"One, two, three, four! I declare a snow war!"

Snow war was the best part of, well, any place that had snow. In Sho's opinion, anyway, which was the right opinion. Snow was way more fun to play in than anything else. You could build with it like with wet sand but you didn't have to be on the beach to play with it. You didn't have to take your coat off, either, when you had a snow war. In fact it would have been weird not to have a coat on when it was this cold out. The snow seeped through his gloves, sand didn't do that, but unlike sand you could ball it up and throw it at people and nobody told you to stop.

They did the opposite, actually.

"You call that a snow war!?" shouted Shimazaki as he teleported behind Sho and pelted him in the back with, what he considered to be, very lackluster snowballs. If he'd had time to build up his ammunition then he could have made the good ones, perfectly round and aerodynamic and shit. These were just ones he'd made on the fly. Sho normally would have been the one to make them, he had always been in charge of ammunition, but now he was older and they found themselves on opposite sides of the battlefield.

C'est la…life? Whatever the word was. He couldn't think right now. He had snow to pelt Sho with.

"Fuck you! No powers!" said Sho as he turned around, ready to bury Shimazaki in the snow if he had to. They had decided on the rules of war right when they began! You couldn't just change the rules of war like that! That had to have been a war crime or something.

"Yeah! Fuck you!" shouted Mukai as she threw a handful of snow where Ryou had been…but he was gone! She threw the snow on the ground. That wasn't fair! She wanted to throw the snow at him! She wanted to be the snow war!

"Don't say that, baby sis. What if your mom had heard?" asked Sho as he made some snowballs for little sis. He got down on his knees in the snow and did it by hand even though he could have worked a lot faster if he'd been able to use his powers. He couldn't, though, because of all the normal people around. Shimazaki had teleported them out to a place where he could only see trees but there could have been normal people hiding behind those trees or…or in the snow or…or wherever else it was the normal people hid.

He had no idea what it was that normal people did.

He hated being around them sometimes. When he was around them then he had to hide, he had to try and be like them. He had spent so much of his life wishing for powers and the last thing he wanted to do was pretend that he didn't have any. Sometimes he saw big sis's point, that when Claw took over the world things would be better for them. For espers. They wouldn't have to hide anymore once they took over the world. Sho couldn't lie to himself, it sounded like a good world, but he knew that it wouldn't have been. There was no good world if dad was in charge of it. Dad sucked as a dad and a person and the world would have sucked if he was in charge of it. Someone needed to take him down…like Sho…but he knew that he couldn't have done it on his own.

He couldn't even beat Shimazaki in a snow war let alone beat dad in real life.

"Here you go, little sis, hold onto those. We've got to get Shimazaki." Said Sho

"Ryou….where's Ryou?" asked Mukai as Sho put snow in her hands. She held it close. They needed the snow to get Ryou. She knew the game they were playing. Games were fun. Sho was fun. Ryou was fun. Everyone was fun.

"He's…hang on, let me look." Said Sho. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He didn't know how to use mind's eye that well yet, and definitely not when his eyes were opened. He had tried, once, and ended up with a headache that even Fukuda had trouble fixing. He kept his eyes closed and pushed his aura out as far as it could go. There was little sis right next to him, his own aura, big sis's aura far away…he could even sort of feel Minegishi in the trees…the trees. If that was where Shimazaki was hiding then Sho was fucked. He could see the shape of them, sort of, but when he tried to follow them all the way up he just wound up feeling dizzy.

He closed his mind's eye.

He kept his eyes closed for a second longer…a second too long. Something cold hit him in the face. He couldn't help it, he put up a barrier…and that had been the wrong thing to do. He had put it up way too fast and it had hit baby sis. He opened his eyes. She was on her back and she was crying…fuck! How could he have…well she shouldn't have hit him in the face. He had told her the rules of snow war…but she was only two and three quarters. She was a little kid and she didn't know things yet. He was the bigger kid, he was nine years older than she was, and he had to…he should have been better for her.

He should have been a better big brother.

"Hey, hey, hey, don't cry. I didn't mean to. You just…you freaked me out, that's all." said Sho. He got down at her level and helped her up. Her face was red and she was crying…that was bad. If she cried too much then her eyes would freeze shut and then if her eyes froze shut then they'd be stuck like that for the rest of her life since Fukuda was all the way back in Japan. Good big brothers didn't let their little sister's eyes freeze shut.

He had to be a good big brother.

He took off his glove and dried her eyes. His glove had been all wet. If he'd wiped her eyes with that glove then her eyes would have frozen shut even faster. Sure it was cold out and his hand felt like it was going to freeze right off but little sis needed him. If his sister needed him, even if it meant that he froze to death, then so be it. He was a god person…he was a better person….

