Shimazaki could tell when it was dark outside.

Day and night had been pretty easy things to figure out. Day meant that he could feel the sun and people were awake. Night meant that he couldn't feel the sun and people were asleep. Also the world smelled different at night. That was outside, though, the outside world. He was inside in the inside world. It was night and he should have been asleep like everyone else. It was the responsible thing to do. Go to sleep so he could be bright and awake in the morning to fuck up whoever dared fuck with Claw and anything else Suzuki wanted him to do. Summer break was over and now it was time to get back to work and all of that other responsible shit that adults had to do responsibly in the most responsible manner possible.

Responsibility sucked, and not in the good way.

He wasn't tired. Like Mukai had spent at least half an hour screaming before bed he was not at all tired. He had no idea what time it was, he knew that it was dark outside, but unless he felt like waking Toshi up or asking his phone the time was going to continue to elude him. It didn't really matter that much, though, since knowing whatever the time was wasn't going to make him any more tired than he already wasn't. This was just going to be one of those no sleep nights. He had those sometimes, he'd had them for his entire life, it wasn't like this was some new development. He should have gotten out of bed. He should have gotten up and done…something. Found someplace fun or something. Found someone to have fun with…or just found someone to get him out of his head…

Toshi wasn't helping.

Well of fucking course they weren't helping, they were too busy sleeping. Normal sleeping. Not depressed sleeping. Not xanned out sleeping. Not even drunk sleeping. Just…sleeping. He could tell by the way that they were breathing, really even, in and out. Over and over again….nice and deep and slow. Toshi was so good at breathing. Toshi was so good at everything. Toshi was just…Toshi. They were…what had Sho said? That Suzuki told him? Right. Toshi was his most perfect person. Even if they had left him….run away….gone home for a little bit. They came back…Mob dragged them back…but if didn't matter how they got back. The important thing was that they came back and they were here with him.

Maybe he was needy.

Well people had needs! People needed to eat and sleep and fuck and piss and fight and…and a hell of a lot of other things. People were supposed to have needs. All living things had needs and…and maybe he shouldn't have put so many of his needs onto Toshi. Thinking this much about another person…how they felt….this was not something that he needed. When you worried about other people then you slowed down and when you slowed down then the bad thoughts got to you…and he was not in the mood for those sorts of thoughts. He wanted to think about….good shit? Like puppies and candles and really good vinyl. Toshi, too, but…good Toshi. Like that time in Cabo when they did all that coke and fucked until they were both raw…or the time they spent the whole day cuddling and listening to the best albums ever pressed by mankind…or even the time when they took acid and Toshi made strawberry fields forever…well they'd tried running away from him after that time…well that was still a good memory. He had so many good memories with Toshi…more good ones than bad ones…

And he had to keep it that way.

So he needed to do some deep soul searching. He needed to stop being needy. He needed to be whatever the hell Toshi wanted him to be. Right now they probably wanted him to be asleep. They hated it when he was up all night 'ruminating' as they called it. They knew when they were being stared at and they hated waking up to him staring at them…and he was staring. He was focused on them. The rise and fall of their chest, the way their eyes moved behind their eyelids, the way the blood pumped through their veins, even the way their toes twitched every so often. He couldn't help it. Toshi was so fucking…Toshi….and he loved them.

When you loved someone….well sometimes you got a little weird when you loved someone.

Toshi twitched. He watched them make the sort of full body twitch that they made when they were starting to wake up. Not good. He knew that it must have been pretty fucking late, even Hatori had gone quiet and his blood was mostly energy drink, and Toshi…they needed their sleep. Right now they were in that clean slate place, the place that you went to after Fukuda gave you a once over, and….and he wanted them to stay this way. He and Toshi both fucked with things that they weren't supposed to but he didn't have the same sort of…need…that Toshi did. What he did he did for fun and he could stop whenever he wanted to. Toshi had some real demons they were trying to get away from…well he did too…but he'd largely gotten away from those.

Largely.

