that. I have a lot to do over here….a hell of a lot to do." Said Fukuda as he went back to his laptop. He needed to deal with Suzuki. He had been taking time off from whatever it was that they had together…and now look what had happened. Part of him wanted to let Shigeko crash and burn…but then Claw would be finished, or at least hurt, and then Suzuki would go off the deep end again…and nobody needed that. What they did need was Suzuki back and Fukuda would bring him back….later. He'd fix whatever had gone wrong later.
Right now he was just…he needed to build up his stamina.
It wasn't easy but he would have to do it. He'd done it before, this wasn't the first time that Suzuki had been dumped, and Fukuda…well he'd done this before. He would have thought that Suzuki would have taken it better. He had taken Masami leaving rather well, he hadn't exploded and killed anyone, and he had taken the thing with the baby well…well-ish. He'd run away….and Fukuda had brought him back…and at least he hadn't run away again. He was there at least…and Fukuda could at least deal with him at any time….
But first he would have to deal with Sho
"I'm going to go and get us some jello. You still like yellow?" asked Sho. Fukuda knew what he meant by that. Sho was going to leave and come back hours later with no jello. He was going to go and hang out in his sister's office…and he didn't need to be there. With all the nonsense that she had been messaging everyone with he knew that she was up there living it up with her friends…and Sho didn't need to be involved in all of that. Shigeko made her own choices…choices that he should have stopped her from having the chance to make…but what was done was done. He could still protect Sho.
"Stay here and I'll have someone bring us up some jello. That way you can still watch your hamster show." Said Fukuda
"Livestream." Said Sho
"Ok, your livestream. We can have some pudding and jello and some cookies, all of that junk food you like." Said Fukuda
"I can get it myself, I have legs." Said Sho. He could be so stubborn sometimes…but that was a good thing. He knew himself and he knew what he liked…even though knowing what he liked wasn't always equivalent to knowing what was best for himself. Sho was only ten and he didn't know that imitating his sister, getting up to what she got up to, would ultimately end up hurting him. Fukuda couldn't just tell him that he had to leave his sister alone, either, because Sho had this terrible habit of being incredibly contrary. Fukuda would have to try and finesse this situation…and he could do it. After a lifetime of dealing with the insanity that was Suzuki Touichirou Sho was a walk in the park.
"I know you do but last time you left you didn't come back for a while. I missed you." Said Fukuda. Sho was a good kid. He valued loyalty and friendship…and sometimes he could be a pain in the ass too…but he was ultimately a good kid. He wouldn't just leave Fukuda all alone like that. He'd stay. He'd grumble and complain but he'd stay.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I missed you too. I'll come back." Said Sho. Fukuda…well Sho was still a good boy. He was just getting older, that was all, and part of getting older was pulling away from your parents…or parental figures. He wasn't Sho's father, there was no chance of that, but he was the closest thing that he had…and Sho was the closest thing to a Son that he would ever have….and he was not going to be hurt by how quick Sho was to leave him…because this was normal. This was a normal part of being ten, nearly eleven, years old.
"Come on, it's not the same in here without you. Besides, what am I going to do without my assistant? What if I need assistance with something?" Said Fukuda. Sho didn't laugh. He would have laughed if he'd been younger but he was ten, almost eleven, now and he didn't laugh as easily as he had when he had been little. When he had been three, four, five, even six…it was around six that he started laughing less. So much happened that year…and Fukuda had done his best to make it easier on him…and he was still doing his best.
"You could just give Hatori his old job back." Said Sho
"He…didn't work out. Come on, you know that you're a better-" said Fukuda
"Don't let him hear you say that, he's coming right this way and you know how much of a baby he can be." Said Sho. Fukuda expanded past his passive aural range. It wasn't much, his passive range, and his active range wasn't much better. He knew that Hatori was….well if he focused less on Hatori himself and more on the feel of him in the wiring of the walls…there. Yup, here he came…
Why?
