Dad only had three friends.
Fukuda was his best friend, or at least they had been. They never hung out now. Dad mostly hung out with Hatori, so maybe Hatori was his best friend now. Serizawa was also his friend but they never hung out unless Mob asked him or Hatori to watch Serizawa. Dad had three friends, only three friends, and no more. It wasn't like she didn't think that he could have made other friends, obviously people liked him for some reason, but….but it was very unlikely that Dad would have made a fourth friend.
Especially not a girl.
'….voted off the bus. I mean come on, he threw the wake up challenge on purpose….'
Dad's phone was on speaker. That made sense since he was in the tub. If he accidentally dropped his phone in the water then he would have died before Fukuda could save him. So it made sense that he was on his speaker phone. Dad was getting older, too, and old people didn't hear very well so it made sense that the volume on his phone was up super loud, loud enough that Mob could hear it through the bathroom door. What didn't make sense, however, what was completely crazy, was that Mob was one hundred percent sure that it was a girl's voice she was hearing through the bathroom door.
No, not a girl, a woman.
"I think that it was a deliberate move from the green team. Obviously with the red team broken up now they have their chance to take the emergency exit." Said Dad. She knew what show he was talking about. Love on a Prison Bus. It was like Love on a Bus but they used former prisoners and the bus never stopped moving and they had to fall in love while being prisoners. It was kind of a mean show but she would have watched it with Dad if he had asked her…but the only people he watched TV with were Mukai and Hatori, these days at least. Back when she had been little she and Dad used to watch TV all the time…but those times were over now. He liked her less than Mukai, he said that he still loved her but she…she wasn't sure…
But she was sure of one thing. This was weird…really weird!
"You're seriously team Green? Touichirou, come on. Red team for life." Said the woman. She was definitely either a woman or someone who had been born a girl…but then why would she, or they, be talking to Dad? Nobody liked him. He was mean to everyone and he hit people and he tricked you into thinking that he loved you but really he just…Dad wasn't really friend material…so then why was he talking on the phone for?
If he had wanted to talk then he could have talked to Mob. They lived in the same apartment after all.
"The Green Team has superior tactics." Said Dad. She could hear water moving. Dad was actually in the tub talking to someone. A girl. A woman. That was…no way! Mob would have been really weirded out if a boy did that to her without her knowing. That was just…you needed to know if the people who were talking to you…you had to be sure they were wearing clothes! How could Dad have tricked this woman….he could be mean but this was just….this wasn't right! That poor woman was being tricked and…wait…if Mob could hear the water than that lady could probably hear the water too….
What.
"Tactics!" laughed the woman. Mob pressed her ear to the door. She could only hear the woman's voice, not if she was in the tub too. Mob couldn't decide if that would have been better or worse. Dad…he was a weird person and he didn't always understand what was and was not ok…but this lady sounded like a normal person….well not a NORMAL person, not if she was talking to Dad….on his phone…
She had his personal phone number.
"Yes, tactics. Everyone knows that winning or losing will always boil down to which team has the superior tactics." Said Dad. Dad never answered his own phone. When Mob had been little she'd been his answering service. Now Hatori answered his phone for him. That is unless it was an emergency, like if a Division Leader needed him or something, but she knew for a fact that this woman was not a division leader. There were no girl division leaders. There were no girl leaders of anything in Claw besides her….
So then this lady must not have ranked at all…if she was even a member of Claw.
"The Red team has brute force on their side and, when faced with enough force, no object is immovable…or something, I don't know. I read it on a fortune cookie once." Said the woman. Mob didn't like this at all. If this lady didn't rank then she might have been pretending to be Dad's friend to try and get ahead or something. Like the lady in the movie she and Minegishi watched who kept on sleeping with people until she was the boss of the crime family. Wait…did that mean that Dad and this lady had….
No. That was sick and wrong and Mob was sick and wrong for even thinking that.
"Alright, brute force has it's place, but you know that I'll always admire good tactics." Said Dad. So this lady wasn't trying to…be his girlfriend….but wait, did that mean that Dad wanted to be her boyfriend? What if she wasn't the one trying to go out with him? What if….oh no…what if Dad wanted to be her boyfriend?! Mob shook her head. She did everything she could to get that thought out. Dad and Mom…they were divorced….but still! There was no way that Dad was trying to be anyone's boyfriend. He was too busy and…and he had a family. People dated because they wanted to find people to have families with so…so since Dad had a family then…then…
Then there must have been another explanation, one which made actual sense, like…like….