There were still times when he freaked out for no reason. Times when his barrier went up when he didn't mean it to. Times when he got angry for no reason or sad for no reason. Times when he got up in the middle of the night sweaty and ready to fight someone who had been dead for years now. Times when he made no fucking sense. He had his demons but he…well he mostly had them managed. Toshi…Toshi was Toshi and if he could he would have exorcised every single demon that followed them around…but he couldn't. The only thing he could do was let them sleep and not make a big deal about….certain things. Even though he wanted to. Even though he wanted to ask them exactly what their plan had been, if they had been planning on coming back, if they had been planning on leaving, if they had been planning on getting over him….or something. He didn't care who they got under, just like they didn't care who he got under, but…but they couldn't get over each other…or at least he couldn't get over them….

They were the love of his life.

The love of his life was currently trying to turn around…oh. He was hogging the blanket again. He teleported out of the bed…and onto one of their books. He kicked it out of the way as quietly as he could. Hopefully that wasn't one of their important books…hopefully they weren't going to be pissed at them…even though they were so fucking cute when they got pissed. Not for real, someone's going to die, pissed. More like…the sort of pissed where their aura got all huffy and their nose scrunched up and they glared at him…but they still loved him….that was the good kind of pissed. He tucked them in. He made sure not to wake them. If he woke them then they'd be the bad sort of pissed…and he didn't want that.

He could never want that.

What he wanted was for them to wake up so the two of them could hash out whatever there was to hash out…but obviously that was not going to happen. Actually he had no idea what was going to happen. Everyone was asleep…he could get dressed and see if Mob wanted to go out and do something fun. It couldn't have been so late that the bars were turning out. She could pass for an adult, a short one, and he knew some good places they hadn't gone to yet….some of which were not full of people who wanted him dead. Places Mob would have liked, with fancy mixed drinks and stuff. Or maybe they could go someone high up and get, well, high together…he laughed a little at his own joke…and she'd laugh too…she always laughed a lot when she got high…

He loved it when she laughed.

It was soft but not super soft…like just soft enough. Like if her laugh were a fabric softener then she would have been the kind that Toshi used. The kind that smelled like lilac and left even his itchiest shirts feeling all soft and shit…yeah. Mob was the good kind of fabric softener…but also the asleep kind. He could hear her aura…and…yes. Sleepy time Mob….sleepy time everyone…well almost everyone. Someone was in the…it felt like the kitchen….opening and closing the cabinets….

Hey! He could help with that!

He teleported into the kitchen…yup. There was someone else in here. A little aura that was attached to a little person who had managed to squeeze herself into the little cabinet under the sink. The one with all the poisonous chemicals in easy to open bottles. Well that wasn't good at all. He was the adult here so he had to be the one to put a stop to this…and also even if he wasn't he wouldn't have wanted anything to happen to Mukai. Sure she could be loud, and a pain in the ass, but she was also small and cute and unpredictable. She was fun. All little people were fun. He wished that there were more little people in the house. Hell, he wished that he knew some of the little people that he was probably responsible for…but that was never going to happen since he had no plans of getting killed anytime soon. He and Toshi weren't going to be having any of these either…but that was ok. He wasn't going to even bring that up ever again.

Nope, he was going to enjoy the little people he already had…and this was the littlest person he knew.

"Who's under there? Who's playing in the poison cabinet? Who?" asked Shimazaki as he got down onto the floor. There were crumbs under his knees and it smelled, weirdly enough, like garlic down there. Someone needed to clean this kitchen and that someone was not going to be him. He knew how to clean….but the others didn't need to know about that.

"I'm not in here!" said Mukai. She still wasn't the best at the whole 'inside voice' thing but Toshi couldn't hear anything from their room so he didn't care. Shibata muttered something in his sleep but it didn't matter if he woke up or not.

"You're not? You're not in….here?" asked Shimazaki as he purposely opened the wrong cabinet. This was the one where they kept their Tupperware. Mukai wouldn't have even fit in there…and also why in the hell did they have so much of this shit? It wasn't like anyone ever ate the leftovers anyway.

"I'm not in here." Laughed Mukai. He heard something tip over and slosh around. There wasn't any way that she could get those opened….right? They had childproof caps or whatever…or maybe that was just for medicine? He didn't know, he didn't clean. It was tedious, boring, and it wasn't like he could even see the mess anyway…though the crumbs under his knees were kind of annoying….whatever. He could live with this. What he could not live with was Mukai dying….but she was fine. He had to focus really hard to see her, it was like picking a normal person out of a group of espers…which was like finding the hay in the needle stack. She was fine….a little cramped in there but not drinking anything that could kill her…and didn't they have some kind of anti-kid thing on the cabinets now anyway?