He had quit. He had asked Shigeko for permission to quit and now he was back down in the tech room with the gaming addicts, overgrown children, and the rest of the dregs of Claw society. What did he need all the way up here for? Hopefully not to beg for his old job back…because Fukuda wasn't going to give it to him. He would rather have dealt with Sho after an all-day candy, poptart, and pop binge than sit in a room with Hatori Nozomu all day.
Hell. He would rather have dealt with more of Shigeko's nonsense than with Hatori sitting there in the corner doing a whole lot of nothing all day.
"Hatori. Do you need something?" asked Fukuda doing his best to sound pleasant. Hatori was friends with both Suzuki and Shigeko….and he had no idea how that had happened. He had blatantly lied to Suzuki…well he was bad at figuring out when he was being deceived…and also Shigeko had been interested in him….but he was Suzuki's friend and Fukuda had to make an effort at being polite to him.
"Yeah, I was looking for Sho actually. There's a Mortal Kombat tournament going and I was wondering-" said Hatori. Sho perked right up. He had been slumped over his phone watching his live hamster and his aura had been lethargic but now it was like he had woken right up.
"He's busy-" said Fukuda. He knew that Sho would go. He knew Sho and he knew that he loved violent videogames, well all videogames but he did love himself some copious violence, and he knew that he couldn't keep up with Sho when it came to those games…and Hatori knew it too. He had come all the way up here to get Sho….and Fukuda didn't know why.
Shigeko's idea, maybe?
But why? What reasons could she have had to get Sho away from him? What reason could she have had to…he didn't know. Trying to understand her was like trying to understand ten Suzuki's in ten of his moods…the worst moods he had. Obsessive Suzuki, manic Suzuki, just been dumped Suzuki, trying to take over the world Suzuki, trying to make sense of the world Suzuki….all of the Suzuki's. It would have been easier to deal with every single Suzuki mood that he had ever known, at once, than trying to figure out why it was Shigeko did the things that she did.
He had a headache…and as quick as he tried to make it better it just came right back.
"Which one?" asked Sho completely ignoring Fukuda…but that was ok. He was ten and he was his father's son…and Suzuki loved himself some videogames….and Sho wasn't anything like his father. Sho was his own person and that person was just…a normal ten year old boy. A normal ten going on eleven year old boy.
"The original." Said Hatori. He totally ignored Fukuda too and…well he was such a child, too, more of a child than Sho was. He was too much of a child even for Shigeko. He was too much of a child for the actual child…no wonder he got on with Sho so well. What, was he trying to win over the entire family? Well that….would have made sense, actually. Get close to the vice president, the heir, and the president himself…..it all made sense…
And Fukuda didn't need something else to worry about.
"Hey Sho, you know-" said Fukuda. He was going to try again. He was going to try and try and try again. He was going to keep on trying because Sho…he did not need that life. The life that his sister was hell bent on leading. Sho…he was ten and he didn't know what he needed. All he knew was that he liked videogames. It was Fukuda's job to make sure that he grew up ok…that he grew up better than his sister…that he grew up better than what Fukuda had let Shigeko become.
"What does the winner get?" asked Sho completely ignoring Fukuda again. Fukuda…he knew that Sho was ten. He reminded himself that Sho was ten. He was a child, not someone with a fully developed mind, and he didn't know what he was doing.
"The satisfaction of crushing his enemies." Said Hatori
"Sho, if you want to then we can play-" said Fukuda
"I'm there. Fukuda, you can stay here and if you get lonely then…Shibata kind of likes you and I bet he'd hang out with you…and also…maybe you could call my dad or something? He's been on his phone a lot lately…or at least he was before he got sick. Anyway I have to go now. See you later." Said Sho as he walked away. He just…got up from his desk and walked away. Just like that. He just got up and…well Sho was a ten year old boy and what ten year old boy wouldn't be lured away with the promise of videogames. Even Suzuki…well not now but…when they had been young the fastest way to get him off of his bullshit was to get him to the nearest arcade. It would take more than that to get him off of his bullshit now…and Fukuda had to get him off of his bullshit…
He had a lot of bullshit to deal with.
