Serizawa liked cats.

Well he liked them as a concept. He had never had a cat before but now he did…and he liked it. He had no idea how to take care of a cat but Miss Suzuki did most of that. The cat was supposed to live in her house but now her brother had a bunch of hamsters and cats ate hamsters. So now the cat lived at his house for the time being…well technically this was her house. All of the houses were hers…well her fathers….but what was her fathers was also hers so…so this was her house too…but not the house she lived in and…and….

Breathe in for four and out for four.

Miss Suzuki had taught him that. She had leaned it from Tsuchiya and she had taught him too. It…kind of helped. He could feel his lungs being filled and his chest expanding and he just felt more…there. Like he was right there…well of course he was right there. He was there because this was his room. He was supposed to be there. The cat on his bed, on the other hand, was not supposed to be there. The cat on his bed was supposed to be at Miss Suzuki's house…but it was at his house…the one he lived in…and there was nothing that he could do about it….and he needed to do something about it.

It wasn't safe near him.

This was his room and…and it was his fault that it had gotten into his room. He had left the door open while he made his daily trip to the kitchen for food. He tried to leave at least once a day on his own to get something to eat. It was good for him, Miss Suzuki had said, to leave his room without her. Sometimes she wouldn't be there, she had said, and she had a point. She had so much to do in her life that she didn't need to take care of him. She had to take care of her little brother and sister and all of their pets too. She didn't need to worry about him too. He had spent way too much of his life making someone else take care of him…and he should have been able to take care of himself. That was why he had left home. Miss Suzuki had promised that she would show him how to control what he could do and help him get back to society. He had to do the work, he had to do what she said, or he would never get better.

Which was why he had gone to the kitchen on his own.

Nobody had been home. That always made it easier. When nobody was home he could pretend that the whole house was his room. He could count the steps out loud, when he had to, and that helped. He didn't always have to count the steps, not like when he was at home, which meant that he was getting better…but he had needed to count before and that had maybe meant that he wasn't getting better…like maybe this was the same…like….like maybe now he was backsliding. Maybe now he was on the road back to living in his room and not looking at anyone or talking to anyone…maybe…he didn't know. That seemed like a lot over one little cat….

One little cat that was sleeping on his bed.

"Hey, cat? Can you maybe…get up? I know that you need to sleep for twenty hours a day, Miss Suzuki said so, but can this please be one of your awake hours? Not even an hour. Maybe just five minutes…or even less than five minutes. There's a whole room in this house that nobody uses. It was supposed to be for Tsuchiya but she's like Shibata, he likes to sleep on couches and so does she, and I think that you do too…so please go and sleep on the couch or in the other room. Alright?" asked Serizawa as he stood in front of the cat. It…she…he….the cat opened it's eyes and looked at him…before going back to sleep. He had no idea what that meant. Was the cat mad at him for waking it? Or was the cat too tired to move? Or maybe it was doing that thing that people did where they pretended to not be able to hear you even though you were right there.

People did that sometimes.

Shibata had told him, before, that when Shimazaki said something…like he usually said, that it was best just to ignore him. Shimazaki said a lot of mean things, or gross things, or embarrassing thing just to make people feel uncomfortable. Shibata had also told him that Shimazaki had something wrong with him where if people weren't paying attention to him that he forgot that he existed. Serizawa thought that it was kind of mean to treat someone like that, especially when they had something like that wrong with them, and also it was wrong to be even a little bit mean to people. He hadn't need Miss Suzuki to tell him that, he knew that on his own. He had spent too many years of his life with people making fun of him.

He was never going to treat people like that.

For as long as he could remember he had been different. He had always been able to do things that people couldn't and mom, since he was a baby, had told him not to use his powers in public. She had always told him to be careful, to watch himself, and to make sure that nobody knew. If somebody knew what he could do, mom had said, they might get confused and angry…and after all that he had been able to think about was the people could know…and then he did something that he hadn't meant to…and then things broke and people got hurt. It had started when he had been little and…and it had gotten worse and worse…until that day. That terrible day when he'd been twelve. The day when he' locked himself away in his room….

He didn't want to think about that.

The cat probably wasn't ignoring him. The cat was probably just being a cat. That was just how cats were. They did their own thing. That was why dogs were always friendly on TV. Cats…well Hello Kitty was friendly…but cats were not as friendly as dogs. They were getting a dog too…once Shimazaki found one he liked…and…and then maybe the dog would be in his room and…and then maybe he would have to deal with two animals in his room and one was hard enough and he needed to be alone and he had no idea how to get rid of this cat and he didn't want to also because he wanted to hold the cat and….and also he wanted…he wanted to keep it safe and…

In for four. Out for four.