Well someone was getting crafty…yes she was, yes she was!

"What about behind…door number two?" asked Shimazaki. He opened the cabinet on the other side of her. That was the one with the trashcan in it…and somebody needed to take out the trash. Shibata. He had really been neglecting his domestic responsibilities since Suzuki came back. Shibata really needed to find a better work and life balance.

"I'm not in here." Laughed Mukai again. Whether she was saying that she wasn't behind that door or behind the one she was currently in…he didn't know. She didn't seem to have much understanding of the meaning of here and there. She was talking, though, and that was good. Shimazaki hadn't said a word until he was almost four…at least that was what mom had said. Nobody had really been around for him to talk to…or to hear him talk….and he could sort of remember…well he couldn't remember what he'd said but he remembered that he used to at least make noises to himself…when he'd been really little….

He wasn't little anymore. He was thirty one, almost thirty two, and all of that shit was over with now.

"Huh. Where oh where can that sneaky little Suzuki be? Could she be….in the fridge?" asked Shimazaki ash he got up off the crumb covered ground. He brushed his legs off as he made his way towards the fridge. He walked extra slow so Mukai would have time to catch up…and catch up she did. She struggled to make her way out of the cleaning chemical/household poison cabinet and over to him. He heard a lot of plastic bottles come toppling out of that cabinet but he didn't mind. Whoever hadn't locked the cabinet or whatever could deal with that.

He had enough to deal with as it was.

"Snack time?" asked Mukai as she clung to his leg. He reached down and patted her on the head. Her hair sprung right up as he pushed it down. Sho's hair felt the same way…so that was probably how Suzuki's hair felt. Not that he had ever touched the man in a non-combat setting….not that it wasn't on his bucket list. Suzuki wasn't attractive, Shimazaki had never seen a bigger turn off in his life than the weirdness that was President Suzuki. He was the wrong kind of weird. Not the fun kind, no, the weird kind.

Shimazaki only dealt with the fun kind of weird.

"You hungry? Is it breakfast time already?" asked Shimazaki. He wondered if she could tell time yet…or if she even knew what time was. It was hard to tell with her sometimes. She was little but not stupid. Hell, she managed to get the doors and the baby proofed stuff opened. Maybe she was some kind of secret genius or something…like a baby genius…and that was not a shitty movie like Toshi said.

"Breakfast please and thank you!" said Mukai. He could hear aura smiling. He reached down and patted her head again. There wasn't a big difference between kids and puppies…so maybe he didn't need a dog. Maybe since kids were like puppies then he could just wait until they grew up to be dogs…well not literally. Shimazaki…he wasn't sure…but he was sure as hell that a dog wasn't going to be added to the list of group pets. That was fine. Toshi didn't want pets…or kids…and he…well he wanted Toshi more than he wanted a dog or kids. He loved Toshi and…well there was this little kid right here and she was like a puppy…so that was almost as good. Like margarine and butter.

"Please and thank you? Well how am I supposed to say no to that?" asked Shimazaki

"No! You say yes! Right now!" said Mukai. She poked him in the back of the leg and glared at him. She glared just like Sho did…which meant that it was something else that they got from Suzuki. Suzuki as a little kid…now that was a chilling thought. Suzuki as a two year old…he must have been the most evil two year old to ever live…or maybe he'd been cute as a button and life had just turned him into the megalomaniac everyone knew and loved. Heh. Maybe Sho and Mukai would go down that path…well not Sho, he was a nice kid…but Mukai…well she was such a tiny little boss….adorable tiny little boss.

"So I have to say yes because you told me to? Are you the boss of me?" asked Shimazaki

"I'm the boss! The boss!" said Mukai

"Who's the little boss lady? Is it you? Is it?" asked Shimazaki. He picked up Mukai and poked her in the stomach hard enough to get her to laugh but not hard enough to hurt her. He would never do anything to hurt her. He loved her like she was his own kid or puppy or puppy-kid.