His phone vibrated again. Now Shigeko was…well now that was too much. First of all there was no way to build, in time for this party, a slide from the roof to the lobby. Second of all the momentum build up from going from the roof of a skyscraper to would be enough to kill a man. Third of all…she was acting like a child. Now she chose to act like a child? Now? Not when she had been getting her father high or bossing her brother around or just…all of the other things that she got up to that a little girl was not meant to get up to? Now she was acting like a child.
This was quite enough.
Really. Fukuda…he'd had enough of this. One of his many duties was gently telling Suzuki when he was doing something unfeasible…like all the money he had poured into figuring out time travel. It didn't work. Also they were not building a space elevator…or bases fifty stories underground….or whatever else Suzuki came up with when he got all manic. Fukuda was the one to tell him when he had bad ideas, unfeasible ideas, or when he was about to shoot himself in the foot.
And now he had to do the same for Shigeko.
The walk to her office was a short one. Well it would have been short if he hadn't been stopped for hugs every so often. The Tokyo HQ was just as overpopulated as ever and the Awakened were just as strange and childish as ever. They were just…Fukuda didn't even know what. He would deal with all the Awakened in blue giving out hugs later. Right now he had to deal with Shigeko. The walk to her office took longer than it should have but at least he'd had the time to think up what he was going to say.
He was going to be polite.
Polite, deferential, and he wasn't going to look at her either. She had gotten this idea in her head that he looked at her like she was a woman or something. He had no idea where that had come from. She was eleven and she looked like an eleven year old…and even if she grew up to be a supermodel or something he still wasn't ever going to be interested in her like that. He had known her since she had been two. Maybe if she had been Masami's actual daughter or something, if she'd inherited…not even looks but…but all of the things that made Masami…well, Masami…then when she grew up….but he still would have known her from childhood and that would have been incredibly creepy. She was Shigeko and he would never think about her like that, as if she were a woman, even when she grew up and became a woman. She was just…she was Shigeko and he wished that he could have gotten it through her head that he did not look at her like she was a woman…
Even though she did her best to act like one.
There was a plaque attached to the wall that declared this to be the President's office. Fukuda didn't need that plaque…and not because he had been there when Suzuki bought this building. The smell of smoke, both kinds, permeated that entire floor of the building. The smell of smoke and the sound of…well whatever was going on in that room. Talking, laughing, and the Beatles….well it seemed like Vice President Suzuki had decided to start the party a little earlier than expected.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
"I love you, yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I love Toshi yeah-" he heard Shimazaki singing. There was the shift in energy as he teleported. Fukuda braced himself….not that he was afraid of Shimazaki or anything. He knew that Shimazaki may have been a moron but he wasn't going to just kill Suzuki's best friend and right hand man. Even though he had threatened it plenty of times…well Shigeko wouldn't let him. She may have been eleven, she may have had a serious drinking problem, she might have done more drugs at the age of eleven than Fukuda had managed to do in four years of university, but she wasn't an idiot. She saw his value as a healer…especially with Sho's deathly citrus allergy.
He wasn't afraid.
"Ryou, get off of me and stop hogging that pipe." That was Minegishi. Fukuda…was not afraid of them either. Of her either. It helped if he thought of them as a woman. Women weren't scary. He was bigger and stronger than they were and if he just remembered that…well that would have been of some comfort if they had both been normal people. They weren't. They were two espers and Minegishi was arguably the more powerful of the two of them even with his healing powers. They were there and…he amended his plan to speak to Shigeko to be even more polite. Minegishi…did not like him…well nobody in that room liked him…but Minegishi especially did not like him.
"Guys, stop it. President Suzuki isn't going to be happy when he gets better and comes back to a trashed office." Said Shibata. That was the biggest, strongest, man that Fukuda had ever met…and also out of the little group he was the most normal. He wouldn't let anything truly terrible happen to Fukuda, not while Shigeko was around, since he still saw her as the child she was and not the miniature adult that she tried to be.
