Fukuda wanted Valentine's Day to be over.

He pulled his coat a little closer to his body as he walked down the mean, or at least shady and unpleasant, streets of Shanghai. At some point this sort of place had become his sort of place and these sorts of people had become his sorts of people. He didn't feel like being in the nice part of the city now. He didn't feel like having to walk around pretending to be happy, to be having a good Valentine's Day, to have to focus on blending in with the people around him. No, what he wanted to do was forget and find someone to forget with.

He had a lot to forget.

He could get drunk, it just took a lot of more than the average person could handle to get him there. If he repressed his powers and drank A LOT in a short amount of time he could get there. Then he could just…forget…for a little bit. Forget what his life had become, forget his responsibilities, forget his fuckups, forget his broken promises…

Forget her.

A blonde woman makes eye contact with him as he passes. He keeps on walking, he doesn't much feel like getting robbed tonight. He knows where he's going and he knows what he's looking for. He's going to a place that he knew he shouldn't have been visiting and he was looking for someone to somehow both help him forget her and also…also someone who reminded him of her. Not a blonde, she hadn't been a blonde. She had called her hair dirty blonde but it had been more of a light brown. He was looking for someone with light brown hair, chocolate brown eyes, a laugh that sounded like….well forget her laugh. There wasn't a woman in the world who could laugh like her.

He'd looked.

There was only one Suzuki Masami, one Masami, in the world. She wasn't a Suzuki anymore, she wasn't Touichirou's anymore. He'd divorced her and moved on to some other woman. He had never met her but he knew her by reputation. The Ice Queen of Osaka, she'd been called in polite company. Queen Bitch, in less than polite company. Suzuki's Mistress, in even less polite company. He didn't know her but he knew her type. She had made a name for herself as a boss but really she should have ben a miner. She had a real talent when it came to digging for gold.

Not that he cared.

This woman could have taken him for all he was worth for all Fukuda cared. She could have married him and then stabbed him in his sleep. It would have been easy, he trusted her after all, and Suzuki…well when he trusted someone there was nothing that he wouldn't allow them to do. Even fuck him up the ass. Multiple times a day. Over and over and over…Fukuda shuddered. He needed a drink. He needed two drinks. He needed an entire bottle or two of whatever it was that could kill his brain cells the fastest. He needed to kill them before they regenerated. Maybe if he drank enough and killed off enough of his mind then he could forget…he could forget everything….

The sight of Suzuki Touichirou under him.

It hadn't been so bad when his eyes had been closed. Then he could have imagined that it had been anyone under him. Any other woman. He had never in life been with another man before that point…and he wasn't going to do it again. Eyes opened or closed. He could say, no, with total certainty that he had zero attraction to men. It just…wasn't the same. Even with his eyes closed a hole wasn't a hole. A woman was…there was more to her. There was an all over clutch, being inside of a woman, with a man it was different. With another man it was mostly just concentrated to one area. Also it felt grainier, somehow, which was not a word that he ever wanted to apply to sex. Somehow looser and tighter, grainier and softer, and also there had been an unpleasant sort of friction. Whoever said 'a hole it s hole' was probably incredibly desperate.

More desperate than Fukuda was ever going to be.

He felt like Christmas time, the way the red lights bounced off of his green coat. If this had been any other place it would have been festive. The red lights, the red hearts everywhere, the cupids and glitter…some of these places looked like a party store exploded. Not the places for him. His Chinese wasn't perfect but he knew what some of those signs meant. Yeah…no. There was no way in hell he was trying with another man again…even if it would have been better, maybe, than being with Suzuki. That had just been….even with his eyes closed it had been difficult. When Suzuki was silent it was easier, he could have imagined that he had just been in the middle of it with a woman…a woman who let him do THAT to….but then he started up with his 'oh God's' and 'pleases' and 'thank yous'..and then it was just impossible to escape the simple fact of the matter.

He had been fucking Suzuki Touichirou….and Suzuki had been enjoying it.

Fukuda didn't think that he'd been enjoying it, not really. Sure his refractory period had been nonexistent but that might have just been because of his powers. He was always on red alert when he was near Suzuki and his powers reacted to that. They worked double time when he and Suzuki were together, they had learned to do that back when Fukuda and Suzuki had been kids. A couple of dumb kids doing dumb things. Playing with fireworks, riding wagons down mountains, jumping off of roofs, putting batteries in the microwave….they had been such idiots back then…and they were still idiots. Their idiotic experimenting had gone from death defying to….well….THAT.

That thing that they were never speaking of again.