He was a better person than dad could ever have hoped to be.

"Sho pushed me…you pushed me, Sho. I fell down. Over here." Said Mukai as Sho wiped her eyes and made her all better.

"I know, and I'm sorry….uh….here. You can throw snow at me if you want to." Said Sho as he picked up a handful of snow and squished it into a ball. It felt weird with one of his hands ungloved. Cold…and it would feel even worse when she hit him in the face with this snowball. He didn't mind. He loved her and…and maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he knew it was coming. It was always easier when he knew that it was coming. Back at the lab sometimes he heard the scientist guys talking. Sometimes they mentioned when they were going to turn the water on next. It was always easier when he knew when the water was coming. He didn't know how often the water came, there hadn't been any clocks or windows, and sometimes it came when he'd been asleep….that had been the worst…but it was better when he knew what was coming. It was going to be better now that he knew exactly what was coming and when.

He still closed his eyes, though.

"I'm going to get you!" shouted Mukai before she took the snowball and hit Sho in the face with it. He didn't fall down. He didn't laugh and fall down like he was supposed to. That was what he always did when she got him. Ryou did the same thing. That was what you were supposed to do in snow war…but Sho didn't do anything. He just stayed where he was and he kept his eyes closed. His colors got all bright and he made a weird noise but he didn't laugh.

So she did it again.

Still nothing. He just made the weird noise again and his colors did the same weird thing. They got bright but too bright, like when the sun was really high up in the sky. He was kind of like the sun. He hurt, too, like the sun did sometimes. Being close to him hurt…so she left. She started to walk away as best as she could. Snow was hard to walk in. She had to walk, though, because being near Sho hurt. She didn't like the way his voice sounded, either, he sounded like she'd given him an owie. He was a liar, though, and telling lies was bad. She never once gave him an owie.

When you loved someone you didn't give them auras. Santa said so.

She took a bunch of steps, more than three, when she got very cold. She got cold and the snow went away and…and this wasn't fair! She knew those colors! Those colors were Ryou's and-ok, now the sun was back. They sun was back but she was still cold…mean Ryou! She pushed him hard enough to give him owies!

More than three of them!

"Owie! Owies for you! Owies for Ryou!" shouted Mukai as she pushed Ryou. He fell down onto the ground and rolled over onto his back. She picked up some snow and made sure that she got him in the belly. Getting snow on your belly was the worst, like when it got in your snow pants and made your whole belly cold. Now Ryou had a cold belly…she was glad that he had a cold belly!

"Ryou gives up! He surrenders! I have it on good authority, my own!" laughed Shimazaki as Mukai got him in the stomach with little Mukai sized handfuls of snow. She wasn't even getting through his barrier but he wasn't going to tell her that he'd let her think that she had gotten her revenge, she would get this out of her system, and then she wouldn't have any anger left to betray him with. Then the two of them could team up and go after Sho…Sho who sounded like someone was balling up tinfoil…

Fuck.

"You surrender! Right now!" shouted Mukai. She didn't know what surrender meant but she did know that she wanted to bury Ryou in the snow until he was so cold that Mama had to turn the heater up when they got him and put all of his clothes right next to the heater! And that was very cold! She was winning…but then she wasn't. Ryou grabbed her and picked her up and then the world disappeared. The next thing she knew she was right next to Sho. He was still there, in the snow, with his eyes closed. He was still making that weird sound, like he was crying but he didn't know how to, and his colors were still being weird. It still hurt being close to him….but he was sad….his colors felt sad.

"Hey, Sho, talk to me. What's up with you? Your aura sounds like the time we had a tinfoil war." Said Shimazaki. Sho didn't say anything. He didn't even move, not his body or his aura. His heart didn't even skip a beat or whatever. Well that wasn't so weird, Sho had mostly gotten over him, but he still reacted in some way. If not for his breathing and aura Shimazaki would have thought that he had died or something.

But he wasn't dead.

He was shaking, though, like he was about to die of the cold or something. Shimazaki reached over and took him by the hand, if only to shock him out of this. Shimazaki was the one who ended up shocked, though, when he realized how cold one of Sho's hands was. No glove….why? It was cold as hell out here…wait, no, not cold as hell. If it was cold as hell then hell must have frozen over. If hell had frozen over then a hell of a lot of good shit was coming his way, though, and he'd wait for that later. Right now he had to find Sho's glove.

Fucking snow.

