Fukuda liked living alone.

He liked being able to come home and just…be. To close his door and not have to deal with anyone, to be free for at least a few hours from the nonsense that was his life. To be able to kick off his shoes, sit down on his couch, and just wait for tomorrow to happen. No Suzuki, no Claw, no stupid kids blackmailing him. He had always made it a point to live alone when they moved. Even though it made more sense to pack everyone in like sardines he didn't care. This was his apartment, his and the pets', and that was the way it was supposed to be.

So, then, what in the world was Serizawa doing there.

"Hey? Are you alive?" asked Fukuda. Serizawa was laying on his back right there on the couch. The cat was sleeping on his chest…he'd been like that for a while. There was a Gameboy on the floor and a glass of water…well someone hade certainly made himself comfortable….

Too comfortable.

"Hey, get up!" said Fukuda as he reached over and shook Serizawa…which now that more than one second had passed he knew to have been a bad idea. Immediately his aura became visible. The pictures on the walls, he tended to frame the best of Sho's work, came tumbling down. He heard glass breaking…and the cat was scared now, too. That was…not ideal. When Meow-Meow, somehow Mukai of all people had renamed him, get scared he licked himself excessively and then…well Fukuda got the feeling that he was going to be waking up to a hairball in his shoes….

He wished that had been the worst of his problems.

He wished that the worst thing he had to think about, worry about, was a hairball in his shoes. Broken glass on the floor. Cleaning up this mess….why couldn't he have had simple problems like that? No, no, no. No simple problems for him. Instead he had to deal with some upstart kid blackmailing him, Sho about to lose his place in the family, and Suzuki was about to make the world a slightly worse place to live in. The last thing he needed was to have more kids. Sho and Mukai were good kids but the rest…he hadn't raised any of his kids…any of them aside from Shigeko.

The world didn't need another Shigeko.

Fukuda didn't need another Shigeko. Here he was worrying about Suzuki's next child when the world had already, he had already, been dealing with the second coming of Suzuki Touichirou for the past thirteen years! The world did not need any more of her. She…she had started out as such a good kid but then Suzuki had decided to actually try and be a father and now…well now the world had another one of him. Younger, more socially intelligent, and a lot easier to underestimate. She was young, she was smart, and she looked…well she was learning how to use her looks and other such assets to her advantage. He had no idea if she had any real ambition besides sex, drugs, and milkshakes…he prayed that she didn't. He prayed that she didn't wake up one day and ask herself why she wasn't the one ruling the world. She was smarter, in a lot of ways, than Suzuki and more people followed her out of pure loyalty…for some reason. She was a cute girl, sweet in a superficial way, and always publicly nice. Very few people knew what she was like in private….what she was truly like…

Poor Serizawa.

"I'm so sorry! I'm sorry about-" said Serizawa as he sat up. Oh no…oh no! He had fallen asleep and…and it had just been….it had been a really comfortable couch and he'd been having trouble sleeping because he knew that the others would be coming back soon and he hadn't wanted to wake up to a full house and…and then he'd had to feed he cat and…and he was sorry!

But he just had to convince Fukuda that he was.

He stood up quickly, so quickly that he got a little bit dizzy. It wasn't polite to do that…to sleep in other people's houses…and it wasn't polite to knock all the pictures off of their walls either! He had to do something to make this right. He had to clean up but-but Fukuda didn't know if he was sorry or not and….and he would have said something if he had believed him…right? Right? He…he was just standing there and he looked so tired and sad and…and he looked kind of like Mom, in those rare times when he'd seen her. He just looked so tired, dead tired, and of course Serizawa was the cause of all of this.

He always messed everything up…Miss Suzuki would have been so disappointed in him….

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm-" said Serizawa

"I get it I mean…I mean I get it…and it's fine. You don't have to be afraid of me. I'm not Suzuki…President Suzuki." Said Fukuda

"But….but I messed up your home….and also why would I be afraid of President Suzuki? He can be kind of grumpy sometimes but he's nice, too. He tells lots of interesting stories and he knows a lot of interesting things and-oh! He taught me a math trick. When you're multiplying numbers with zero, like twelve times ten, then you can just do twelve times one and then put the total number of zeroes at the end and also-" said Serizawa. He couldn't help it, talking about his friends always made him feel better. Like he had to remind himself that he was still a good person, that people liked him, that people wanted to be around him…he shouldn't have had to remind himself that…but he did…and it was better that he remind himself instead of bothering Miss Suzuki. She had enough to do as it was.

"It's fine, everything's fine, I'll clean it up later…and, yeah, I guess you don't have anything to fear from Suzuki…so long as you don't…whatever." Said Fukuda. He couldn't tell if Serizawa was telling him what he thought he wanted to hear or if he was really just that devoted. He would have believed either at this point. This guy…he had never been able to get a good read on this guy.

