Minegishi knew when they were being stared at.

They had a sixth sense for it…or seventh? They didn't know what number it was and they didn't particularly care to examine this right now. They didn't care to do much of anything right now but sit in their garden and read…which was too bad for them. They were being watched…and not just by the plants either. They could deal with the plants watching them, plants were at least quiet, no, it was people…people watching them…

They did not enjoy that at all.

"Mob? Come out, I know that you're there." said Minegishi. They didn't turn around, they kept on facing their garden. They stayed still as they felt Mob's aura coming closer. She was walking slowly like she was afraid that they would startle and run away like a scared pigeon or something. Well that was not going to happen. They weren't afraid of anything.

Not even Mob.

Maybe they were a moron. Maybe the years of drug and alcohol dependency had caught up with them and they were starting to lose their mind. They had come pretty fucking close before…and they never taking four a day ever again. That was who they were afraid of, if they had to be afraid of anyone. Themselves, their stupidity, and the stupid coping mechanisms that they just couldn't shake. Sure Mob's aura was huge, and sure she could easily override their control over their entire garden, not to mention her insanely strong telekinesis….but she was Mob. She may have been a powerful esper but Minegishi had never been hurt by her.

No, they'd hurt themselves.

"I-I wasn't spying on you. I was just out here in my yard because Mukai wanted to play hit the birdie…and then you were here." Said Mob as she came to a stop beside them. Minegishi patted the ground next to them. They didn't much feel like being loomed over right now. They didn't much feel like having any company, either, but this was the lesser of the two. They liked Mob…spending time with her. She was their best friend after all.

Best friends until one of them died…and then for some time afterwards.

There was no way out of it…not that they wanted out of it. Mob was loyal, more loyal than anyone else that they had ever met in their life, and she was…she was the best friend that they'd ever had. She was twelve, too, that was the thing. She was twelve and they…well they weren't. They were twenty nine, seventeen years older than her, and they…they had a responsibility to her. One that they had never asked for but one that they had nonetheless. Mob sat down quickly beside them…she was close. Close enough that they could smell her.

And what she'd been up to.

"Are you stoned right now?" asked Minegishi. They reached over and pulled a blade of grass up. There were cries of protests from the grass, the root of it, but Minegishi ignored it. The cries were real, plants did feel pain, and they knew that they weren't crazy…but they had enough of their own problems to deal with. They did not need to deal with the grass on top of it. They had themselves to deal with…and Mob…and there was Ryou too wherever he'd been sent off to today. He'd be back later and he'd be uncharacteristically quiet when they were alone. He'd watch them all night, too, he'd stare at them with his aura…he'd pretend like he just couldn't sleep but Minegishi knew better.

They knew when they were being stared at.

Like now. Mob wasn't as unexpressive as she had been when she'd been little…or maybe they just knew her better. She was staring at them and playing with her braid. Nervous, guilty too, not that she had any reason to be. She was supposed to go easy on the, well, everything…but Minegishi was the one who taught her all of this shit in the first place. She was their responsibility. They had never asked for this resposiblity but there she was.

And she was most likely stoned as hell right now.

"Not stoned…not all the way. It's been kind of stressful lately." Said Mob. Minegishi, if they had been talking to anyone else, would have said something like 'you think?' or 'really?' in the nastiest way they could because…yeah. Obviously it's been stressful. This summer had been the most stressful on record, and they were counting the summer Claw spent at war with the Triads. That had been…actually that had been easier to understand than this. There was another ground collecting espers. They were in Claw's territory. They had to die. There. Simple.

This summer had been anything but simple.

"Summer is always stressful." Said Minegishi with a shrug. Not a lie. Suzuki may have kept them in Japan for the summers, apparently even the great Suzuki Touichirou got homesick, but that just meant that they were all in close proximity to him, in one place, for months. That was stressful in and of it's self but when group drama was thrown into the mix along with whatever bizarre shit spilled over from Suzuki's personal life…yeah. Summers were pretty fucking stressful. This one had just been the most stressful.

Thank God fall was coming. Fall meant winter and winter meant that they could hibernate without people, mostly Mob, suffocating them with their worry.

"I thought winter was stressful for you because all the plants went to sleep and it made you extra tired and stuff." Said Mob

"Life is stressful." Said Minegishi with a shrug. Mob nodded.