"Speaking of 'admiring tactics' I saw what your people did in Beijing. Well I mean I heard about it through the grapevine but, seriously, good work Touichirou." Said the woman. His given name. That was…how did she know?! Who had told her?! What if…ok, now it made more sense. She was a spy. She was a spy and she was using her prettiness, probably not a lot of it, to get information from Dad! That was….that was the only explanation.
That was the best explanation.
"And the same to yourself. Were there any survivors?" asked Dad. He sounded happy, there, and that was worse than anything else. Some woman was trying to trick him and he didn't even know. Mob should have kicked the door in and…well not kicked it in, of course, since Dad was in the bath and that would have been weird. She just…was she supposed to knock? But if she knocked then Dad would have known that she had been listening in on this conversation. She knew how information worked in Claw, if you weren't meant to know something and your name wasn't Hatori then bad things would happen to you if you went digging around. That rule had never applied to her before but before…she had been a kid back then.
Back then Dad had both loved her and liked her. Now he only just liked her.
"You know I have no interest in prisoners." Said the woman. She was still talking to Dad…that meant that Dad liked her. She didn't know if he liked her as a friend or a girlfriend but…but she knew that he liked her. She had thought that…that Dad hadn't liked her because she had gotten older. Like maybe it was like how some boys had been scared of girls and never talked to them but Mom had said that they grew out of it. Maybe Dad wasn't growing up, maybe he was growing down or…or maybe the being tricked theory had been the right one…
Or maybe Mob was just imagining things.
"Yes, I apologize, I forgot." Said Dad. He had said sorry. He never said sorry, to anyone, ever. He just told people to shut up or that they were annoying. She had never liked it when he was mean to people like that but…but she would have made an exception for this lady. She was laughing again. Her laugh was annoying…she was annoying…and Dad shouldn't have been talking to her. He might have just felt trapped, like he didn't know how to end the conversation. Maybe the lady was just really lonely and…and dialed random phone numbers until she found someone to talk to or…or something.
If she was so lonely then she needed to call her own Dad and leave Mob's alone.
"You're getting forgetful in your old age, Touichi." Said the woman. Now that was just too much. That was not Dad's name and…and it was polite to call people by their names unless they asked you to call them something different and-and-and Dad would have never let anyone call him by his given name let alone 'Touichi'.
Who was this woman and who did she think she was?
"I'll admit things have been slipping my mind lately." Said Dad
"I hope that Golden Week hasn't slipped your mind." Said the woman
"Of course not. I've cleared the entire week. I was thinking that we could-" said Dad. Mob knew when Golden Week was and…and she knew that it was a week for friends. So did that mean that this woman was friends with Dad? Just his friend for no reason? But that made no sense. She must have had her reasons…and they must have been bad. Dad didn't just make friends. People didn't like him…it was mean but true….
Mob had to get to the bottom of this.
"Dad?" asked Mob as she knocked on the door. There was the sudden sloshing of water. She could feel the flare of his aura. She had scared him….but how? He must have been able to see her aura…right? Or had he been so busy with that woman that…that he hadn't even sensed Mob? That wasn't safe. There were so many people out there who were trying to hurt Dad. He was powerful but if he got distracted then it wouldn't have mattered. That woman….she should not have been distracting Dad!
That woman. shouldn't have been talking to him at all.
"What? What do you….my daughter, the older one….Shigeko, what is it?" asked Dad. Now Dad was talking to her, it took her a moment to tell. It shouldn't have taken her any moments at all to tell. Dad loved her and…and he may not have liked her but…but….but….
"Who are you talking to?" asked Mob as she got a grip on herself. Dad had put up a barrier. She had been about to lose it…she had to calm down. She was never going to save Dad if she couldn't save herself. She needed…she really wanted a drink. Vodka and milk would have been good…Ryou knew how to make those….she could see him later. Right now Dad needed her.
Even if he didn't know it.
She could hear him talking, softly, to the lady on the phone. His phone was off speaker now. Why? What were they talking about that Mob wasn't allowed to know? It wasn't work stuff. She doubted that the lady was a part of Claw and if she was then there was nothing that should have been kept from Mob. She was Vice President. She should have known everything that was going on…secrets were being kept from her. Maybe it had something to do with all of those secret missions Dad had been going on lately. The next one was happening during Golden Week….
The same week that Dad had cleared. The same week that he had been thinking about doing…something…with that woman…
"…..not now…." Said the woman. The phone went back to speaker. The water moved again. Mob took a step back from the door in case Dad had been planning on cutting his bath short. She hoped that he was done with his bath. Then they could have gone to his room and watched Galaxy Express again or kendo…wait, no, it wasn't kendo season….they could have watched the clips again. She didn't care what they did, she didn't even care if Dad didn't like her anymore. She just wanted….she just wanted things to…
She wanted things to be normal again. As normal as things could be in their family.
