"Join or die."

Suzuki Touichirou didn't speak the language fluently but he knew enough to get by. He only needed, really, that sentence. Join or die. Such a simple sentence, really, simple and efficient. You either joined Claw or you died.

Most people chose to join.

"Well?" asked Suzuki. Another word he knew, or at least a word he thought that he knew. He was no polyglot, not really, it would have been better if he had someone who actually spoke….he didn't need anyone else. He could handle this on his own. He didn't need Minegishi, who had a gift for languages, or Fukuda, who actually did speak Jawa on a native level. He didn't need to being anyone with him.

He could handle this on his own.

Not that there was anything to handle. He had been told that there was an asset here, an important one, but so far he'd seen some moderately powerful telekinesis at best. Even less than what Shiori can do. The fight, if it could even be called that, had been short. Now all he had to do was get his answer. Join or die.

Very few people chose to die.

"….fine…." said the asset. He had a name, everyone had a name, but Suzuki didn't care to know it. It didn't matter. He was a Claw member now…or at least he would be. That was a reluctant yes, anyone would have joined if they had been as injured as this man was, so he would have to be brought into the fold properly. The Eighth…Ninth…the Division which was being built in Australia would handle it. That wasn't one of those things that he needed to handle on his own.

No, he had people for this.

He didn't become the President of Claw by giving away bits of his power…but he didn't maintain his power overseeing ever single little mechanization of Claw's inner workings. He had people to do that brainwashing…and he had people for asset acquisition too…but this was one of those things that he liked to do on his own. Now he was done and he could go.

He turned and left.

He didn't need to be here so he left. He had people to take care of this and now…well now he could go back home. He could go back to Japan. Jakarta was lovely in the fall, well the summer too, but he wouldn't be here to enjoy it. He had to get back to Japan for…for reasons. He had to get back to Japan because that was where the…that was where Tokyo HQ was. That was the most important of them all. He had started Claw, for real, in Tokyo. He'd had no intention of ever returning to Seasoning City at that time in his life. No, he'd had no intention of ever going back…

He'd gotten over it.

There was no reason to have such an aversion to an entire city just because it held memories. The memories remained but he'd managed to exorcise the emotions from them…mostly. There was still some emotion there but he'd managed to make it pass. There was the same sort of emotion that he felt…that he felt some sort of attachment to Japan. It was his home but he had spent most of his life travelling the world. He should have packed up and went on to his next stop. That was how it had always been even back when he'd been married to Masami...even before he had ever met Masami. That had been his life post university…and he…well he could have gone back to it at any time. It wasn't as though he was never returning to Japan again.

Shiori lived there.

She lived right there in Osaka and…and he couldn't stay in Osaka so this attachment had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the fact that Tokyo really was Claw's seat of power. He would keep the capitols the same after he came to power, the less work he had to do the better, and since he was Japanese and Tokyo was the capitol of Japan so…so it all made sense and…and it had nothing to do with Shiori…

He trusted her.

He trusted her as much if not more than he'd trusted Masami. He knew that Masami had left but…well she had never been unfaithful towards him. Not like he'd been towards her. They had been separated for some time at that point but he…that line of thinking was just him justifying the fact that he'd slept with other women…and he'd set such a terrible example for his son that Sho was going around kissing boys…people who were not his girlfriend. He'd learned that from his father and Suzuki…he wasn't above admitting that he'd messed up. If there was anyone untrustworthy it was him.

He trusted Shiori….and she trusted him.

Even now. She trusted him now even though he was far from her and she had no assurance that he wouldn't sleep with anyone else. The battle had been short and now he was free to leave. It was a short walk to where his car had been waiting. In that time he could have cheated on her. He could have cheated, too, when he got into the car. He could have even cheated tonight. It didn't long to check and, no, there wouldn't be a plane available for him until four in the morning. That was time enough for him to cheat on her…and yet she still trusted him.

He loved her more than he had ever loved any other woman in his life and he knew deep down to the core of his being that he did not deserve her.

He checked his phone. She hadn't called him yet…he did some mental math. She might have forgotten. This was…he checked the calendar on his phone. This was the night that new episodes of Love on a Bus premiered. She should have been sitting on her couch right now in her pajamas, hopefully those skin tight pants she wore and one of her t-shirts, eating Chinese food out of the container and observing the lives of people much less interesting than she was.

He didn't understand her sometimes.

But that was normal. He didn't have to understand her to love her. He didn't even have to have that, or very much, in common with her to love her. He just had to love her. He just had to long for her. He just had to care for her. He just had to be prepared to kill or die for her. That was love, the greatest devotion that a man could ever give a woman, and he felt that for him. He loved her so much…he loved her more than anyone that he had ever met in his life.