"Shibata's right. My dad is going to get better soon, thanks for the soup by the way I'll make sure he eats it, and when he does he's not going to be happy if we ruin his office. We already drank all of his fancy decoration liquors and I'm pretty sure that it smells like smoking in here. Now come on, you guys promised me that you'd help with work stuff." Said Shigeko. Fukuda took a deep breath and kept on walking. She sounded…well she was slurring a little bit…and if they had drank all of the cognac and scotch Suzuki kept in that office then…yeah. Of course she would have been slurring. The marijuana clouds didn't help. Well maybe she would be calmer now, not more rational but calmer, and maybe he could actually have a civil conversation with her.
Since that was what they had come to.
She used to be small. She used to grab him by the hand and insist that he play dolls with her. She used to sit him down on her bed and show him all of her toys. She used to bring him those Hello Kitty books she used to like, back when she had been into Hello Kitty and not the snow princess or whatever that thing was that she was always watching, and she used to beg him to read her just one more story…and now she drank and smoked and did drugs and planned parties with the adults that she considered to be her closest friends…
Fukuda could deal with this.
He knocked on the door even though it was opened. He sensed the change in the atmosphere as soon as he made it to the door way. Shimazaki, who had been laying on Minegishi, sat up and glared with his aura. Shibata put down the tarp that he was knitting and now he was trying his best to look calm and failing miserably. Shigeko sat up straighter in her father's chair and put down the purple glass pipe that she had been holding. She was using her powers to button up her sweater…and she didn't have to…
He was not LOOKING at her!
Was that what everyone in this room thought? Were they all insane? Well, no, they were all high. High and drunk. Even Shimazaki was squinting…and he knew that the squinting thing had to do with being high. They were all doing it but seeing Shimazaki do it….well that was the ridiculousness that they all should have been thinking about. Not the idea that Fukuda would ever look at Shigeko like that. His name wasn't Shimazaki Ryou. He dated, well slept around in, his own age bracket. Fukuda…would say nothing about that. He would calmly tell Little Miss Red Ink over there that she was ruining the cult/terrorist organization/legitimate conglomerate that he and her father had been building up since before she had even been born….and he would do it calmly, too.
There was no fighting with these people.
"This is a closed meeting." Minegishi was the first to speak. They had their hand on Shimazaki's arm. A silent and purely aural conversation was passing between them that Fukuda didn't care about. The only thing he cared about was whether or not he had to bring this over her head to Suzuki.
"Yeah, so get the fuck out!" said Shimazaki. Judging by the way he was gripping that decanter…and he was drinking right from the decanter like a teenager…he wanted to send that thig flying at Fukuda's head. Well fine, then, bring it on. He could heal from that.
"Shimazaki! Mob's in the room. Fukuda, maybe it would be best of you submitted all your inquiries in writing and then set up a meeting with her Little Ladyship." Said Shibata. Fukuda shook his head and trained his eyes, and his aura, on Shigeko. She was sitting at Suzuki's desk and she had that pipe back up to her mouth…and she was inhaling…and if he had been twenty years younger and she hadn't been eleven he would have been impressed. She exhaled, coughed, and used her powers to pass the pipe over to Shimazaki and Minegishi before folding her hands and leaning forward at the desk.
"Ok, now I can talk to you." Said Shigeko. There was a smattering of laugher. Subdued at first before Shimazaki joined in. That man sure did love the sound of his own voice. Probably because sound was all he had, really.
"Miss Suzuki, I was wondering if I could talk to you about the budget. Specifically the budget for the party." Said Fukuda. He approached the desk and stood a respectful distance away. Suzuki, unless they were being unusually opened with each other, enjoyed a respectful distance and amount of deference from him. Shigeko…well she liked to pull people close into her orbit. She liked to make friends…and she had tried to make friends with him before but…he just couldn't do it.
Not with her being the way that she was now.
