Minegishi had never been a fan of plane rides.

Being this far off of the ground, the lack of plant life, the proximity to Suzuki…there was nothing about plane rides that appealed to them. The hardship that was a plane ride with Suzuki was usually softened by Ryou's presence. Not this time. He was back in Shanghai. This wasn't that kind of trip. This wasn't one of those trips where Suzuki dragged them across the world for very important Claw business. No, this was one of those 'they both had personal business in Japan to take care of and planes were expensive' trips.

Well at least Minegishi had personal business to attend to. They didn't know or care why Suzuki and Hatori were here.

"Left. Hatori, left!" said Suzuki

"I am going left." Said Hatori

"The other left…and now you've died. Wonderful." Said Suzuki. Minegishi looked up over the top of their book. They had been on the same page for the past half hour. It seemed as though they would never familiarize themselves with the lifecycle of the night blooming cactus. Not as long as the nerd her, two third of it anyway, were carrying on like they were in the middle of an arcade. Minegishi wished that this had been one of the big planes, the ones where they would have had an entire corner to themselves. A whole bank of seats in the very back where they could have laid down and taken a nice nap.

Ryou's presence was optional.

Optimal and optional. He made a good plane pillow, the rise and fall of his chest was enough to calm them down from even the worst Suzuki based annoyances. He wasn't here, though, there was no reason for him to come. They had already celebrated Valentine's Day together, it was over. Now they just had to celebrate with their other boyfriend and the holiday could be over with and they could rest. Maybe Suzuki would do something about it, Valentine's Day, when he came to power. He hated fun after all. He didn't get excited for anything, not even Christmas, no matter how excited Mob got. Her excitement was always infectious. Even Minegishi wasn't immune…

They reached into their pocket.

They still had most of their chocolates from Mob. Heart shaped homemade friendship chocolates with love in every bite. Lovely. They wondered what Mob was up to right now. Probably making more chocolate with Mukai and Shibata, or watching one of her hour long romantic scene compilations, or maybe she was out getting pregnant like she was stupid enough to actually want to. Maybe she was out there wandering Shanghai looking for the next love of her life or whatever. Maybe Ryou was giving her tips on how to pick up whatever lonely singles were in their area. Maybe Minegishi would come back and find Mob cradling a smaller version of herself in her arms and-

"Honestly!" said Suzuki

"Hey, I did my best, how was I supposed to know a goblin was going to spawn there?" asked Hatori

"Hatori….just give me a pen." Said Suzuki with a sigh. They watched him for a moment, careful not to make eye or aural contact. His eyebrows were furled, and he was taping his foot. Huh. They had never seen him this expressive, not unless he was fighting with his kids or punishing traitors. Maybe they should have felt honored to see this side of him…someone else could feel honored. What they felt like, right now, was getting some peace and quiet.

"You're not going to stab me with it, are you?" asked Hatori. He was shaking, now, but that was normal for him. Why someone as anxious as him had chosen to be friends with someone like Suzuki was beyond explanation. The only thing more confusing was why Suzuki had chosen to befriend him in the first place. They were sitting together, laptops balanced on their knees, playing some kind of game together. Not the image that came to mind when they thought of Suzuki Touichirou….though they often made an effort not to think about him at all. He was their boss, he was Mob's father, and he was an asshole. They were well aware of those facts so they had no reason to sit and contemplate the man.

"We left Tada-Fukuda behind so no. Obviously you can't tell your right from your left and it looks like I'm going to have to mark your hands so you know which is which just like I had to do for Sho and Shigeko." said Suzuki. Hatori didn't fight it, he just fished a pen out of his pant's pocket and handed it to Suzuki. Suzuki did exactly what he said that he was going to do. It would have been a quaint little father and son sort of scene if they had been anyone else. But they were Hatori and Suzuki. It wasn't quaint, it was just weird.

Ryou would have gotten a kick out of it, though.

He had this idea in his head that Suzuki disappeared with Hatori to fuck him. He also had this idea that Suzuki and Fukuda were fucking. Why he spent so much of his life speculating over their boss's se life Minegishi would never know. It didn't matter who Suzuki was giving it to, he could give it to everyone and their mother for all Minegishi cared, just so long as he didn't make so much as a pass at them. He checked them out sometimes, Minegishi had seen it, but he never went full on scumbag and tried to bend them over or whatever it was that he was into. Good. They didn't need to do that to get ahead first off all, there was no amount of money or power that would make Suzuki Touichirou appealing to them, and second of all they had two boyfriends and, as had been stated numerous times, they had it going on. They could find a partner easily. There wasn't even the thrill of taking the most powerful man in the world to bed, either.

They were powerful in their own right, they didn't need to be powerful by association.