Nearly anyone.

He loved…he cared for…he didn't know how he felt about Fukuda Tadashi and he didn't want to think about it! The car swerved…he had done that. He had been about to put up a barrier, he was out without any protection, but he didn't. He was a difficult man to kill and he had never once shied away from a fight but it was so annoying when people tried to kill him. These attempts on his life were so tiresome and time consuming…but it wasn't as though he had any right to complain. He'd made the conscious choice to leave any and all protection he had with his children.

Which made perfect sense.

He hadn't left all the others with the children and left in the dead of the night in an effort to avoid his children and the questions that he knew for a fact that they would bombard him with when they knew he was leaving. He had left the others with the children because the children needed protecting. He didn't care if his children knew that he was gone. He didn't have to answer any of their questions, they were only children after all, well Shigeko wasn't…anyway he wasn't obligated to answer any questions at all…

It was just easier, much easier, to travel on his own.

It was certainly more peaceful, anyway. The journey back to the Claw apartment he kept here was silent. The way upstairs was silent. Silence greeted him as he opened and closed the door. Silence greeted him as he kicked off his shoes. Silence surrounded him as he sat down on his couch. Silence surrounded him as he stared at his reflection in the black mirror of the television. Silence clutched at him as he felt the phone in his pocket. Silence crushed him as he stared at the screen. Silence pressed down on him from all side as he laid down and stared at his phone….he held it right in front of his eyes. The light did nothing to cut through the silence.

Light was not noise.

Auras gave off light and some espers, Shimazaki Ryou, perceived the light they gave off as sound. He scowled at his reflection in the black mirror of his cellphone. Shimazaki…he had left Shigeko alone with Shimazaki…she knew better. She knew that she could have done better and…and she was smarter than that. She was smart enough to know that she needed more than a handsome idiot hanging off of her arm. She needed a man who was devoted to her. Devoted and…and dependent. She needed a man who was so completely and utterly dependent on her that he wasn't capable of leaving or cheating or hurting her in any way. She needed a man who would die, just lay down and die, without her. She needed someone with no spine, no will of their own, nothing but…what were people without spines? Sacks of meat?

She needed a sentient sack of meat for a man.

But those were not the sorts of men that she was used to. There was silence. Normally at this hour he would have heard her cooking or…well actually he would have heard her cleaning up after their meal. She would have been trying to get Sho into the bath, too, and Sho would have been fighting her every single step of that way…and then Mukai would have been laughing or shouting. His children would have surrounded him…and Mukai's mother, her adoptive mother, as well….though she probably would have been meditating. She was very centered like that. He had never been good at meditating. Turning off his mind had never been a strength of his. There was just too much to do. There were plans to make and bases to build and about a thousand other things which required his passive attention at least. He didn't know how to empty his mind…but maybe that was a skill that he needed to work harder at honing. Right now he wished…he wished that he could just stop this. That he could stop expecting to see his children there, to hear the going on of their night, to hear his son slam a door or his daughter….his oldest daughter….taking care of her family. He even expected his youngest daughter to shout his name….well to shout what she called him…and then to throw some book or some toy at him….and then he would have exorcised any and all emotions of annoyance. There was no point in being annoyed with her, she didn't know any better, and anyway she was at that most perfect age and he was not going to take her for granted. He had taken so many things in his life for granted already-

He dropped his phone.

He had taken the peace and silence around him for granted. His phone rang…it never actually rang. Not unless Mukai was calling him. She had her own phone now, he had no idea why her mother had been so resistant to getting her one, and she did call him and others from time to time. She was so intelligent...her mother had been intelligent as well. Her mother…Suzuki needed to forget her. She was gone, too, and she was a mistake he had made…but this woman wasn't. The one calling him. Not Mukai, no, the only other person who called him. She hadn't forgotten him…he couldn't believe that he had ever thought that she would have ever been unfaithful to him….

No, he had thought that she should have been worried about him.

He answered the phone. It was a moot point, who would have been unfaithful to who. He had never been unfaithful to her without her express permission and she had no reason to be unfaithful to him. He loved her. He cared about her. He took care of her. He satisfied her sexually. She had no reason to be unfaithful…and she had every reason to call him. He answered. He heard her voice…he needed to actually listen to what she said and not just to the melody of her voice as it danced across the room…across an ocean….all the way to him….

They would always come back to each other.

"…spilled everywhere. Can you believe that?" said Shiori. Suzuki could not believe that because he had no idea what it was that he was expected to believe…there was some shame there…Masami had disliked it when he got lost in the melody of her voice. Women wanted you to pay attention to them….well everyone wanted people to pay attention to them….

He certainly knew that he wanted Shiori to pay attention to him.