"Did you have an idea to add to the theme? So far it's Halloween, the Beatles, things that feel like pudding in your mouth, and dogs. Did you want to add something? I had Hatori make a virtual suggestion box and I bet if you talk to him then he'll send you the link…but don't talk to him about me or anything else!" said Shigeko. He took a step back. Well there was probably a story there….that he would not pry into. She was clearly gone. She reached under the desk and pulled out a bucket of movie theatre popcorn….yeah, she was gone. He watched her aura. If she had been Suzuki they would have all been dead by now. Well at least that was one less thing for him to worry about. He had a million things to worry about and dying didn't need to be one of them.
"Jello shots! Add jello shots to the party list…I just remembered that they existed." Said Shimazaki
"But we have jello on the list already. Even that pudding jello that only you like." Said Shigeko. Apparently he was forgotten now. Her full attention was on her friends.
"I can make jello shots, she doesn't need to order jello shots. I mean Fukuda is in here complaining about money." Said Shibata. Always the voice of some sort of reason. What he should have been saying is that, in a party which held important high class people as well as children, jello shots may not have been the best choice.
"But wait, what's a jello shot?" asked Shigeko. She sounded so young then. He knew better than to savor that. She was high as kite and drunk as a skunk. She may have been young but she certainly didn't act like it…even now. He knew that the next thing he would know there would be jello shots in the cafeteria or something.
"It's a shot of vodka in a cup of jello…and something that it's easy to go overboard on so maybe don't add it to the list." Said Minegishi as they took the pipe from Shimazaki. Fukuda made eye contact with them…and regretted it. They hadn't said anything or done anything, they had just looked at him, but what was behind those eyes…was terrifying…not that he was but they were, objectively, terrifying.
"I will…but I can use moderation. Ok, so we have pudding and jello and jello shots and-" said Shigeko
"Coke. We need a room full of coke. Floor to ceiling coke." Said Shimazaki. Fukuda…got the feeling that he was not talking about what Sho drank instead of water. That was…not what Shigeko should have been getting into. Shigeko was only eleven and cocaine was…well not for everyone but…especially not extremely powerful eleven year old girls!
"Shigeko, that's actually why I wanted to talk to you-" said Fukuda. He knew how to reign Suzuki in when he got crazy like this. He'd, somehow, won the tunnel argument every single time it came up. If it hadn't been for Fukuda then every single HQ and division would have had fifty underground tunnels leading to all the others as well as escape tunnels and storage tunnels and nuclear war tunnels in case the Soviets ever attacked….they had been having this tunnel argument for a VERY long time…
The tunnel argument….he would rather have the tunnel argument than whatever this cocaine argument was becoming.
"Ok, that's three votes for coke. Anymore votes for coke?" asked Shigeko
"We're not voting on-" said Minegishi
"I think that maybe we should hold the voting until Hatori comes back…or maybe we should just vote on something else….like…um…smoke machines? Remember, we were voting on smoke machines vs disco balls?" asked Shibata. Smooth he was not…but he did know how to get the ball rolling in the right direction. Maybe once Fukuda either died, defected, or ended up following Suzuki to wherever he planned on retiring too Shibata would be the new Suzuki whisperer. Or maybe Minegishi. Shigeko seemed to listen to them at least somewhat…and really he would rather have wished that on Minegishi than on anyone else in the whole world.
"Smoke machines suck and I can't see light so that's all you guys." Said Shimazaki with a shrug. Fukuda had no idea why she would even go through the trouble of throwing him a birthday party…well then again Shimazaki was, well, Shimazaki and Shigeko was a girl so…yeah. He could kind of see it. Still, though, even she had to see that all of this was getting completely out of hand.
"Miss Suzuki, that's what I wanted to talk to you about." Said Fukuda. She didn't look up at him. She just drank from the cup on her desk…and he knew that the amber colored liquid inside of that cup was not apple juice.
"What about confetti? Everyone loves confetti." Said Shigeko. There was a slight slur to what she said and she swayed back and forth in her father's chair. A vine grew from a plant and took the cup out of her hand. It was brought to Minegishi who finished it in one swallow. Fukuda braced himself for something that never came. Suzuki never drank but to take something out of his hand was suicide, he had always been very protective of his person. All Shigeko did was pout a little bit. It could have been cute, really, if she hadn't been who she was.