"I am speaking to….who I am speaking to is none of your business." Said Dad. The water stopped moving. Dad wasn't getting out of the tub. So he was staying in the bathroom on the phone with that lady. So he had picked someone that he didn't even know over his own daughter. Well not his favorite daughter, but…but still. Mukai wouldn't have been able to help him if he needed it…and he did need it…or at least she thought that he did.
She had no idea what he needed…what she was supposed to do.
"I….I guess so…but wait, I just need to warn you-" said Mob
"Do you need anything?" asked Dad
"Um…." Said Mob. No, she didn't need anything…but she had just said that she had to warn him. Didn't he even care? Wasn't he even listening? He hadn't listened to her in so long. He used to listen to her every word back when she had been little and they had been friends. As close to friends as a father and daughter could be. She had even spent hours, once, telling him about all of her old princess dolls. Their backstories and personalities. Their family trees. All the stuff that had mattered to her back then, that had been the most important thing ever. Now she knew what it meant for something to be important…
And she knew how fast she could lose everything. Everyone.
"You're in the tub, Touichirou." Said the lady. Mob was about to lose her dinner. So the lady KNEW this whole time!? That was….Ryou didn't even bother her while she was in the tub and she was his girlfriend and he was kind of annoying sometimes. She didn't want him to bother her in the tub, or at all, but…well what she wanted didn't matter. It would have been one thing for Dad to have just not known that he was being weird, he was Dad after all, but for this lady to know and not even tell him to call her back or switch to texting…
Mob didn't like this…she hadn't liked this…not at all!
"She knows that you're taking a bath right now!? Dad! You can't just-" said Mob. She was pacing back and forth in front of the bathroom door. She had to stop. She was going to wake Sho. She just…well losing control of her powers and brining this building down would wake him up even worse and-and-and-
-she stopped walking. Dad had stopped her.
"Lay down the law again." said the woman. Mob pulled free. Dad hadn't been holding her very tightly….and anyway who was that woman to tell Dad what to do? Dad hated being told what to do and Mob…she didn't need any laws laid down! She hadn't even been doing anything wrong!
"Shigeko, I have had enough of this. You are not to speak another word to me on the subject of who I am speaking to. Is this clear to you?" asked Dad
"It is but-" said Mob
"Then why are you still talking? I just told you to be quiet. I am your father and…and you may be a woman now but I am still your father. I am still in charge." Said Dad
"I-I know that you're in charge but-" said Mob
"Then obey me when I tell you to leave me alone." Said Dad. She knew that Dad was serious now. He sounded serious and his aura felt serious…he had never been this serious with her before. Not for a while, of course. She knew why he was being this kind of serious. That lady…this was that lady's fault. This was…Dad was listening to her…but why? Mob had to know. She had to know who this woman was and why Dad was listening to her and why he was spending Golden Week with her and….and….
…and why he was keeping secrets from Mob.
"I was just wondering-" said Mob
"Go wonder somewhere else….sorry, I really am. I don't understand her sometimes, I really don't…it's like she's become a completely different person…I swear." said Dad. Mob didn't…she wasn't a different person! Dad was the one who was being a different person. He was talking to people and making friends and being serious and…and even lying to her…his own daughter.
"Good on you for laying down the law. There may be help for you yet." Said the woman
"Help? What-" said Mob. She didn't get a chance to finish. She slid back into the wall. Dad was warning her. He could have put her thorough the wall if he had wanted to but he didn't. He was warning her and…and she didn't…she didn't know what she was being warned about! She had just been looking out for him, that was all. She didn't know this woman and Dad didn't know a lot about people. Mob knew how boys were. When they fell in love then it happened really hard and really fast. Dad…he had been in love with Mom before, so he was capable of falling in love with people….
But he didn't need to.
Mob hadn't ever thought about it, Dad getting a new girlfriend, and she wasn't going to think about this anymore. She didn't know what she was going to do…if anything. She could have gone back to the door, knocked on it, and told Dad that he had better tell her what was going on. That was a bad idea. That would have just caused a fight and she didn't want to fight Dad. She didn't think that she would win. She didn't think that it would have been good, too, to wake Sho. He didn't need to know about this…this lady who was bothering Dad…or maybe she was the one being bothered. Or maybe they were friends and….and…
No. Dad only had three friends. Three.