"I'm the boss! Over there!" laughed Mukai

"You're right, you are the boss. The tiny hungry boss. Who's the tiny, hungry boss lady? You are! You are!" said Shimazaki as he poked her in the stomach again. Her stomach chose that moment to grumble. Aww….she really was the hungry little boss lady. Well the hungry little girl boss was getting the best breakfast that he knew how to make.

It was waffle time.

"Come on, tiny hungry boss lady. I'm going to make you the best breakfast known to man. Not sure about women, boys, girls, or assorted others but I'm going to make you the best breakfast that this man knows how to make. Now come on." Said Shimazaki as he held her close and teleported to the living room. He brought them right in front of Shibata. He was either still asleep or trying his best to snore the house down. Really. He might have had fewer breathing problems if he slept in an actual bed and not all curled up on the couch like a giant cat.

Like a giant snoring cat.

"Shush. Shibata sleeping." Said Mukai as she pressed her finger to her lips. He did the same.

"We have to be very quiet. We're hunting waffle irons." Said Shimazaki with his finger to his lips. With his other hand he pointed to the waffle iron Shibata slept with like it was some kind of security…thing…or whatever. Shimazaki didn't know why he still bothered. Three times out of five he didn't wake up…and anyway if he didn't want his waffle iron stolen then he shouldn't have gotten such nice ones.

So, really, Shibata brought this upon himself.

"Be very quiet." Whispered Mukai. She pressed her finger to her lips again. She was so fucking cute. He had no idea why Toshi didn't want one of these. Well aside from the whole childbirth thing…but he wasn't above finishing in a turkey baster and letting someone else do the hard work. Orphanages, well group homes, were a thing too. Or maybe Suzuki would let him have the next love child that got dumped in his lap. He used to think that he'd be bad at this, that any kid that he made was better off without him, but he was more capable than he thought.

He was taking good care of Sho and Mukai, wasn't he?

"You don't have to tell me twice, hungry little boss lady." Whispered Shimazaki as he slowly worked the waffle iron out of Shibata's hands. He was ridiculously strong, like lift the fridge with one hand strong, but Shimazaki as fast. If he needed to then he could teleport away. He would probably have to let go of the waffle maker, though, since he didn't much feel like teleporting with Shibata. For some reason if someone was touching him, even with a degree of separation, they went where he went…and he did not feel like dealing with a pissed off and sleep deprived Shibata.

He wasn't always a nice as he made himself out to be.

"Careful." Whispered Mukai. Well she stage whispered it. Shibata muttered something and began to tighten his hold. Shimazaki had to act fast. He yanked the waffle iron out of Shibata's hands while he grabbed Mukai. This would have to be a split second thing. He had to time this perfectly or he was getting chased around the house again. He didn't mind it, of course, but Toshi would have minded being woken up…and the last thing he wanted to do was piss off Toshi.

So he was careful.

He didn't have to be told, of course, but he was going to let Mukai feel like the little boss lady she was…or at least she was going to be. He had no idea how Suzuki had planned his line of succession out. Obviously it started with Sho, his very gay son Sho, but then….Mob? Or maybe he was planning on having more sons. Shimazaki actually sort of wanted to ask, but he wouldn't of course. Despite popular belief he was not a moron. What Suzuki planned on doing with his line of succession was not something that he needed to know about. At best Suzuki would tell him to worry about his own bloodline and at worse he was getting the shit kicked out of him again. Yeah, he did not feel like doing that today. What he felt like doing was making waffles so that was what he was going to do.

Caramel waffles of course.

"Again! Again! Ryou please and thank you!" said Mukai as she tugged on his leg. He shook his leg out of her tiny little talon. She was reaching for his shorts but was only finding skin, unprotected skin. He had his barrier down…well of course he did. No nearby threats. He'd spent the whole night next to Toshi and now he was with his third favorite Suzuki spawn. He was safe.

It felt alright aside from the tiny toddler scratches.

"In a minute, hungry little boss lady. Right now we need breakfast and I'm the only one out of the two of us who can cook…but don't tell anyone I know how to cook. Alright?" asked Shimazaki as he picked Mukai up and sat her down on the counter. She nodded.