"It is….well it kind of is. I just…I knew that it would be hard when dad came back. I mean I knew that he'd be a jerk and stuff but…well he's always kind of a jerk. I mean that he acts like a jerk, not that he is a jerk, just…he can be mean sometimes. He has been, to Sho, but he's been kind of weird too…but with Mukai." Said Mob

"Your dad's weird all the time." Said Minegishi. If you googled 'weird' and hit the feeling lucky button it would probably take you to Suzuki's Wikipedia page. They wondered if that thing was still up or if Hatori took it down. That was a pretty damn good excuse to go inside…but then they would be inside. Shibata and Shimazaki were off on some mission and Suzuki had turned Hatori into his shadow, so it was just them in the house…well Serizawa was hiding in his room as usual…and they did not want to deal with him. They had no idea if he would be coming out anytime this year but they didn't want to risk it..

So it looked like the garden was their new home.

"He is…but now it's kind of really weird. Like…he's nice to Mukai…and it's weird." Said Mob

"This is…a problem for you?" asked Minegishi. She may have been jealous. That would have been normal. She was twelve and had always been daddy's little girl. Now her dad had another one and she was just this weird amalgam of daughter and wife that Suzuki had made her into. Mukai was small and cute. Mob was not so small and getting too old to be cute. It made sense.

Still, though, poor Mob.

"It's not a problem. I'm glad that dad likes Mukai but…it's weird. He never liked me and Sho that much…not that I remember, anyway. He really likes me now but he doesn't like Sho at all…and I don't want dad to treat Mukai like he treats Sho. That would be terrible. I don't want him to treat her like me either, too much of dad's love can be kind of smothery….and I don't….I don't know what I want." Said Mob

"Well I can imagine that getting high in the middle of the day is helping matters." Said Minegishi

"I'm not high either. I used moderation like you're always telling me to. I listen when you tell me things, I really do, and I don't want to do anything to make you leave again anyway." Said Mob. Minegishi sighed and put their arm around Mob. Of course she thought that the whole thing had been her fault. This was Mob. That was just how her brain worked. Someone had a problem then, obviously, it must have been her fault. She really needed to grow out of it…

Or maybe not.

Maybe the world needed more people like her and less like them. People who actually cared about the people who cared about them. People who got back up again no matter how many setbacks they had…and Minegishi hadn't even had any setbacks. They knew what to do when they had a setback, they dealt with it, and…and things had been going really well. Maybe that was it. Maybe they were the source of their own misery and their own worst enemy and shit like that. Maybe they had been trying to outrun the other shoe that they assumed was going to drop on them, like Ryou had said so many times before. Maybe…maybe they needed to spend less time thinking about themselves and more time thinking about Mob.

She was the one who was twelve, not them.

"You didn't make me leave, Mob, alright? My own stupid...self…made me leave." Said Minegishi

"You're not stupid. Don't ever say that about yourself. You're really smart and…and I should have been a better friend to you than I had been…being." Said Mob

"Been being?" asked Minegishi with a laugh that they, of course, did not feel. Mob was….well she was Mob. She was awkward and clueless and, yes, not the best talker. Still, that was kind of…well…cute. She was still such a kid sometimes. It was amazing that she could still be such a kid.

"I meant that I had been too distracted to be a good friend to you and I'm sorry…but I can make it up to you." Said Mob

"You have nothing to feel bad about and you have nothing to make up to me, I told you so. Stop thinking that you have some kind of…that you're responsible for me. You're not. I didn't leave because you're a bad friend, and never think that about yourself. You're the best friend that I have ever had in my life and…and you know that." Said Minegishi. Mob nodded…and then she looked past Minegishi. They could tell. She was looking over their shoulders. She was playing with the ends of her braids now. Her hair was getting longer, her bangs were in her eyes again, maybe she needed a haircut. She hadn't been included in the last haircut day…Minegishi needed to trim her bangs and get rid of the split ends that she probably had developed since the last hair cutting day….

Minegishi was the one who was supposed to take care of Mob, not the other way around.

"You still want to be my friend? I mean you still…I know what you said before but you also said-" said Mob

"Forget what I said back in Osaka." Said Minegishi

"The good things or the bad things or both?" asked Mob

"The bad things. I was a bastard to you and you know that I'm sorry. It was a combination of withdrawal and my own issues that you don't need to worry about. I'm here, I love you, and we're friends." Said Minegishi. She was listening to them….or at least she had better have been listening to them. They knew her, how her brain worked, they knew that she was going to overthink everything to hell until she came to the completely and totally wrong conclusion.

That was just how Mob was…and how she was….well she was just like them. All the worst parts of them.