"Confetti is the cancer of the party world." Said Minegishi. They closed their eyes and leaned back into Shimazaki for a moment…and Fukuda stopped looking at them. Shimazaki was glaring at him aurally. He was still very protective of his girlfriend…and when was he going to let it go already! Like the song that was playing, apparently not all the music in the world was the Beatles, sometimes you just had to let it go. Fukuda had said something in private that, yes, was a little bit distrustful towards Minegishi. That had been a year ago. It was time to just let it go. He hadn't said anything about them since and he had even written that thing that Shimazaki told him to write. It was over. Fukuda would never mention the fact that they could easily have been mistaken for a guy on account of their lack of assets ever again.
"Listen I-" said Fukuda trying to get her attention while there was a lull in the conversation. She was drinking from a Starbucks cup now, there were at least twenty littered around the room, and he hoped that it was just coffee in there…not that he had any right to ask her. She would do whatever she wanted, she had already proven that, even ignore him while he was trying to have a civil conversation with her.
"I thought that glitter was the cancer of the party world." Said Shigeko. Once again she didn't even glance in his direction. What was she on about? She couldn't have still held a grudge against him…he hadn't even DONE anything to her! In fact he had let her get away with everything short of murder…and even if she was going around killing people he still would have kept his mouth shut. He didn't tell her father about the things she did…or her mother. He hadn't breathed a word of…well he doubted that Masami still checked that email…but still. He hadn't breathed a word of the worst of what Shigeko got up to and this was how she repaid him?
"No, it's the cancer of the craft world." Said Minegishi, their eyes still closed and their head still resting against their boyfriend. Fukuda looked away again. Shimazaki was so jealous….and he had no reason to be. Only a blind man would think that there was anything at all attractive about Minegishi Toshiki.
"Hey…come on, Mob's right, everyone loves glitter." Said Shibata
"Can someone explain glitter to me, please? As far as I know it's that itchy stuff that people dump on you at clubs." Said Shimazaki. He reached for the pipe but it was passed with a vine to Shibata. He held up his hand and shook his head. Good. Someone in the room had some sense…though not nearly enough sense to stop it from being passed back to Shigeko.
"Miss Sh-" said Fukuda. She paid him no mind. She didn't even acknowledge that he had said anything. Suzuki, even when he wasn't in the mood to talk, always at least acknowledged when he was being spoken to. Even if it was to tell a person to shut their mouth he always acknowledged a person when they were speaking to him.
"There are glitter clubs?" asked Shigeko. She actually sounded hopeful there….and she used to love glitter. She used to love to make things with it, pictures and cards and stuff. He might even have had some of her old art somewhere. In one of the folders he kept Sho's old at projects in. He had been saving those for Masami…so maybe he should just leave those be. Let her remember her daughter as she was, not as who she had become.
"No, I mean the kind I took you too. Remember, back after the Christmas party?" asked Shimazaki. So that was where she had vanished off to, clubbing with Shimazaki of all people…and she wondered why…well not that he was looking at her like she was a woman…but maybe she shouldn't have acted like a woman if she didn't want people to look at her like she was one. Not that he did.
"Miss Su-" said Fukuda. She wasn't paying him any mind at all. None of them were. Not with their eyes or their auras. The conversation had moved, now, but he needed to move it back to what he had came there to discuss…even though this was fascinating. He wondered just how many people could claim to have been a fly on the wall to something like this. To a meeting with the most powerful eleven year old in the world…and possibly the most powerful espers in Claw if not the world. All that power in one room and this was what they talked about. Cocaine, confetti, and glitter. Well then.
"Non-denominational holiday party." Said Shibata. He had picked his knitting back up now and he wasn't even looking up at them. So much for being the new Suzuki whisperer.
"Yes, the non-denominational holiday party that you gave Mob coke after?" asked Minegishi. Fukuda looked over at her with wide eyes. Shigeko…could have killed everyone. Suzuki did not do well with…anything…and he knew that she was not his child biologically but she did have the same power set….and the same issues that came with it.