"Cat…um….listen. This is my room and I know that you must be very tired but please…can you please be tired somewhere else? I could hurt you if I tried to pick you up and….and I don't want that to happen. I've hurt people before, I didn't mean to, but it doesn't matter what I meant to do. What matters is what happened. I've hurt people and…and I don't know what I would do if I hurt you too so please go. Please?" asked Serizawa. The cat didn't even open it's eyes then. The cat just waved it's tail back and forth for a second. Serizawa had no idea what it meant. He didn't know cats. He could barely deal with people and cats were nothing like people. Cats were…their own thing. They were small and fluffy and….

And maybe he was just too big.

He got down on the floor. He knew how people felt when you stood over them…and cats had the same feelings as people…right? They had feelings, that was what mattered, and Serizawa didn't want to hurt the cat's feelings. He knew that he was bigger than most people, not as big as Shibata but bigger than everyone else even Shimazaki, and he knew that you had to be careful not to stand over people….and maybe it was the same with cats too. His knees hurt from sitting like this…but maybe sitting like this would make things easier.

The room looked bigger from down here.

He was smaller, now, and the room…was the same size. It just looked bigger. It looked big enough that it could have swallowed him whole if he had wanted it to…and maybe he did. Maybe he wanted to close the blinds and put curtains over them and just…just sit in the dark. Sit in the dark while he got bigger and bigger until one day he got up and realized that he was bigger than mom…well he was already bigger than mom. All of that had already happened and there was no point in wanting it to happen again…and also…also Miss Suzuki would not have been happy with him if he went to live in the dark again.

She would not have liked that at all.

She worked hard for him so he was going to work hard for her. He could hear her laughing. She and the others were playing a game outside, she had called it hit the birdie, and…and he had been invited but that had been just too much. She had invited him and he knew that she wanted him there but…but sometimes things were just too much. Sometimes he just needed to be in his room…and that was bad…but even worse was hiding in his room for the rest of his life. So he was…he was going to come out…eventually….but first he had to get the cat out of his room…

Somehow.

He reached over and poked it with his finger. It opened his eyes. He pulled his hand back. He was proud of himself for not breaking anything. The blinds opened on their own but he hadn't broken anything and that was worth something. He hadn't broken the cat and that was worth more than something. He had seen people break, he had broken them before, and…and he never wanted to see that again. He never wanted to be the reason for something like that again…so he couldn't touch the cat. If he hurt it then not only would he never be able to forgive himself but Miss Suzuki would never be able to look at him again.

He had no idea what he have done without her.

She was his best friend. She took care of him. She had been in his life for not even a year but, even in this short amount of time, he had no idea how he had ever lived without her. The day began and ended with her. She got him up in the morning and she put him to sleep at night. Without her he knew for a fact that he would have just been stuck in the endless today….and he didn't want to get stuck in this room…in the endless today. He didn't want to get up one day and realize that he could touch the top of the doorframe without having to stand on his tiptoes. He didn't want to stand up and stretch and then realize that his pajama pants had turned into flood pants and his shirt had turned into one of those half shirts Miss Suzuki wore. He didn't want to spend another fifteen years in the dark all alone with just himself. He needed her to start his day. He needed her to end his day. He needed her to fill his day. Even if he was just in the corner of the room, at the edges of the group, she still filled his days. She filled them with happiness and friendship…not games…and games had been able to make him feel like he had done something with his time. Winning, losing, progressing, grinding, all of it made him feel like he had done something…even though he had done nothing. Even if he spent his days with his DS in his hands while his friends hung out and had fun….at least he had been doing something…

Which was better of the fifteen years of nothing that he had done before.

"Please get up? Please? I don't want anything to happen to you….and it's safer for you if you're away from me and…and maybe you don't even speak Japanese. I have no idea what your name is or where you came from…and I have no idea what cats even understand….um….please? Do you understand please? Please get up?" asked Serizawa. He watched the cat for any indication that it understood him. it gave none. It just turned over and there was a…knock? His tail hit the wall…but that hadn't come from the wall…that had come from behind him…

Oh. Mukai.