"As long as I don't do what?" asked Serizawa

"It's nothing." Said Fukuda

"I…I know I should believe you but if there's something that I should do, or something that I'm doing wrong, then please tell me. The last thing I want to do is mess up. If I mess up then Miss Suzuki would be very disappointed in me…and I can't do that to her. Miss Suzuki put her trust in me and I can't let her down." Said Serizawa

"Oh…I get it." said Fukuda. It was about Shigeko….of course it was about Shigeko. She had picked this man, well she had probably picked many men at this point, but she had picked this specific man as her…what? What even was this guy to her? She spent a lot of time with him, he was devoted to her to a degree that even the Awakened would think was too much, and…well a lot of other things that worried him…for Serizawa. Fukuda knew what it was like to just…to not have a way out. To be with someone who didn't even see you as…as a person, who thought of you like you were a doll he could just pick up and play with whenever he felt like and then just put you in your box when he was done. Shigeko was more like her father than he'd ever imagined…

Than he'd ever wanted to imagine.

"You…you do?" asked Serizawa

"I do and just….do whatever Suzuki says and you'll be fine. He doesn't like to be contradicted or corrected…or denied. So just go with whatever he wants…but I doubt he'll be anything like Shigeko." said Fukuda

"He's a lot like Miss Suzuki, actually, they're both really devoted to their friends-" said Serizawa. He had no idea what he had said, what had been so funny about it, funny enough to make Fukuda laugh…but he had laughed and…and that was good, it meant that he was happy and there was nothing in life better than the joy you felt when you'd made another person happy. Miss Suzuki had said so.

"I…um….I'm glad you're happy?" said Serizawa

"I'm not…I'm really not. Sorry, I thought that was gallows humor but, no, you were just as earnest as you've ever been." Said Fukuda. Of course he'd been serious, this was Serizawa. He was the most serious, and earnest, person that Fukuda had ever met. Maybe he was better off in whatever gilded cage, or glass dome, that Shigeko was planning on building for him. She was just like Suzuki. She found people, collected them, and once she decided that you were her friend then there was no going back. This was your life now, take it or leave it.

"I…I'm always earnest?" asked Serizawa. He didn't know what gallows humor was but he had heard the word earnest before. It meant honest and, of course, he was always honest. Why would he have ever wanted to lie to one of his friends?

"I know you are….I know. That might be what she likes about you. She doesn't have to worry about you ever betraying her…she's a lot like her father, in that respect. Once Suzuki decides he likes you then you can do no wrong in his eyes." Said Fukuda. He wondered if Serizawa got the subtlety there. Shigeko trusted him…which meant that she had left herself vulnerable. If he had wanted to then he could have joined Fukuda and Sho. He imagined that Serizawa knew her better than anyone else, barring Shimazaki of course, but there was no way in hell he was working with Shimazaki Ryou even if he begged to be a part of the resistance. That guy…he didn't care if Shigeko was forcing him into whatever. Fukuda wouldn't have worked with that guy if he'd been the last man on Earth.

"That's great! I worry sometimes that I'm going to mess up and she won't like me anymore but if she's like President Suzuki then I know that…that maybe we can be friends like you and him are friends. He's been friends with you since before I was born. That's amazing…I think it's just beautiful, you know? Like…like I've always wanted to have a friend like that. I've always wanted a friend who…who had a lot in common with me and wanted to be my friend and…and looked past all of the things that I don't like about myself. Someone to love me, you know? And…and I said too much…sorry to talk to much." Said Serizawa. , or sometimes he didn't talk enough at all. It was hard to tell what you should say, how you should say it, and how much was too much or too little...he had never been good at that. But that was OK because Miss Suzuki wasn't good at talking all the time either….or at least she said that she wasn't. She was a lot better at it than he was when it came to this sort of thing, she had a lot more friends than he did, more friends than he had ever hoped to have at any point in his life. She would have known just what to say and how…and she wouldn't have had Fukuda looking at her like that…

Like he was suddenly very sad…or maybe he was going to throw up…or that he was sad about how he was going to throw up.

Fukuda took a step forward and put his hand on Serizawa's shoulders. He could see his colors now, his aura, and…and he had to keep calm. Nobody touched him besides Miss Suzuki. It was safe for her to touch him because he couldn't hurt her. She had said so. She was a very powerful esper, everyone had said, and he'd seen it. There hadn't been any way for him to hurt her and…and Fukuda could heal. So he was safe too. So this was safe…this was ok.

Maybe if he said it enough times in his head it would be true.

"Serizawa….don't ever change. Trust me, you won't be able to survive in this place if you do." Said Fukuda. So Serizawa was really just that devoted….well they did say that ignorance was bliss. Serizawa really was lucky. He couldn't see Shigeko, Miss Suzuki as he called her, for who she was. Supposedly she had hated being called Miss Suzuki….well obviously she hated it from everyone but her favorite. Poor Serizawa…he didn't even know how bad he had it…but he really was better off. Fukuda wondered what it was like to live like that, without any self awareness…maybe one day he'd figure it out.