"So you ran away because of your feelings and that other thing? Because Shimazaki said that you do stuff like that because you don't think that you're allowed to be happy and also because you're worried about shoes dropping on you. You know I would never let that happen to you, right? I would never let anyone drop shoes on you." Said Mob

"Not literally, Mob, and Ryou needs to shut up about me. He knows how I feel about him talking about me behind my back." Said Minegishi. Ryou didn't know how to shut up. That was a fact that they had been well aware of for years now. There was no changing that or anything else about him….and anyway they didn't want to try and change him. They didn't have that kind of energy, first of all, and second of all he was…he was the person he was and who he was….

Well he was the person who they'd fallen in love with.

They'd fallen in love with him and…yeah. That was how they felt. They loved him and in loving him well they had thrown so much of themselves in with him…so many feelings that they'd rather not have had…but they did have. Ryou…he couldn't ever just leave things alone. No, he always had to ask for more. Moe of their love, more of their life, more than they had ever thought about giving another person. He just kept on asking them…and they still didn't know what they were willing to give…and now all of it was just…they needed to be with him. They needed to get over him. They needed to get him over them. They needed to be with him for the rest of their, probably severely shortened, life. They…

Maybe they were the high one, not Mob.

"He said good things about you…so that's good? Right? Because he said good things? I mean he loves you so I can't imagine him saying bad things about you…I can't imagine anyone saying bad things about you. You're Minegishi." Said Mob

"That's not the point, Mob, he knows…you know what? It's not your problem. You have enough to deal with as it is. Between your dad being back, your brother being….your brother, and your sister being…two years old….you have a lot on your plate. Don't add my shit to it, ok?" asked Minegishi. Mob had better not have been thinking of arguing with them about this….but this was Mob. Of course she was thinking of arguing with them.

"But…we're friends. Your problems are my problems and my problems are yours. Friends are supposed to help each other. That's what makes us friends." Said Mob. Minegishi wondered if Mob was full of rainbow and sunshine. That would have made sense. How someone like Suzuki….how a place like Claw….could have made a kid like Mob they would never know. How she managed to stay this way even with everything that the world had dumped on her…and everything that Minegishi had dumped on her…well they didn't know. The whole thing just defied logic…but this was Claw. There was no room for logic inside of Claw.

"I'm the adult and you're the kid, alright? Let's both act our ages. I can deal with my own stuff and yours…so stop fighting with me about this." said Minegishi. There was no place for logic when Mob got like this. She was going to take responsibility for Minegishi….and they had never asked for that…but they had never asked for a lot of things that they had.

"I-I didn't mean to start a fight! I'm sorry." said Mob. She looked away from them. They flicked her over the head. Not hard enough to knock the sense into her that she desperately needed but hard enough that they at least had her attention.

"It's fine." Said Minegishi. Nope. They may have been feeling better but that did not mean that they had the infinite amount of energy needed deal with Mob when she got like this. She was practically about to kowtow over something that had NOTHING to do with her. Sure she'd pulled them from the edge of the abyss…they needed to do less reading, it was poisoning their mind, but they hadn't asked for that. They hadn't asked for any of this…

But that didn't matter. They had what they had…and what they had was a very devoted twelve year old best friend.

"But-" said Mob. Minegishi was not going to let this go on. Mob wasn't going to give up. If there was one positive thing that they could say about the Suzuki family it was that they didn't give up no matter what. They needed Mob to give up on this, though, and they needed her to do it now. They could feel a headache coming on and it wasn't just from the unrelenting sun.

"You said that you were putting together a badminton game, right? Is there any room for me?" asked Minegishi. Mob actually looked shocked there….not that they blamed her. They hated anything to do with the outdoors besides gardening, hated playing with Sho, and most of all hated getting up and moving around…but they loved Mob. They also loved it when Mob dropped it and this was the best way to get her to drop it.

So long afternoon reading time….

"We have equal teams but you can play. Mukai doesn't really know what she's doing anyway…wow. You've never wanted to play hit the birdie with us before." Said Mob. Minegishi shrugged. Mob was still staring at them…why did she have to ask so many questions? Was this really so unbelievable? Well…this had never happened before…but there was a first time for everything…and other such fortune cookie based wisdom, wasn't there?

"Well there's a first time for everything, isn't there? Now come on, before it gets any hotter out here." Said Minegishi. They were not in any kind of badminton playing mood but they would do this for Mob. That was how it was supposed to work, them being the adult and Mob being the kid. She was supposed to play and have fun, all the things that Minegishi had never had the chance to do when they had been her age, and they were supposed to take care of her…act in her best interest…so that was what they were going to do. They were going to go over to the next yard and play badminton in the unrelenting sun until they got heatstroke. For Mob.

They knew that they were going to get hot, sweaty, achy, and stared at…but this was for Mob so they didn't care. They'd do just about anything for their best friend.