"Knock, knock." Said Mukai as she knocked on his open door. She was happy…wells he was always happy…but now she looked especially happy. She had a juice pouch in her hand and her whole mouth was rimmed in blue…she liked sugar. Sho liked sugar too. That was weird because their dad hated sugar. He wondered how that worked, kids being so different from their parents. He wondered why he and his mom were so different…even more different than Suzuki and his kids were from each other. He wondered why Miss Suzuki was so different too, why she had dark hair and dark eyes when the rest of her family looked the way they did. He wasn't going to ask, that would have been rude, and he certainly wasn't going to ask Mukai.

She was only two.

"Knock. Knock." Said Mukai. She knocked a little more forcefully…and she made a lot of eye and aura contact with him. He wondered if she intended to do that…well if she had mean it then she would have been really mad at him…and that would have made sense. He was being very impolite right now, wasn't he?

"Who's there?" asked Serizawa because that was the polite thing to do. She was very serious about manner. She was always saying please and thank you…and that made sense. That was what Miss Suzuki had taught her to do after all and this was her little sister.

"Me. I come in now." Said Mukai. She ran into his room and sat down next to him. He scooted over and made room. She was small, the smallest person he had ever met in his life…as a person who was no longer small. He had met, well spent time near, other little kids when he had been little. At the park and the pool and kindergarten and stuff. He had been near them but he had never known them…and that had been for the best. He didn't know how he would have been able to live with himself if he had ever hurt someone so small…even when he had been small. Small people were just so small…

Fragile.

They were small and fragile and breakable and…and that was all he ever did. He just….broke things. He broke things and he broke people and…and he just…he didn't want to be that person anymore. If he was that person again then not only would he hate himself but Miss Suzuki would have hated him too…and he didn't know what he would have done if Miss Suzuki had ever hated him. She was…she was his everything…and this was her little sister…..he had to be careful. He had to be careful of her and…and he put distance between them. He put as much distance between them as he could without being rude.

She closed the distance between them.

"Games?" asked Mukai as she fished a phone out of her overalls. She dropped it down onto his lap and…and this was not his phone…and not her phone…well her phone was full of candy…he had no idea who's phone this was. It was in a solid black life proof case. He didn't touch it. If he touched it then he would have broken it…and also other people's phones were none of his business. Looking through another person's phone as like reading their diary…a terrible invasion of privacy. He would never have treated one of his friends like that.

"Th-that's not my phone…and I can't touch it so…so maybe you could take it back to where it came from? Can you do that? Please? Give that phone back?" asked Serizawa. Mukai looked at him and pointed down at the phone.

"Games now please and thank you." Said Mukai

"No…I can't. I can't so please just…give it back." Said Serizawa. Mukai pointed again before she picked up the phone and turned it on. She handed it to him. The background was plain blue and it was asking for his fingerprint…oh. This was Shimazaki's phone….and he especially could not start playing around with this phone. First of all Shimazaki would be made at him and second of all this phone was set up for Shimazaki and he was blind…Serizawa could not mess it up.

"Games. Now. Please." Said Mukai a little more forcefully…a little bit like how the President got when people weren't doing as he asked. When he complained about the idiots that he was surrounded by. He half expected Mukai to look at him and say 'Serizawa, explain' but he knew that she could never have said something like that to him. She didn't speak that well…but he really should have explained everything to her. That was the polite thing to do.

"I-I can't mess with this phone because it belongs to Shimazaki….um….and maybe you should go and give it back to him. Now, it's nothing against you…I just…can't be around people. That's all. I can't be around people and…and sometimes I lose control of my powers and….and it's hard enough for me to be near this cat-" said Serizawa

"Cat over there." said Mukai. She pointed up at the cat. He nodded.

"Yes, that cat over there. Now, listen-" said Serizawa

"Play games…cat? Play cat games? Now?" asked Mukai. She reached over and petted the cat on the head…way too hard in his opinion. The cat woke up and swatted at her. Serizawa acted before he could think. He reached over and snatched Mukai's hand away.

He was touching her.

"Sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't meant to hurt you!" said Serizawa. The room shook. The cat ran away. Mukai…she didn't say anything. She just looked down at her arm. She poked at her wrist where he had grabbed her. He…he hadn't wanted her to get scratched and…and he had hurt her and now she was going to cry and-

She grabbed him by the wrist.

"Strong too." Said Mukai. She grabbed him by the wrist and pulled as hard as she could. She had just gotten a handful of his robe and pajama shirt…but he wasn't going to tell her that. No, she was trying really hard to be strong and if he told her that she wasn't strong at all, that she was small and weak and fragile, then she would have cried…like she should have been crying right now.

She wasn't crying right now…she didn't even seem upset.