"Secret." Whispered Mukai

"That's right. Now I have another secret for you to keep….are you ready?" asked Shimazaki

"Ready, set, go." Whispered Mukai

"That's right. Now don't you go and tell anyone where I keep my caramels." Said Shimazaki. He reached up to the cabinet of seldom used ingredients and pulled out his bag of caramels. They lived right behind the instant coffee that tasted like misery and giving up. That coffee can had been following them for two years now…and he was not going to throw it away. Without that coffee can he wouldn't have had anything to hide his caramels behind…and Toshi wouldn't have had anything to hide what they grew in. He knew where it was. They had stuck their good stuff in there hoping that the coffee smell would hide it. It didn't but that was ok. He wasn't going to steal from Toshi.

He didn't need to give Toshi another reason to be pissed at him.

They had been pissed enough to leave, before, and he did not need a repeat of that. No, he was going to do something that he had never done before in his life…he was going to think of someone other than himself. He was going to do his best to put himself into Toshi's shoes even though their shoes were way too small and had little rocks stuck to the bottom that made a crunching sound when they walked. He had no idea how they could stand that. Maybe he should de-pebble their shoes for them. That counted as thinking of others…right?

Mob would have known.

He let his perceptions wander over to Mob's house. He kept some of his attention on what he was doing, of course. He had just loaded up the waffle iron with caramels. This next part required finesse. Too little and it wouldn't be at that perfect duet of crunchiness and gooeyness. Too much and then the kitchen would start to fill with smoke and everyone would be pissed at him. No, he had to hit that sweet spot…this really did require his full attention…but that was kind of hard.

It was hard to pay attention to much of anything when Mob was near.

Her aura was so big and so loud…but in a good way. She had been sounding pretty good lately, sort of like that sixties psychedelic rock thing he listened sometimes. There was a drone to her, a comforting one, and the drone was punctuated by what could only be described as hitting a bell with a KFC drumstick. Specifically one from KFC…he just got that feeling. Underneath the drone there was kind of this…nuh-nuh-nuh? Something that sounded like that. That was just her resting aura. She really picked up when she was awake.

But she was asleep now.

She was sleeping on her side all curled up like…what was it called when the baby lived inside if the mother? A fetus? Yeah, she was curled up kind of like that. Defensively. He had no idea what she had to protect herself from. Sho was sleeping, well sleep-kicking, right in the bunk bed above him. Like Sho would have let anything happen to his big sister. Suzuki was sleeping right down the hall from her too and it didn't take a genius to know that her dad would, and had, killed for her. If all else failed she knew that he could teleport and she knew that he would never have let anything happen to her. She was Mob.

He wouldn't ever let anything bad happen to her.

"It hurts!" shouted Mukai. It took him a second to come back into the room, mentally, and…well yeah. He maybe should have watched the waffle iron better…or her…or both. The room smelled like cooking human, which actually smelled a lot like cooking pork, but he would indulge the cannibalistic side of his mind later. Right now he had to fix this.

That was one hell of a burn.

"You're fine, you're fine. Here, see? We'll just run it under some cold-" said Shimazaki as he picked her up…well he tried to. She just started kicking and shouting…and she kicked over his bag of caramels too…but the mess was the least of his problems. If anyone asked he would just say that he couldn't sense them….but everyone would probably ask about the screaming toddler in his arms before they asked about the mess.

Everything was under control.

"Shimazaki! What are you doing?!" asked Shibata. The house shook as he got up. If Toshi hadn't been awake before they were waking up now…actually everyone was. He could sense them all moving…and that burst of aural shouting was Serizawa waking up which meant that Mob would be coming over to comfort him…damn it. Toshi was up too…and he could hear more running….and now Shibata was tugging on him.

Damn. He was strong as fuck.

Shimazaki rooted himself in place with his powers and held Mukai's burn under the cold water. Poor kid…well now she would learn a valuable lesson about touching hot things. That was how he learned. Dad had put his hand right on the electric burner…he was not his dad and this was not ok. Mukai…poor Mukai…and poor him! Between her shouting, Shibata's shouting, and now Tsuchiya's shouting, she could move pretty damn fast when she needed to, he was going to end up with a headache so bad that even Fukuda couldn't-

Hey! Fukuda!