"Um…I won't and…um….I think that President Suzuki and Hatori are back. I mean Hatori said that he was coming back today. That's actually why I feel asleep on your couch. I figured that since the Tory was coming back, the others would be coming back to and then I got really scared at the dot of waking up and then the apartment being filled with people. I just like to know who's around me. I don't even like waking up with Mukai in my room, like when she sneaks in to watch me sleep. She likes to do that to people, she likes to spy on people, and she likes to go through my things... but I still love her even though she makes a lot of messes in my room and one time broke my DS in hald. I actually kind of miss her, kind of a lot. She's so cute. She's really nice too, but she likes to pull people's hair, but she's little and I don't think she fully knows what she's doing. Hatori doesn't like her that much though. She likes to steal his glasses. Miss Suzuki got her fake ones to wear but she still likes to steal Hatori's. Sometimes I wonder if she needs glasses, she might because President Suzuki does, I see him squinting a lot. That might be because he's so old…I mean so much older than me-" said Serizawa

"Touichirou and I both know how old we are." Said Fukuda. I've been curious to see when Sarah's owl would have stopped on his own, but it had been at least two minutes now, two minutes of unbroken monologuing...how did Shigeko put up with this? He just kept going and going and going….it was like he had never learned to keep things inside of his head. Well maybe he was better off for that. If you were empty headed then at least you didn't have anything to ruminate on.

"Oh…oh! Right, you thought that I had called you old, too, because you and President Suzuki are the same age. You don't look the same age, though, you look like you're everyone else's age…but mostly close to Shibata's age, or Minegishi's. Shimazaki's the oldest…but you knew that…sorry. I just….I'm sorry. Sometimes I don't know when to stop talking and I know I can be annoying. I mean Minegishi says that I am-" said Serizawa

"Minegishi is annoyed by everything, they need to learn to be less sensitive…but, yes, maybe you could get to the point sometime soon. That would be just great." Said Fukuda

"Oh! Ok….um….Hatori and I like to play games together but we like different kinds. He liked to fight and shoot people and blow things up but I only like fighting if it's smash brothers or if it's part of a quest, I don't like hurting people for no reason, and um…well President Suzuki mostly likes arcade games and you do too so…so do you want to maybe come and play videogames with us? Miss Suzuki isn't back yet, she and Shimazaki went to the island of cats…or was it the island of dogs…they're on an island petting things and I know how you and her don't get along so…so do you want to come and play with us? I mean if they both want to play, they might be tired or something." Said Serizawa. He crossed his fingers inside of his robe sleeve. Fukuda seemed so sad…he must have been so lonely without anyone but President Suzuki liking him…he just needed some company, that was all, and…well Serizawa hadn't taken into account that they might have been tired….he'd messed up again….

"I am….going to have to pass….but you go ahead. You just…you try and make the best of this while you can…but be careful of Hatori." Said Fukuda. That would have been good, another chance to progress on the Suzuki front, but…but with Hatori it was like playing with fire. That kid….that upstart kid…he had no idea what he was doing…or every idea….

"Because sometimes he gets mad and-" said Serizawa

"No, because he can be really underhanded sometimes." Said Fukuda. How did he tell Serizawa that Hatori was a blackmailer, and a hell of a lot of other things too? He didn't…not in so many words. The last thing he needed was this getting back to Shigeko but Serizawa…he at least needed to be warned.

"Oh…I know. He likes to cheat when he's losing but that's ok. I like it when my friends win…President Suzuki doesn't like it when anyone else wins though so maybe I should tell him not to cheat. You're right, thank you Fukuda." Said Serizawa. He'd have to talk to Hatori, if he could, about how he cheated at things…more people would want to play with them if he didn't cheat…but he couldn't be mean, either…he would have to ask Miss Suzuki about this when she came back…if she ever came back.

"Yeah…you do that." Said Fukuda. He gave Serizawa his best, least pained, smile. Poor Serizawa. No matter how bad Fukuda's life got at least he wasn't Serizawa…that was something. He at least knew how bad things could be around here…a good thing or a bad thing, he couldn't make up his mind….he was tired. He was way too tired…he needed to rest. He needed to sit down and plan his next plan of….well not attack but…but he needed to see what he was going to do from here…how he was going to progress on the Touichirou front.

He didn't want to make any progress on that front.

The last thing he wanted was to end up like Serizawa. The last thing he wanted was to get feelings for Touichirou…feelings besides abject….he didn't even know. He didn't even want to think about this. He just wanted to be on his own…he just wanted to sit down and rest….so he did. As soon as Serizawa let himself out Fukuda flopped down onto the couch and just let himself sink down. The cat soon joined him, taking it's place on his chest. This was…he would enjoy this moment, this moment alone, for now….

It wouldn't last. Nothing ever did around here.