Ryou, for once, knew how to hold his tongue. They knew him, they knew what happened in that head of his. Right now he was probably pacing the ceiling gnawing on a dinner candle and imagining all the sex he assumed Minegishi was having. With Matsuo, which he was right to imagine, and with Suzuki, which he had to have been insane to imagine. Ryou would never admit it but he was a jealous person. Romantically and in just about every other way, too. He hadn't been like this before they got together but they hadn't been in love then. Not like now. They loved him, he loved them, and that just wasn't enough assurance for Ryou…

Which was fine.

Minegishi wasn't about to start jumping through hoops to reassure Ryou that they loved him. They put up with him, didn't they? They put up with him waking them up at all hours because he couldn't tell day from night and got bored. They put up with his weird cooking projects that somehow always wound up going up in smoke. They put up with his cocaine pushup marathons. They put up with his playlist that was, somehow, six songs on a loop for three hours. They even put up with his weird semi-crush on Mob. He didn't have a crush on her, not a real one, he just didn't know how to care for someone or be cared for by them unless they were in a relationship with him. Mob was too young for him, too smart for him, and they were sick and tired of him clinging to her. They even put up with all of his weirdness and annoyances…because they loved him.

And yet he failed to see that.

"Do you want to just play something else?" asked Hatori

"We aren't playing. This is serious work we're doing." Said Suzuki

"Right…well do you want on Minecraft now?" asked Hatori

"I would like that, yes." said Suzuki. The way he said that, almost like Hatori was doing him a favor….wait. This meant that Minegishi had spent enough time with him over the years to be able to hear the actual tones in his voice. The first time they'd met him they hadn't been able to get anything approximating a read on him. He'd been cold, monotonous, and honestly just…bored. His voice had been so static, it seemed, but they just hadn't spent enough time around him….they couldn't believe how much time they'd spent around him.

They'd seen him first thing in the morning.

Their brain had pulled the image up without them summoning it. Sort of like in that movie Mob watched, with the mind world. Someone had sent it up and now happiness was at the controls. They smiled, just a little, because really there were few things in this world funnier than Suzuki stumbling to the bathroom at six in the morning with a bedhead, sleep in his eyes, and in Space Invaders pajamas of all the things. Somehow the pajamas were funnier than him sleeping fully dressed, which he apparently used to do. God he was such a weirdo, a dork, he was such a-

-a looker, since he was looking right at them.

"Are they waiting for us to invite them to join us?" asked Suzuki. He spoke to Hatori but kept his eyes on them. He really did have beautiful eyes, the color was something akin to sapphire but clearer, and sharper. Very sharp. Piercing. Now that was a piercing gaze. They held it, of course. They weren't Hatori, they didn't shake in fear just because the most powerful being on the planet was staring at them.

"I don't know, you ask them." Said Hatori

"I'm the President here, I give you orders, and I am ordering you to ask them if they would like to join us." Said Suzuki. Well then, this was getting annoying. He knew how small this plane was, he could have reached across the aisle and shaken their hand if he'd wanted to. Not that they wanted to make any kind of physical contact with him whatsoever. They didn't even want to speak to him…but having him speak like they weren't even there was worse.

"I'm right here, I can hear every word you're saying, and no, I don't like videogames or serious work, so you two have fun with that." Said Minegishi with a wave of their hand. Their nails caught the light. Mob had done some kind of galaxy thing to them….a while ago. They were overdue for a Mob manicure…a whole Mob spa day. Maybe they had been too hard on her…or maybe they had just been too soft on her over the years. Maybe if they had been harder on her then she would have had fewer issues with substance abuse…and guys…and whatever other ways they'd fucked up with her. She had to know that what she had done, trying to get pregnant, was wrong…well not wrong but a bad idea. She was too young and she had her whole life ahead of her….well she already outranked pretty much everyone but…they were not her parent! They had done their best to make sure she didn't wind up a not even teen mom. The rest was on Suzuki.

Mob was doomed.

"Oh…alright…then…." Said Suzuki. He was still looking at them. Still staring. Mob did that too. She stared and stared and stared until you invited her to speak. Well at least they knew, they had proof, that Suzuki's wife hadn't been running around with the milkman.

"Something you want to ask me?" asked Minegishi

"No. It's just strange that you're here without my daughter. You are normally inseparable from her." said Suzuki

"I didn't think that Mob would be comfortable spending Valentine's Day with me and my boyfriend." Said Minegishi. Mob may have wanted to come with. They hadn't asked…but Mob hadn't offered to come with. They didn't know what she would have done if she'd come with. Matsuo was living in a Claw safehouse in the middle of the country. Nice, quiet, and secluded. Nobody else around…so they would have had to entertain Mob. Minegishi loved Mob but right now they just needed to be with an adult in adult ways that they did not need her hearing through the walls or even worse, accidentally walking in on.