"I apologize…I wasn't listening. I was lost in the sound of your voice." Said Suzuki. He braced himself. He expected her to tell him off, that she was upset with him, that she expected a full report of everything she had said on her desk by tomorrow….but she said no such thing. Well of course she hadn't said the last part, that was whatever lingering feelings he had from a lifetime of schooling, his children were really lucky that they didn't have to attend. He wondered if they'd done their homeschool yet…they were so behind-why was he thinking of his children? His wife, his future wife, was laughing at him! But….it didn't sound like the ways in which women had laughed at him before…why, then, was the couch floating up off the ground.

He put it back down with no thought to how he must have disturbed the people below him.

"You really like to turn on the charm, huh?" asked Shiori. Oh. He….had not been making any attempt at being charming…..but she thought that he had been trying to charm her and….well now he could feel how red he was. It was a good thing his children hadn't been around to see this-

He needed to stop thinking about his children.

"I wasn't attempting to be charming…but I'm glad that you feel that I….am." said Suzuki

"Well you don't have to attempt it, you're just….you're really sweet. You're like bubble tea but without the tapioca…and I have no clue how someone can mess up bubble tea. Strawberry banana without the little bubble things? How hard is that to…you know what? I've been going on about this for too long." Said Shiori

"Oh…but I just said that I hadn't been paying attention." Said Suzuki

"Well I'm sick of talking about it. I'll just have to...I'll deal with them later. Anyway, how's Jakarta? Enjoying the sun?" asked Shiori

"No, I'll be coming back soon…and also I don't enjoy the sun. I burn." Said Suzuki

"They've got this product on the market now, sunscreen, you might want to give it a try." Said Shiori

"I have. It does nothing." Said Suzuki

"Wow. Don't take this the wrong way but I am so glad that I'm not a redhead. I mean the sun sensitivity, the resistance to pain meds-" said Shiori

"I find the freckles to be the most annoying part of having my phenotype." Said Suzuki. He knew that he had been interrupting her, he should have waited for her to finish her thoughts, but she had been so wrong. The worst part wasn't the sunburns or the fact that any and all trips to the dentist were torture sessions. No, the worst part was the freckles. The ones which he had been born with and the ones that came later…they all marked him as different…and there wasn't enough lemon juice in the world to get rid of them.

"Why? I like them, they're cute on you." Said Shiori. Suzuki nodded…and then decided to speak.

"They're annoying and I hate them." Said Suzuki

"You…seriously hate them?" asked Shiori

"Yes." said Suzuki

"And….you're just telling me this? Even though this makes you sound, you know, human?" asked Shiori. That was odd. He had never claimed to be anything other than human. Other people called him a God, he simply said that he had the powers of a God. There was a different.

"I have no problem with being seen as human." Said Suzuki

"Really? Even with all the messiness? The weakness?" asked Shiori

"I…do not wish to be seen as weak…but I trust you. I trust that any and all information about my own thoughts and feelings which I share with you will be kept in the strictest confidence just as I keep all of your secrets in my deepest confidence." Said Suzuki. She didn't say anything for a moment. She had…he had…they had….it felt as though something had passed between them but he had no idea what it could have been. This was a fact, a flat fact, he trusted Shiori and she trusted him. He trusted her even more than Masami. There had always been a fear there, an expectation that she would have woken up and seen him for the weak man he was, but Shiori…she had already seen him at his worst. If she had seen him only at his best then it would have been different…but things weren't different. Things were as they appeared right now.

Everything was what it appeared to be.

"I…have been told that before…" said Suzuki. Women, the ones that he'd been involved with enough to see his freckles, always said the same thing…and he knew that the opinions of women mattered the most when it came to matters of physical appearance. He knew that her opinion mattered since she was the one who had to look at him…and he knew that he shouldn't have even thought about contradicting her….

But she was just so wrong….she was dead wrong.

"Your wife, I'm guessing?" asked Shiori in a tone that he couldn't read.

"My ex-wife. We've divorced, remember?" said Suzuki

"Yeah, I remember. I just meant…never mind. It's nothing." Said Shiori. She said that quickly…like Masami had said 'it's nothing' back when she had been something other than a very painful footnote in his life.

"What's nothing?" asked Suzuki. Nothing…when a woman said that something was nothing then it meant that nothing was something and everything was complicated and he would, without a doubt, end up in argument about something that he had no idea he had ever offended her over.

Nothing was always something…even when it came to Shiori.

"Nothing's nothing." Said Shiori. He held his phone out in front of himself. Masami had done that. She had always told him that it was nothing even when it was something….maybe this was just how women were….or maybe it had just been Masami. Just a quirk of her personality. Shiori was a completely different person from Masami…and….and he didn't want to repeat the mistakes of the past….