Suzuki had said, when it was over, that he was more certain than he had ever been in his life and that they were never to discuss what had transpired ever again…as if Fukuda was just itching to discuss why he was never going to be able to celebrate Christmas ever again. They were never going to discuss it again…but it would happen again. He knew Suzuki. He'd been through this before, albeit with kissing. Every year, from middle school through university, Suzuki would kiss him at least once but then insist that he wasn't anything other than straight. Fukuda, for the sake of his sanity, had chosen to believe him. He knew that it was going to happen again…and even once a year for the rest of his life was too much….

He needed out.

He slipped, a little, but corrected himself. There was a flier under his feet. Friendly girls needed for customer service position. Maybe he could get a sex change operation, change his name, and then move to the Shanghai red light district. This one, the nice one, not the very shady one. Just the partially shady one. That would…probably not work. General anaestia barely worked on him, he shuddered to think what would happen if someone tried to put him under. His teeth grew back too…so therefore the rest of him would grow back…

That was going to be plan B.

Plan A….was happening. Plan A was a thing that was happening. He had agreed to this insanity in a moment of desperation…but maybe it would take insanity to end insanity. This whole thing had gone on for too long. This should have just stayed a game, a stupid little game played by two stupid little boys with more ambition than sense, it should never have turned into the most powerful cult/crime syndicate in the world. Fukuda had done this…he was the one responsible for all of this…so it only made sense that he was the one to undo it. It was poetic, in a way. He'd built all of this up with Suzuki only to tear it all down with Sho. Sho was so much like his father…in good and bad ways. Sho had that same sort of fire in him, that drive, which assured him that he could do anything. He was Suzuki Sho, he didn't fail, and once he said that something was happening then it was going to happen. Suzuki Touichirou was going to take over the world, he had declared it and now it was going to happen. Suzuki Sho was going to save the world. He had declared it so it was going to happen.

Masami would have been so proud.

Not of Fukuda, no, not of the man he was. He loved her. He would love her until the day she died. Nobody had ever needed him the way she needed him. Nobody had ever put as much faith in him as she had. When he had been with her, for the first time in his life, he saw the possibility for something other than following Touichirou around and doing his bidding. Home. Love. Family. A wife. Everything that he had told himself he could never have…it had been so close. Like a mirage, like a painting made of smoke, something that he hadn't been able to grasp…something that had been so close but so far…she had offered him everything that he had ever wanted before he had known he'd wanted it…and then shed been snatched away from him. By fate, by circumstances, by the fruits of Fukuda's mistakes. He was the one who'd….who'd done it. He was the reason she was out of his life. He didn't know where she had wound up in this crazy, mixed up, world of theirs but he knew one thing for certain.

He knew that there was no way she would have been happy with him right now.

There was no way in hell she would have been happy with him…and not just because he was in the Shanghai red light district looking for a very specific brothel that had girls with very specific looks so he could both remember her, forget her, and also forget what it felt like to be inside of her husband while he begged him to fuck him until he couldn't walk. There was no way in hell she would have been happy with the way he'd raised her son. Sho had broken up with his girlfriend…over the phone. Fukuda knew that things had changed since he'd been a kid but he figured that breaking up with someone over the phone was still considered bad form. Actually he hadn't even done it over the phone, he'd done it through text messaging….that poor little girl. There was no way that she was alright…but she'd get over it. In ten years she wouldn't even remember this…or maybe more like twenty or thirty…she'd get over it. She'd had a boyfriend when she had been twelve or thirteen, however old she found herself these days, and then he'd made a twelve year old mistake and her heart had gotten broken. It happened.

Masami wouldn't have been happy with him but she would have forgiven him.

She would have seen this for the adolescent mistake that it was. Sho was a child and he was still figuring these sorts of things out. It wasn't as though he was a grown man treating women this way. He was twelve and, compared to his father, this was nothing. He had broken up with her, he hadn't done something worse like forced her to have sex with him when he clearly hadn't wanted to. Touichirou and Sho were a lot alike…but not in that way. No, if anything he and Shigeko were the proverbial apple and tree.

Case and point.

There, in front of him. He felt them before he saw them…his passive range wasn't usually this bad. Shigeko usually shone like a fucking star. Now she was…and it was her. She was dull, as dull as he normally was. Shimazaki was normal but Fukuda normally made an effort to tune him out. What would he have wanted to notice Shimazaki? Or Shigeko for that matter? Or the two of them when they were together…

Like that.

His arm was across her shoulders. His hand hung too close, much too close, to her breasts for his liking. Shigeko was also much too underdressed for his liking, too. She looked cold. She had on…well she would have been at home at any of the establishments that he'd passed. Her dress was too short, she was wearing too much makeup, and it was a good thing that her…whatever Shimazaki was to her, was blind since she was in real danger of taking an eye out.