He hated snow. It made the world look all fuzzy and shit, like the ground wasn't where it was supposed to be. He had to really focus just to walk in it. Using his cane, which he hated to admit that he did sometimes actually need, wasn't any help either. It wasn't solid enough to see or rest his cane on top of…or walk on top of….and then a lot of the time there was ice under it. Ice was the worst. Even when it wasn't covered by the snow it still looked just like normal ground. Fuck the snow, fuck the ice, and fuck whatever had Sho all freaked out like this.

Sho didn't deserve this.

Shimazaki felt around in the snow for Sho's glove. In the end it was Mukai that had found it. She was a good seeing eye kid. He couldn't have asked for better if these had been his own kids. Well they kind of were. Sure Suzuki had made them or whatever but he sucked as a dad. Most guys sucked at being dads, he figured. He was good at this…not that anyone noticed…or if they did notice then they didn't care. Toshi didn't want kids, the massive stock of morning after pills they had even though they had the IOU or whatever made that perfectly clear, and it wasn't like he had anyone else who he wanted to have kids with. But that was ok, these kids were kids enough for him and they kept him busy enough. It was never a dull moment. Even putting Sho's glove back on him turned into a grand adventure!

In which he got a face full of snow.

"Fuck you!" shouted Sho before he could think. He knew Shimazaki, he loved…or at least liked Shimazaki a whole lot, but for a second he hadn't been Shimazaki. He had been…well not dad but…well he had been someone else! Someone who Sho had wanted to hurt…and who he had hurt. He couldn't see Shimazaki's barrier anymore so either he put it down or Sho had shattered it. It would have been cool if he'd shattered it…no! He wasn't going to hurt one of his best friends! He wasn't dad!

"Fuck you! Fuck you, Ryou!" said Mukai as she picked up snow and tried to bury Ryou. Sho had done such a good job and now she could do a good job and then they could both be good Mukais!

"Little sis, no, don't do that!" said Sho as he ran up and pulled her away. Shimazaki was hurt and it was all because of him…and now she was making it worse. She was only acting like this because he'd taught her to. He should have been better than this. He should have been a better big brother. He held her back even though she was struggling. She was bigger and stronger than she was when she had been a baby but he was still bigger and stronger than she was.

"I won! I won! I won snow war!" shouted Mukai as she tried to get away. Sho was so much bigger and stronger than she was…it wasn't fair at all! When was she going to be big and strong? Mama was always making her eat gross food so she could grow up big and strong but she never got any bigger or any stronger. Sho was too big and she was too little…she wished that she had Shigeko with her. Shigeko was even bigger and stronger than Sho was! She would have helped!

"Hey, let her go. I mean sure she did betray me but I guess that blood is thicker than water." Said Shimazaki as he sat up. That had been pretty fucking unpleasant. Getting his barrier broken was never fun and neither was getting snow all in his…well, everywhere. He hated the snow and he hated when Sho got like this…but he didn't hate Sho. No way, if anything he was impressed. Sho could break through his barrier at only twelve. Maybe one of these days he'd be as strong as Suzuki. Huh. That was kind of scary, another Suzuki, but thankfully Sho may have shared blood with Suzuki but he was a hell of a lot nice.

"You're not mad at me? Even after I fucked you up? I-I didn't mean to! Really! Little sis just got me and-" asked Sho. Shimazaki got up from the ground and shook the snow off of him. His stomach was showing. Sho looked down at the snow. He was in love with Ritsu. He had to remember that. He was in love with Ritsu and Ritsu was a hell of a lot braver than Shimazaki so even though Shimazaki's stomach looked really…like that….he still loved Ritsu more.

"No, I'm fine. I can accept my loss with grace and that other thing that you're supposed to accept loss with. Decorations…decorum! Yes, I can accept my loss with grace and decorum. You are clearly superior when it comes to the art of snow war and I hope to one day learn your ways, Master Suzuki." Said Shimazaki with a bow. Sho was smiling again, he could feel it. Good. Hopefully he'd managed to sidestep another one of their long talks. For was fun of a person as Sho was he could be a real downer sometimes and Shimazaki couldn't think of anything worse than being bored. Well maybe being boring. Sad people were so boring. When you thought sad thoughts the thing to do was push them away. Obviously he hadn't taught Sho well enough. Well there was still Mukai, and whatever other kids Suzuki felt like having too. Someone would learn his teachings. Not one of his own kids but one of these kids…these kids that were practically his kids anyway.

"Y-Yeah! I won the battle and now I'm going to win the war! Come on, Mukai!" said Sho as he threw more snowballs at Shimazaki. He barely made them, he just pressed them in his hands until they were throwable. That was better than Mukai was doing. She was just picking up snow and then throwing it. The only thing she was making was powder…but that was ok. She was happy. She was happy and if she was happy then he was happy too.

So what if snow sucked and Sho sucked and…and sometimes life sucked? Snow wars were awesome!