"Mukai…are you alright? I didn't mean to startle you. I just…I was afraid that you were going to get scratched and I knew that if I let you get scratched then I never would have been able to forgive myself so I just…I'm very sorry if I hurt you or scared you and…and please tell me how I can make it up to you." Said Serizawa. He had no idea how much of that she understood. He had no idea what she was thinking. She looked at him…and then she held up her arms.

"Up. Now. Please and thank you." Said Mukai

"You…you want me to pick you up? ME?" asked Serizawa. He had never picked her up for the same reason that Shibata had never picked her up. She was small and it would have been so easy to hurt her. She was fragile and tiny, like one of those fancy glass dolls and…and he was so much bigger than her and he would have hurt her and if he hurt her on accident then Miss Suzuki would never speak to him again and she'd kick him out and then he'd have to go back to living in his room and…and he didn't want that and…

In for four. Out for four.

"Want up now please and thank you." Said Mukai. Serizawa shook his head. He didn't know if she was being stubborn or she just didn't get it. He would have believed either from her. Sometimes people believed what they wanted to believe and hear what they wanted to hear….but he shouldn't have thought that about her. She was only two. She didn't understand things yet….and that was…was ok….he guessed.

"No, I could hurt you. Why don't you go and play with the cat? You like cats…and playing…so why don't you go and play with the cat…or your brother and sister? I bet that they miss you a lot…and I bet that they're worried sick about you too." Said Serizawa. Mukai stood at her full height, turned to face the door, and then pointed at it.

"We go outside now." Said Mukai. She grabbed him by the wrist and started to tug on him. She was kind of strong….well kind of stubborn. She put her stubbornness into her strength…well her aura. She wasn't going to pull him away or topple him down to the ground…but she was very insistent.

"Mukai, I to-told you-" said Serizawa

"You stand up now, please and thank you." Said Mukai. Serizawa….well he could do that. He could walk her to the door…just to make sure that she got there safe. He stood up…the phone that had been on his lap fell. She picked it up and put it back down her overalls. He wondered why she just didn't use her pockets….but he didn't question her. He had just gotten her to drop the whole 'picking her up' thing and he didn't want to get her back on it. No, he would just start walking and-

And she grabbed his pant leg.

"Seri. Up. Please and thank you." Said Mukai. She held both of her hands up and….and she couldn't understand. Even though he could see his aura. Even though she could see how much bigger than hers his was. Even though she knew…well she didn't know, being only two years old after all…and this had already been a lot of explaining…it had been too much. This whole thing had been too much and he needed…he needed to play something…in his room…but he couldn't so long as she was there…and she wasn't going to leave his room without him picking her up, Suzuki's could be very stubborn sometimes, so Serizawa really had no choice.

In for four, out for four.

He picked her up. He hooked his hands under her armpits and he picked her up. This was how Miss Suzuki picked Mukai up…and he could not mess up. He could not mess up and hurt her because if he did then she would never speak to him again and…and he could so easily have lost control…or even just dropped her. She was wiggling and…and she was just so…so….small and….and….

And warm.

He hadn't ever imagined that a person could be that warm…but that made sense. She was a person and people were warm. She was as small as a doll and…and maybe he had imagined her as a doll. Maybe it had been easier to imagine her as a doll than a person…but she was a person…she was so small and warm and…and cute. He had been as small as her…he wondered if mom had ever thought that he was warm when she picked him up…back when he had been small enough to be picked up…he had been this small…and he'd been just like her…and…and his mom hadn't been afraid of him then…and she wasn't afraid of him now…and…and he wasn't afraid of her…

He was afraid of himself.

"Walk over there please and thank you." Said Mukai. She wasn't scared but…but he was. Putting one foot in front of the other…it was the hardest step that he had ever had to take in his life. One foot in front of the other…he made sure to keep her still….he managed to keep her still as he took a step and…and she was fine. He didn't drop her. He didn't lose control. He just…took a step…and nothing happened…so he took another…and another…and another…he took five steps…and then he was in the hallway.

And then it was another five steps to the living room.

And then another five steps to the genkan. He took fifteen steps, long ones, and…and nothing had happened. She was fine and he was fine and…and the two of them were fine. She was still in her shoes…and his were right there….and he could have slipped into them and…and he did…because he had to bring her to her brother and sister. So….so now all he had to do was go outside and…and…and Miss Suzuki would have wanted him to do this. She would have wanted him to bring her little sister out to her…and she would have wanted him to leave his room on his own…so that was what he did…as hard as it was that was what he did.

It was hard...but not as hard as trying to get a cat out of his room.