"Mukai? Oh my God what happened to-" said Tsuchiya. Shimazaki, well if he hadn't had the best idea that he'd had in days he would have told her that it looked worse than it was. Well he assumed that it looked bad. He could see, if he focused, that it wasn't that deep of a burn. Sure she had one hell of a blister going but it wasn't like she had nerve damage…actually she wouldn't have any damage once Fukuda was done with her.

See? Shimazaki knew exactly what he was doing.

"Calm down, I'm taking her to Fukuda's right now." Said Shimazaki. He tried his best to be heard but everyone seemed pretty hell bent on starting the world's shittiest screaming match. Well he was not opposed to a screaming match, one that was being properly judged of course, but right now he had important things to do.

Like getting Fukuda out of bed.

"Fukuda! Wake your ass up!" said Shimazaki as he kicked Fukuda out of bed. He rolled once and then hit the ground. Mukai didn't even laugh. She was busy licking her blister and shouting. He didn't blame her, burns were the worst, especially that feeling that came afterwards. The initial burn was bad but then there was that feeling like there was heat trapped under your skin and you were cooking from the inside…that was so fucking unpleasant. Poor Mukai…next time he was going to put some gloves on her or something. Or maybe he should just keep Fukuda close since he had no idea where he would ever get gloves in her size. A kid's store? But he didn't know where any were…Fukuda was the better option. Next time he was teleporting Fukuda over and having him on standby. He had to be good for something other than turning his nose up at everyone and being creepy with Mob.

Like healing the rapidly worsening burns on the hand of the best hungry little boss lady in the whole wide world.

"What the HELL!? What did you do to her?!" shouted Fukuda. He reached for Mukai…what in the hell was with everyone trying to rip this kid out of his hands for!? He had this! He knew what he was doing! Sure he wasn't the best person in the world, or the most responsible, but he knew how to take care of a kid. He wasn't useless! He knew what he was doing!

"Hey! For your information I did the right thing! Now fix her before I fix you!" said Shimazaki. He wasn't kidding. Either Fukuda fixed Mukai or Shimazaki was taking him to the place where they fixed dogs. He had no idea what any of that medical shit was for but he could figure it out.

"Hurts!" said Mukai as she held out her hand. Fukuda's aura decided to add to the shouting in the room. He sounded like metal, like that metal that was just incomprehensible screaming. He sounded like that even when he was calm…though Shimazaki didn't blame him for freaking out right now.

That was a pretty big blister.

From what he could sense of her, anyway, it was a pretty big blister. He wasn't actually going to touch it. Touching it just made the whole thing hurt more. Burns…burns were the worst…but at least the blister was a good sign. The stuff inside the blister was good for you, he'd heard, and he believed it. His burns, back when he'd been getting regular burns, would always heal slower and hurt more when he popped the blisters. Maybe that was why dad always went out of his way to stab the burn blisters opened.

Bastard.

Fukuda reached over for Mukai's hand. Shimazaki almost pulled her away before he remembered that if Fukuda did anything to hurt her then he could just make Fukuda suffer. He wasn't sure if he could even kill Fukuda, that asshole was like a cockroach when it came to survival…and just about everything else, but he could at least make him suffer. He wasn't going to hurt her, though, that wasn't his way. Sure he was an asshole, he talked shit about Toshi, and he had their weird idea in his head that everyone was trying to fuck Mob, but this was Fukuda. He didn't hurt anyone. He didn't have the balls to do it.

No, he had Suzuki settle shit for him.

"Oh my…ok. You know what? That doesn't look so bad. Come on, let's make that all better. Alright?" asked Fukuda as he took Mukai hand in his. At least he wasn't trying to pull her out of his arms anymore. He had better not do anything to her…not that Shimazaki knew what he would have done to her…but he had to keep her safe. She was so little and she was hurting and…and he couldn't help her. He was so useless sometimes.

Even Toshi thought so.

Mukai…he had no idea what Mukai thought. He couldn't hear thoughts, he would have gone crazy if he could have, but he could hear her calming down. First the crying stopped, and then the heavy breathing, and now all that was left was the sniffling. She was sniffling but…he focused on her…her blister was gone. This time he did reach for her tiny little hand…all better. She was all better now. He was…warm…on the inside, like the time he drank right from the chocolate fountain at the one work party a while back. It was a good sort of warm.