"So are we doing the room full of coke? Because I know someone who sells coke." Said Shigeko. Fukuda…if he was capable of having a heart attack he would have had one. She had…she had bought drugs…on her own….and also now she was doing coke and…and she was eleven. Masami would have killed him. If she had been there then she would have put him in the ground…and he deserved it. He deserved it for letting all of this happen. For letting Shigeko become this.
"Shige-" said Fukuda. Maybe using her given name would grab her attention. She liked it when people used her given name….well the one that she had given herself….and he would not call her Mob. That was not her name, that was not even A NAME, that was just something that the other kids had started calling her back in preschool. He would call her by the name Masami called her by because that was her actual name…and that was what Masami would have wanted.
"Oh yeah, Kai said that you came by…and I think I've got a pretty good idea as to what you got me for my birthday." Said Shimazaki in an annoying singsong voice. Minegishi slapped him lightly on the shoulder. They didn't care that their supposed best friend, if that bracelet they always wore was accurate, was out buying drugs for their boyfriend and doing God only knew what else with him too.
"Your drug dealer?" asked Minegishi with a wrinkle of their nose. Fukuda wanted to do more than wrinkle his nose. So now she was keeping company with drug dealers. Wonderful. Just wonderful.
"He's a tattoo artist too. He did most of mine. I'm thinking of asking him if Sho can apprentice under him when he gets older. I mean if he's going to get into that he had might as well learn from a master." Said Shimazaki. No way. Hell no. Sho was not going up to become a tattoo artist. Tattoos were terrible. The only people who had those were criminals and Sho was not going to grow up to become a criminal…a serious criminal. Not like what happened around here now but actually serious crimes.
"Sho will do no such thing." Said Fukuda. Now he had everyone's attention. He was being stared at and….good. He would not be ignored. They looked at him, and then at Shigeko, and then at him again. She was passed the pipe. There was silence as she inhaled and then put it down. She went for too long without breathing, longer than could have been healthy, before she exhaled.
"We're not here to talk about Sho and what he's going to be when he grows up. We're here to talk about the party so let's do that. Where can we get enough coke to fill a room?" asked Shigeko. Deflecting. She was deflecting. She had been trying to ignore him and now she was deflecting and…and he had no idea what to do about deflecting. Suzuki never deflected. He didn't know how. Shigeko…she was like him in so many ways…but she didn't share one strand of DNA with him. She could think in ways that her father simply could not…and he had no idea what to do now….
Well besides try and talk some sense into her before this whole thing went down like the Titanic.
"Columbia." Said Shimazaki without missing a beat. Shigeko nodded….and he prayed to God that they weren't all making a trip down to Columbia.
"Ryou, no, we're not going to Columbia." Said Minegishi. For once he agreed with them. Columbia….they did not need to mess with the cocaine people over there…they did not need to mess with cocaine people end of discussion!
"I agree. I mean….ok. I like to go places but we're going to be doing a lot of moving after this party and since we're getting the new guy I want us to spend as much time as we can in London, we're going so Sho can see Emmy, and also if we move around a lot then he'll be scared and-" said Shigeko. That…could not have been right. That could not have been…true. They were not getting…she was adding someone to her group? Their group? The entourage? That was just….she was not supposed to….this was just…
She had too much power.
"Shigeko. We need to talk. I wanted to talk to you about the party but this….you're adding another person to the group? Does your father know? Does he know about any of this?" asked Fukuda. Shigeko held out her hand…and the pipe went back to her…and now that was just unnecessary. She'd had enough. Her eyes were red and she was squinting and that was…this was…all of this was enough.
"Normally I'd tell Mob to stop being a little stoner but I don't blame her. Mob, smoke away…but we're talking, later, about the new guy that you were planning on dropping into the house." Said Minegishi. They did not sound happy….and Fukuda didn't blame them. Shigeko was going too far with this…all of it. Suzuki couldn't have given her that level of power. He knew better. He knew better than to let a child…do all of this….he must have.