He almost wanted to run over there and throw his coat over her.

But he knew better. She would have just gotten upset with him, brought it to Suzuki, and…well he didn't care if Suzuki got angry at him for trying to parent to his children. He didn't care if Suzuki kicked his ass or killed him, he just preferred that he did it at a distance. A long one. One that Suzuki had no chance of crossing and…well doing everything that he said that he was never going to be doing again. No. There was no way he was crossing paths with Suzuki.

Touichirou or Shigeo.

He ducked into an alcove. She hadn't noticed him. She was busy trying to walk in those heels. She leaned, heavily, onto Shimazaki. There was a blush creeping across his cheeks. Fukuda hoped to God that it was just from the cold. He wanted to rip that cane from his other hand and beat him with it. Shigeko was twelve years old. She was a child. Shimazaki should have….well he didn't exactly have a choice, now did he? She may have been twelve but she was the second most powerful being on Earth….

Sympathy for Shimazaki Ryou…the world was coming to an end.

"Hey, I'm blind! I had no idea you were there…but keep talking to me like that and I'm going to kick your ass while my girlfriend watches! Don't think I won't, she loves it!" shouted Shimazaki as he whacked a man passing by in the leg with his cane. Fukuda winced. He knew that pain well. God. Sympathy for Shimazaki, sympathy for strangers, sympathy for himself….none left for himself….he didn't even know himself anymore.

"I actually don't." said Shigeko. He still knew her. He may not have known himself but he knew her. She was sweet, she tried to be. She wanted people to think that she was harmless. At least she wasn't planning anything, just on having a good time.

"Oh…well my other partner likes it so…fuck off!" shouted Shimazaki. Shigeko held him back and pulled him away…right towards him. He turned his back…she didn't notice. What little aura she had left was focused on him. He turned around after they'd passed…his hand was on her ass now. Right there, right where everyone could see…how could she have let him do that? He understood wanting the attention of an attractive man but to so blatantly…and what was she doing here? This was all brothels, clubs that also acted as brothels, and what he suspected were drug dens…well she was here for the drug dens…

He had to find out.

Morbid curiosity, maybe, or maybe he just wanted…maybe he just wanted something to tell Masami. Some excuse or…or something. He had let something precious to her slip right through his fingers, he owed her an explanation, he owed her some kind of explanation as to what her Daughter did when she went out with men twenty years older than her…

He followed at a distance. They didn't walk far.

He hit one more person. Before he could be confronted she pulled him into an alley. Fukuda followed, close enough to hear what they were saying but far enough that he couldn't be sensed. This was…he settled on morbid curiosity. He just wanted to know what it was that she….what did she see in him? Why was she ruining herself for him? What had become of the little girl who used to cling to his pant leg and beg for one more story, one more movie, one more game, one more push on the swing?

Obviously she'd grown up.

"Ryou, I feel like you're hitting people extra hard to make up for the cloth." Said Shigeko. Her hand was over his, now, the one with the cane. He leaned his head in close and kissed her on the side of the neck. She blushed…or maybe she had been flushed already. She was bright red, now, and sweaty. He could see the ring of sweat down the front of her dress…he was close enough to notice…he was too close…

But she didn't even notice.

"I am…but if you want I can stop." Said Shimazaki between kisses. She laughed and leaned into him…she wanted that. How could….just….Fukuda didn't know her anymore.

"I don't…I don't want to ask too much of you. I mean we already gave the dog back and…and I don't want to hurt your feelings." Said Shigeko. She laughed, again, as he pulled her close. He let his cane hit the ground. His hands were busy….holding onto her…he shouldn't have been holding onto her like that. His hands shouldn't have been anywhere on her!

"Mob, you could never do anything to hurt me." Said Shimazaki before he…Fukuda was sick. He managed to make it out of the alley and into the street where he promptly threw up the undigested remains of the day's meals. He couldn't help it. What was he supposed to do after seeing….he knew what they did together. Shigeko thought she was a grown woman and she did what grown women did. She had Shimazaki, whatever guy she had stashed away in Seasoning City, and whoever else…he knew what she did but…but he did not need visual confirmation! He didn't need to see it with his own eyes and just…

He was going home.

How could he do anything else? He wanted to forget, he had come out here to forget, but instead he had found something new to take up unwanted space in his mind. He had another holiday to hate, now, another in addition to Christmas….

He hated Valentine's Day….he just wanted to forget that it even existed.