Mukai was alright…not that there had ever been any doubt in his mind, of course, he knew what he was doing after all.

"See? There no go. No concussions, contusions, or abrasions." Said Fukuda. There was something strained in his voice…but Shimazaki didn't care. He had to bring Mukai back home and see if Toshi was ok. They hated being woken up…they needed their sleep…and he….he could make this right. He would make this right.

"What do we say?" asked Shimazaki

"Thank you!" said Mukai

"No, we say 'about time'. Like this. About time, asshole!" said Shimazaki

"About time, asshole!" shouted Mukai. God…this kid. This was his third favorite of all of Suzuki's spawn. She was so fucking cute…and smart, too. Fukuda didn't get a thank you. Those were not for people who said shit about Toshi's tits…and also who said shit like he was sleeping with Mob. She had been eleven when he accused him of that….too damn young! She was twelve now and that was still, mostly, too damn young for him.

Nope. No thank yous for people who accused him of fucking Mob and no thank yous for people who insulted Toshi. He had to think of the two most important people in his life.

"That's a good kid…now come on, let's eat waffles." Said Shimazaki as he teleported her back home. They wound up in the kitchen where they were surrounded by…where they would have been surrounded by, the smell of cooking caramel waffles. What they were surrounded by was the smell of burning…

Right, yeah, that.

"Hi, mama! Look! All better!" said Mukai as she held out her hand. Tsuchiya didn't even look…not at all. She didn't kiss Mukai's hand better and dip a candle in chocolate for her to chew on like a mom was supposed to do. She just pulled Mukai away from him and held her close….like she was afraid of something….of him…

Well she should have been afraid of him…but not because she thought that he was going to hurt her kid.

"See? She's fine. You don't have to-" said Shimazaki. If Tsuchiya had been anyone else then he would have told her to fuck off with the whole being afraid of him thing. But she wasn't anyone, she was Mukai's mom, and if she said so he wouldn't be able to hang out with her. If he didn't have Mukai to hang out with then who would he hang out with? Sho? He was getting too old. He used to be fun, and then fun and lovesick, but he was getting older and all…broody…and stuff. Teenage Sho was not going to be a good time. Mob was fun but she was always busy. Toshi was….going through some shit….so really he was getting to be just sort of…

He was fine.

"She needs to go back to sleep." Said Tsuchiya. Well someone was pissed off. Actually, if the auras around him were anything to go off of, pretty much everyone in this room was pissed off at him. Shibata especially, he was glaring at him and brandishing the waffle iron…

Maybe it was time for bed.

"Shimazaki…I don't even know what to say besides STAY AWAY FROM MY-" said Shibata. Toshi raised a hand and he shut up instantly. Good. He knew to listen to Toshi.

"Don't bother." Said Toshi. Shimazaki didn't know if that was a good 'don't bother' or a bad 'don't bother' or if there was any meaning behind it at all besides them asking Shibata not to bother. He was going to take it, though, since at least Shibata shut up. Really. If he didn't want Shimazaki to steal his things then he shouldn't have had nice things to begin with. Toshi agreed with him too…or at least they would have…if they hadn't been leaving the kitchen.

Leaving him.

There was this weird, cold, feeling in his chest as they turned and started to walk away. His body wasn't listening…and neither were his powers. He could tell…he could tell that they were walking away from him. They were taking soft steps, and wearing socks, but he could hear them walking. He could hear the slide of their socks against the tile of the kitchen. He could hear their aura getting further and further away from him. He could hear them breathing, deeply. Deeper and deeper…and further and further away from him…the world was gone. The entire world was gone aside from Toshi. The world was silent aside from Toshi. The world was empty aside from Toshi….

Huh. He hadn't accidentally slipped into Mind's Eye since…well he couldn't even remember when.

"Ryou, come back to bed. It's still dark out." Said Toshi. The sound of their view brought the world back into his perceptions. He could hear it, feel it, and sense it again. There was a house, a kitchen, and other people around again. He knew that it was dark out. He didn't know how late it was, or how early, but it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was the fact that Toshi wanted him back…they wanted him to come back to bed.

So that was what he did. He knew that he wasn't going to sleep at all tonight but he didn't really want to. He just wanted to be near Toshi.