He didn't want to be married to Masami the second.

"Please don't do that." Said Suzuki after a moment. He braced himself. The room groaned as his powers attempted to make them buckle inwards. He expected a dial tone….did phones still have dial tones? They always signed off at the same time, complete with a countdown, though of course there wouldn't have been any countdown at all if he had upset her. He didn't know what he would have done if he upset her to the point at which she wanted to hang up on him…that she never wanted to speak to him again….that she wanted to leave him while it was easy….

"I'm not doing anything." Said Shiori. Suzuki sighed in relief. The walls groaned again as he exhaled. They went back to how they should have been…he'd have to have someone come in and deal with those cracks after he left…he'd worry about that later. Right now he had to fix…well nothing had broken but...he attempted to mend, that was a better word, to mend things between him and Shiori.

"You….you said that it was nothing. In my experience when a woman says that something is nothing then it's usually something and…and I'm expected to figure out what it is that the something is and I have never been good at it." Said Suzuki. There was another moment of silence. He didn't know if this was peaceful or not…maybe it wasn't…maybe it was. He didn't know.

"I…fine. You want to know?" said Shiori. He nodded before he remembered to speak. There had been some fear there…he was capable of feeling fear even if he didn't like to. He didn't need to fear her….her reactions to things…in the same way that he'd had to dear Masami's reactions.

"Yes, of course." Said Suzuki. There. Shiori was not Masami. She said what she meant and meant what she said and what she meant and said…well what she meant and said were usually things that he wanted to hear. Usually.

"I don't like talking about your wife." Said Shiori

"Oh. That's understandable. I don't like to think about your past partners either. I know that previous relationships which you've had with others…I know that they do not influence our current relationship. I mean I know in my mind that it doesn't but my emotions….I am perfectly capable of controlling my emotions." Said Suzuki

"It's that too, our current relationship…I don't want to….Touichirou, I like you. I like you a lot. I think that you're a really nice guy. I think that you're insanely ambitious. I think that you are the bravest, craziest, man that I have ever met…and I like you a lot for it…but you're also a headache!" said Shiori

"I…give you a headache? That wasn't my intention. If you're ill or injured I have a healer-" said Suzuki. He didn't want Shiori to have anything to do with Fukuda. He was being ridiculous, of course, if anything Shiori shouldn't have trusted Suzuki with Fukuda. He just…he didn't want to share her…or…or maybe him?

Sexuality was very confusing.

"Not a literal one…well, yes, actually. You give me a physical one sometimes too. I like you a lot but I'm not sure if I'm ready to marry you or-or anyone and you can't just declare that we're getting married-" said Shiori

"I have made no such declaration. I haven't slept with Fukuda yet and you told me that our marriage was contingent on my sorting my feelings for him out…and I have not done so. It's a mess, actually, or I am." Said Suzuki

"I didn't say that you HAD to sleep with him, I just said that you could if you wanted to. I don't count it as cheating. Actually it's kind of hot for me, the thought of you with another man. If you want to sleep with him then sleep with him but I won't marry you just because you slept with him." said Shiori. Suzuki was usually very good at understanding her but very good was not perfect. He had no idea what she even meant…did she have new conditions? Well that was her right, to make new conditions, even if it seemed sort of late to be coming up with new….she had the upper hand here. He needed her more than she needed him…and it was alright to need her. Men needed women. That was the order of the world.

"I don't know what you mean. If you have more conditions which I must meet before we marry then I will do whatever I can to meet them." Said Suzuki. He listened to the sound of silence. It had her breathing in it, an advertising jingle came through from her television, very distortedly. There was the sound of a fan, too, maybe…or maybe it was just static or…or something. He didn't know, Hatori would have known, but he didn't bring Hatori with him because Shigeko would have asked-she would have been lonely without one of her friends.

Loneliness was a terrible emotion.

There was loneliness in the silence. Without the sound of her voice he was reminded at how empty this apartment really was. No children, no Hatori, no…nothing and no one else but him. He didn't need other people, he had been able to travel on his own just fine before he had been married, his emotions were just trying to take over his mind. He wasn't lonely. He didn't need other people. He had no reason to worry that Shiori wasn't going to speak to him again…that she was going to hang up and never call him…that he would be without her for the rest of his life…

He didn't know if he could take that again.

"…I like you a lot and we'll stick with that…um…anyway, did you see tonight's Love on a Bus? Can you believe…." Said Shiori. He just listened to the sound of her voice and made approving noises whenever he felt that they were needed. He didn't really have anything to add anyway. He was just happy to hear her voice….he wished that he could've joined her…

That he could've joined his….wife.