No, they did not need a repeat of that.

She would have liked it, though, the country. Being able to just relax. Her life was stress and obligation and…well Matsuo liked spa days too. He liked getting his nails painted and his house did have a sauna. He liked kitsch, too, stickers mostly. Mob loved stickers….well Mob was free to come with if she had wanted to. She was, apparently, doing whatever she wanted to now. Making all of Minegishi's mistakes. Making mistakes that even Minegishi at their stupidest had never even considered. No matter how bad life had been, how lonely they had been, how powerless they had felt, they had always known that bringing another person into the world wasn't going to help anything.

Mob should have known better….but then again look at who raised her.

"But….Shimazaki isn't here?" asked Suzuki. Minegishi rolled their eyes. Suzuki. What the hell was with him. Yes, Ryou wasn't here. Maybe he should have been using his brilliant powers of observation to observe his children. To take an interest in his twelve year old daughter, to pay her some attention, before some stupid boy paid her some attention and then in nine months they had Mob Jr. to deal with. While he was at it he could have paid some attention to his son, too. He had been spending a lot of one on one time with someone who was VERY comfortable with the idea of Mob sleeping with men twenty years older than she was…well not that they wanted to shame Mob for what she may or may not have felt but…parenting was hard and Minegishi fully admitted that they were doing a terrible job of it.

"Good eye. No, Ryou's back in China guarding your kids. I'm on my way to see my other boyfriend. If that's all I would like to get back to my reading." Said Minegishi. This was a short flight. Shanghai to Osaka was supposedly only two and a half hours…this was going to be the longest two and a half hours of their life, it seemed.

"Oh…but how does…if I may ask, how does that work?" asked Suzuki. Minegishi slammed their book shut.

"You want me to explain…how it all works?" asked Minegishi. Hatori laughed. He got one big laugh out before he covered his mouth. Suzuki raised an eyebrow and stared at him. That shut him up pretty quickly.

"Yes, I have been curious for some time how your relationship with Shimazaki can function with the way you both…carry on….if that is an acceptable question for me to ask. Socially." Said Suzuki

"Are you asking me as my boss or are you asking me as…I don't know, is this a social thing I guess?" asked Minegishi

"I am always speaking as President of Claw…but right now I am asking for the sake of socializing with you." Said Suzuki

"Are you trying to….make friends with me?" asked Minegishi. That was…not ideal. If Suzuki wanted to be their friend then…well there was nothing they could do to stop him. Befriending him would lead to…things that they did not want to do with him. They'd sleep with him if they had to…but they really didn't want to. Sex was sex, it didn't have to mean anything, but it did have to happen with someone that they were attracted to.

There was nothing at all attractive about Suzuki Touichirou.

He had beautiful eyes. That was it. He was old, a lot older than them. What was he? Forty four, forty five? Old enough to have been their father…well if he'd really messed his life up in high school…but still. That was too much of an age gap for them. Even if he had been attractive it would have been a no go. He wasn't even physically attractive. His eyes were his best feature. His hair was cut unattractively short, he had no sense of style, his grooming didn't even include the most basic of skin care, and he smelled like fried eggs and ketchup all the time….well when he hadn't gotten into Mob's bath bombs. So his options were either smelling like a diner or a twelve year old girl…lovely. That wasn't even getting into his dumpster fire of a personality.

They would rather have slept with anyone else, Serizawa or even Hatori, than let Suzuki Touichirou so much as touch them.

"I…am….speaking to you right now in an attempt to….fill in the gaps in my knowledge of modern romantic relationships." Said Suzuki

"Alright then, fine, I'll explain it to you. I have feelings for Ryou, he's my boyfriend. I have feelings for Matsuo. He's also my boyfriend. I'm in a relationship with both of them but neither of them are in a relationship with each other. Nobody gets jealous, nobody owns anyone else, everyone's happy….or at least I am. Does that answer all of your burning questions?" asked Minegishi

"No, actually I would like to know how-" said Suzuki

"Hey Suzuki? You want to try 3D Space Invaders? I mean it is the best version after all." asked Hatori. Minegishi owed him. Maybe they'd tell Ryou to lay off of him for a while. He had saved them after all, that was more than a lot of other people would have done for them.

"Bite your tongue, Hatori, bite it clean through and deal with that until we're back with Tadashi…Fukuda. Honestly, the things that come out of your mouth sometimes, I swear. How someone could possibly say something so idiotic….." Said Suzuki before he launched into a very long speech about how the move to 3D was the worst thing that had ever happened to videogames. Minegishi tuned him out. They didn't care. They just wanted to get through this plane ride already, then this holiday, and then the rest of their life.

They had never been a fan of holidays, or plane rides, and honestly they were happy just to get all of it over with.