Running a criminal organization was not nearly as easy as Sakata Shiori had thought that it would have been.

She should have started a cult. All the greats had cults. Jodo had the Rising Sun Spiritual Association, Touichirou had Claw, and what did she have? A couple dozen idiots, a money laundering scheme that was making more legitimate money than was being laundered, and actually a semi successful dry cleaning business. That was what she had served under Jodo for the past twenty years for. Now instead of being an account for Jodo's cult she got to be an accountant for a successful dry cleaners. Great, a whole new set of numbers to crunch.

Wasn't she just the luckiest girl in the world?

She had her own office in the back of a dry cleaners. She controlled most of Osaka, the boring part, and she had done nothing at all to improve her station in life or anything for esper kind. She was doing nothing to promote their people, nothing to promote herself, hell…she was doing nothing at all. Maybe she should have just merged with Claw. She could have had a salary…maybe even been in charge…but no, Claw was too…Claw.

She liked Touichirou, she liked him quite a lot actually, but she did not want to work for him.

He was a notoriously…difficult…man to work for. Especially if you were in the upper echelons. He was a micromanager to the highest order, he had a temper, and also the shortsighted nepotism that led him to put his twelve year old daughter in the positon of vice president. God, people were still talking about that. Apparently in a matter of weeks she had managed a near successful coup, well some people said coup, other people said it was an attempt at sabotage, Shiori…well she thought that it was a little girl acting like a little girl. She had destabilized Claw, the careful meritocracy of it, and depleted their coffers in a matter of weeks….it was actually kind of funny.

Touichirou could be so ridiculous sometimes.

The great Suzuki Touichirou, the man who left people to die in holes for the crime of looking at him funny, was a big old softie when it came to his little princess. Literally, she was a princess. If her father was going to rule the world someday, the betting pool was still going strong as to whether he'd actually do it or get himself shot trying, then that made her a princess. Also most of the, actually very creepy, pictures on the esper conspiracy subreddit had her in some variation of a princess dress. Shiori never read the comments on those…people could be downright disgusting when they were hidden behind a curtain of anonymity….and maybe that was the kind of thing that she should have been doing. Getting the creeps off the internet, doing more for the public acceptance of espers, or maybe literally anything other than what she was doing now!

Reading a very long comment thread about the worst conversations waiters have overheard in restaurants on Valentine's Day.

It was very repetitive. Break ups, rejected marriage proposals, confessions of infidelity, pregnancy announcements made at the worst times, and plenty of stories that had clearly been faked. No substance. This was the sliced white bread of the internet. There were so many other things that she could have been doing right now. Dirty money needed to be laundered, dirty clothes needed to be laundered, the supplies needed for laundering needed to be ordered, people needed to be ordered around, and also she had to order new stockings because this was her last good pair and if she got a run in these then she was fucked. She couldn't run an empire, or even start one, with runs in her stockings. It wasn't enough to be powerful, no, she had to look good too.

Maybe Touichirou's daughter had the right idea.

This was not a woman's game. Men, well they could stride right into a room and start giving orders. Women, no matter how powerful, had to smile and look good and wheedle and negotiate and connive to get what they needed. Even if she had been as powerful as Touichirou she still would have had, and from espers less powerful than her too, to get her boss…that she looked tired…that a woman her age shouldn't have been dressing like that…that she wore too much makeup…not enough…and whatever else people thought to run their mouths about…and then when she popped someone over the mouth with her, and yes she was going to brag, stronger than average telekinesis to pop someone over the mouth….well that never went well either.

Maybe she would have had better luck overseas.

But that would have required work that she wasn't up to doing. It was about the end of her day, somehow her days had even aligned to normal working hours, and she wasn't in the mood to start planning a massive overseas move. She had barely gotten Osaka…and even that was tenuous at best…but she did not need help. She needed more people, more competent people, and strong ones too…but she was not asking Touichirou for help. She knew that if she opened her mouth and said something her subordinates, who often forgot that they were subordinate to her, they would have just asked her to plead with Touichirou for help…well they called him President Suzuki…but she knew what the implication was. She could just go running to her boyfriend…discretion was not Suzuki's strong suit….though she hadn't been discreet either…and he was not her boyfriend.

Though she could try telling everyone else that.