"Where is he going to sleep? I'm already doubled up with Hatori and-" said Shibata. That was what he was worried about? Not about that fact that not only was she finding her own assets but she was adding them to the previously established group? Didn't he worry at all about being replaced? What was Shigeko…how could she treat her so called friends like that? Suzuki, for all of his numerous faults, was at least loyal to Fukuda…loyalish, anyway. He had the kid now but Hatori…well Hatori didn't stand a chance of replacing Fukuda.
"Toshi and I can share." Said Shimazaki quickly. Well that was…something. There had been an aural conversation there that Fukuda hadn't been able to read…but it had ended with Minegishi lifting their head from his shoulder.
"We can do what now, Ryou?" asked Minegishi. Well someone was upset…and he was curious as to where this would go. Not that this was relevant to him but…well in fighting in that group was interesting…and so was whatever trouble was brewing in that paradise. If Suzuki had been there he would have had him explain…and he had no idea what there was to explain. Minegishi was rejecting their boyfriend…well then. Maybe Shigeko needed to focus more on the friends she had before she brought in someone completely new to the group.
"I mean I spend most nights in your room anyway so…why not? I mean I don't want to live with the new guy and I'm guessing that you don't either so…why not just double up?" asked Shimazaki
"We'll talk about this later." Said Minegishi in a tone that said that they would be avoiding talking about that later. Shigeko…well good. Maybe she would learn that her actions had consequences. Bringing in someone new to an established group, displacing people, making them feel replaced…there were consequences to a person's actions. Maybe once this thing imploded in her face then she could explain to Suzuki the value of loyalty and friendship and the danger of replacing someone.
"I want to talk about it now, Toshi." Said Shimazaki. This was certainly interesting…and he wanted to see this thing explode….but this whole place was…getting to him. The smoke in the room and…and the fact that there was an eleven year old sitting behind a desk that could have ruined his entire life if she wanted to…and the fact that she was on her way to ruining his entire life. She was doing…this nonsense…and Claw was burning and….and she was there smoking and drinking and dealing with her friend drama and…and maybe it would be better if Claw crashed and burned but…well he liked having a place to live.
"Miss Suzuki and I are talking about-" said Fukuda. Sometimes you had to be firm with people…and he did outrank everyone in that room. He outranked them all and he could make everyone just…shut up for a second so he could talk to his….for the love of God….so he could talk to his direct superior.
"Dad says that I have total power and I'm using my total power to throw a party…and I'm going to meet someone new…and I have no idea if he wants to join the group or the HQ or what but…but if you don't believe me then you can ask him…ok? So um….unless you want to smoke and talk about the party with us then…um…maybe you would be happier…doing work in your office….or something." Said Shigeko. Fukuda…could not believe his ears. She was dismissing him. She was passive aggressively dismissing him. Suzuki…well he didn't always want to hear what Fukuda had to say but he did listen…and even when he told him to get out he just….well he listened and…and he never got passive aggressive about it. He didn't know how to be passive aggressive. He knew how to be normal aggressive but…but that was it. He just…this was….
He had to talk to Suzuki.
"I think that I will talk to your father. Thank you for your time, Miss Suzu-Vice President Suzuki." Said Fukuda. He bowed, low and polite, and then made his way out of the office. The chatter picked back up as he left. Now they were all grilling her about the new asset joining them. Good, let her sow all the discord she wanted to. Fukuda…he was going to go above her head. He had to. He had a responsibility to the thing that he had been building since….since he couldn't even remember when and…and he had a responsibility to Suzuki, too. Even if he was the most irritating, most insane, most over dramatic human being that Fukuda had ever had the misfortune of meeting…..Fukuda had a responsibility to him.
He couldn't let Suzuki crash and burn.
He couldn't let Suzuki or Claw crash and burn. As good as it would have been for the world, especially the normal people in it, he just…could not let this thing crash and burn. He'd spent his whole life, it felt like, either in Claw or building Claw or planning for Claw and…and as much as he was against it….taking over the world….well this was what he had been working towards and….
And he couldn't just let it crash and burn.