That was the downside to there being so few espers in the country, well the world. Actually there were about fifty downsides that she could think up off the top of her head but the big one was that people talked. Touichirou was seen coming out her home in the middle of the day…she had maybe not thought that one through herself, and now the world was atwitter at this oh so scandalous affair. Literally. Fuck twitter. That stupid bird…people speculating about her private life…and fuck the people who followed the Suzuki family around and reported on their doings. Claw had been ramping up recruitment in Europe, there had been an explosion in the Seasoning City which CLEARLY corresponded to the location of a known Division, and also some schism had formed in his innermost circle. Those were things worth talking about.

But, no, people were instead much more interested in the fact that she and Touichirou had, gasp, had SEX. Like middle aged people still did sometimes. The scandal.

Well considering the fact that Touichirou, apparently, wasn't one to womanize then, yes, it was a scandal….and also apparently she was sleeping with him to get ahead despite the fact that Claw swallowed up every single group it 'made peace' with. If she had been trying to avoid getting swallowed up then maybe she should have actually…ok, that was crass and she had been on the internet long enough. Her phone was only at forty percent anyway. She needed to put this phone down….at some point…any point now. She just had to see how one more comment went…that was all. Just one more and she could go…even though they all went the same. Nothing good in this thread…but maybe that was what she needed right now.

Maybe she just needed to read about someone who's life was worse than hers.

"Sakata-san?" There was a knock at her door. She looked up. Mori…who never bothered her unless something important had come up. She put her phone down, and then after a flipped it over so it was face down. It would not do well for her image to be scrolling through her phone like a teenager where…if auras were anything to go off of….bad news was about to dropped down onto her lap.

"Who died?" asked Shiori with a sigh. She had sent some of her people on a job, a simple one. Some stupid upstarts were trying to move into her territory so therefore a message needed to be sent. She couldn't go on these things personally, she had to make it look like they weren't worth her time. If the big boss just came out for everyone then what was the point of even having subordinates. It made her look weak, it made the organization look weak, and she could not afford to look weak in this business.

Especially not as a woman.

"N-Nobody." Said Mori

"Anyone maimed?" asked Shiori

"No-no, nothing like that." Said Mori

"Who's in the hospital then?" asked Shiori

"N-Nobody…Sakata-san." Said Mori. Shiori did not lose her temper…even though it was sama. She had been san and now she was sama and Mori of all people should have known…well she was young. The imperance of youth. Shiori was going to let this go. She was going to strew on this anger until she got home, decapitated some of her plants, and if her anger wasn't out by then she could pour herself some cheap wine and watch a nice Love Wagon marathon while she cried and bemoaned the path that had taken to this point in life.

So, yeah, typical Tuesday.

"So….if nobody's in the hospital or the morgue why are you here? If this is about the electric bill again I just move the money around, I don't write the checks." Said Shiori

"No, nothing like that…ma'am. It's just…the President of Claw is in town and I was wondering if this meant that we should prepare for another war meeting…or an actual war…" said Mori. Shiori wished that she had a coffee cup or something on her desk. Something that she could have picked up and drank from. Something that would have given her time to think…and disguised whatever smile had dared to cross her face. Touichirou was…here.

She tried to remember that she had been mad at him.

She finally puts herself out there and he just up and leaves. He puts his pants back on and leaves like it's nothing. He just gets dressed and flees the city. God. She had been ready to hunt him down…but she's better now. He had freaked out because he cheated on his wife…his wife who had walked out on him and their two kids years and years ago. There was a soft side to him that only she got to see…and she should not have been smiling like a school at the fact that he was here and she could see him again. She needed to get mad. That was how you got things done. That was how you got respect. That was how you went from san to sama.

Also that was how you remembered that, yes, he didn't exactly owe you a heads up…but one would have been nice.

"I'll deal with this. You just tell everyone to carry on like normal…and get that electric bill paid already before they cut us off. We can't launder money if we can't launder clothes. You are dismissed." Said Shiori. She flipped her phone back over and kept her eyes down. This was not a big deal. In fact this was such a little deal that there was nothing at all that warranted her grabbing her bag and running out the door to find Touichirou and ask him what in the hell he thought that he was doing back in Osaka.

And without so much as a text!

Really! They had been texting just a couple days ago. He had been telling her about how he had discovered that empty cupcake tins were perfect and she had told him how she had accidentally let the water in her tank get too hot and she only noticed when both of her starfish were losing their legs. They also talked about how Pacman could function as a living organism….and in all that time he hadn't thought to tell her that h was coming to her city?! She took a deep breath. He didn't owe her anything. She was the one who didn't want to start something with him…and he was still hung up on his not even ex-wife so, yeah, there was that whole mess over there that she was not in the mood to deal with…but…but still…

When a woman's had you and you've had her, even if it was just high school stuff, she at least deserved a courtesy text!

She took another deep breath. Touichirou was socially stunted. That was a well-known fact about him. He didn't even know how to make small talk, he was bad at it unless it was something that he really cared about, so of course he wouldn't have been able to make big talk either. Like if he was coming to her city…or if he was feeling uncomfortable and wanted to go home…or if he was so racked with guilt for not even sleeping with a woman who he clearly had a connection with, at least a mutual attraction with, because the specter of his estranged wife was haunting him…if he couldn't do small talk then he couldn't do big talk either…

But she could.

'Touichirou. Why are you in Osaka?' There. Right to the point. Neither of them liked to waste time.

'Hatori wanted to go to an arcade.' Came his prompt reply. He was always prompt. He never let his messages just sit and sit…and he never left her to sit there waiting for a reply like a schoolgirl sitting up waiting by the phone. He at least knew to be prompt…and to the point…and he was always very respectful to. She had been out of the dating game for ten years and in those ten years it seemed like all the men completely lost any and all sense of…sense! When did it become custom to send someone a picture of your, quite unimpressive by the way, penis before so much as getting a cup of tea?! She wasn't opposed to casual sex but it wasn't like going fishing. One did not just dangle the worm out there and wait for a bite…and this was men her age, too! Younger men….well men in their twenties were either terminally weird or terminally shy…or both…and that was the last time she went out with a twenty something. She was not trying on any more aprons, kissing anymore imaginary booboos, and not…well anything else she had done on one regrettable date. Touichirou may have taken being socially stunted to new, previously unseen, levels….but at least he was a gentleman. Out of all the men she'd dated…

Not that they had been dating…and not that they were dating now.

'Which one?' She was not trying to meet up with him for any reason than to see him again…and to ask him what in the hell he was doing there. She watched the people who watched his movements. He should have been in Seasoning City overseeing the construction, some guy had posted pictures of a building that looked like it had been designed by that guy who painted all of those staircases. He also should have been in Australia overseeing the kangaroo farm that his subordinates had started…also she was curious about that…and also the run on the color blue that was predicted to happen on International Friendship Day…he had a lot to do…

He wouldn't have just shirked his work to go to an arcade….right?

Her phone vibrated….a message from a number that she didn't recognize….and a pin. She clicked it, fully prepared for her phone to explode in her hand, but it didn't. It was directions to the retro games arcade…of course. That big dork…and he was a dork….and she could call him a dork. In her mind she could do that, she would never do it out loud. Not where people could see or hear or know that her relationship with Touichirou was anything other than a working one…or a friendly one….what they had was nobody else's business aside from their own….

But the esper community was so small that everyone made her business their business.

The community was small and she was putting a lot on the line meeting with him in person…but she did have to meet with him. To…see if he wanted to…form an alliance…or whatever. She would think something up later. She would come back to the group with something tomorrow…but right now…well it was about quitting time. She that was what she did. She quit…for that day. She got up from her desk, got her bag, kicked off her work heels, and prepared to leave the sanctuary of the air-conditioning to brave the Osaka summer.

The things she did for love…..or rather liking someone quite a lot.

He was a nice guy, really, when you got down to it. He could be an asshole but you had to be an asshole in this line of work….and she was maybe going to be an asshole to him when she saw him. There was an etiquette to this, coming into another leader's territory, and he was damn lucky that he was cute. She would have taken this as a sign of disrespect if he had been anyone else. But no, first of all he treated everyone like this, and second of all…well he was a socially stunted dork….so she would let this slide…well maybe if he had a damn good reason for being here, reigniting gossip, and making her spend more time out in the air-conditioning than she had to. She tried to be mad, or at least annoyed with him. She tried to be anything other than excited to see him….that awkward, socially stunted, dork…she could not look excited. She had to keep the ball in her court here. She was, first and foremost, the leader here…she owned Osaka…she had to act like it…

That was easier said than one.