Three out of four chairs were occupied.
Three of the four members of the Suzuki family were present for this meal. Suzuki, Mukai, and Sho. Shigeko was away doing he didn't even know what….he didn't care what she did. She could go wherever she wanted to go and she could do whatever she wanted to do. She could make her own choices in life as could he and…and that the way things were now. That was nature's way, your children grew up and left the nest like a pair of, a trio of, baby birds. Shigeko was at that age already, girls matured so much faster than boys, and Sho…he was getting there.
He had grown taller.
Six weeks. It was amazing how much your son could grow in six weeks. He had to have grown at least seven centimeters in the past month and a half. A growth spurt. A physical one. His first real growth spurt…Suzuki wondered if that was why he was eating so much. For once in his life he was actually eating his dinner as it had been sat in front of him. Omurice, not Shigeko's, but still good. This meal was Shibata's doing. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps Sho simply preferred Shibata's cooking to Shigeko's…or perhaps he was simply so ravenous that he didn't even care what had been placed in front of him.
Suzuki remembered that feeling well.
"What are you looking at?" asked Sho as he broke his omelet apart with his spoon. There were peppers inside of this, green and red ones, and onions too. He had no idea why Shibata had ruined a perfectly good omelet like this…but he had to eat it. Big Sis wasn't here to make him something else, Sho would have rather starved than eaten anything Dad had made for him, Fukuda wasn't home, and every time he asked Shibata to make him his own separate dinner Tsuchiya stopped him and said something like 'we aren't running a restaurant'…and she always got so upset when Sho said something like 'if it was then you'd have gone out of business'….not that he'd meant to call Shibata a bad cook, he had just meant that nobody would have wanted to eat at a restaurant that put broccoli in salads and on pizza…
Sho could be kind of an asshole sometimes. He knew exactly who he got it from.
"One two, I'm looking at you!" said Mukai. She made glasses out of her hands and looked at Sho. He needed to eat more food or he wouldn't grow up to be big and strong. Caterpillars was going to be mad at him about that again, Caterpillars was always mad at Sho, but he was never mad at her! He even liked to eat the green things….she picked one out and threw it onto his plate. He caught it with his powers and put it onto his napkin…
No fair! He was supposed to eat that!
"I'm looking at you too, Little Sis, good throw." Said Sho, ignoring Dad and his constant staring. What? Was he going to tell So he didn't know how to eat or something? He was always telling Sho how dumb he was…fucking Dad….
"I did good! I did good!" shouted Mukai as she jumped up and down on her chair. The book she was sitting on slid around a little. Caterpillars held onto her with his colors….but she wanted to slide around! She bounced up and down even harder but she just couldn't move!
"No, Mukai, you shouldn't-" said Suzuki
"You did really good, Mukai, keep it up." Said Sho
"See what you've done? Don't encourage her." said Suzuki
"Me? What did I do? You're the one being weird and staring at me and stuff…it's weird…" muttered Sho as he crossed his arms. Dad glared at him. Sho glared back. Mukai was still bounding around…that was kind of dangerous. Fukuda was out tonight, he had said he had work to do, so if she fell and busted her head opened then she'd die…that would have sucked. Sho held her in place with his powers. He didn't trust Dad to do a good job.
He didn't trust Dad with anything.
"I am not being weird…and you will never speak to me like that again." said Suzuki. Weird….he hated that word so much. When he came to power he was going to have it stricken from any and all dictionaries. Nobody called him, that, especially not his own son…he shook his head. He'd made so many mistakes with that one…but that was good. Now he knew what not to do as a father. Sho had been a test run for Tetsuro and it was always best to test things out…yes…
Things would be much better once Tetsuro was born.
"I can say whatever the fuck I want and, yeah, you were being really fucking weird." Said Sho
"I swear to God-" said Suzuki as he forced his aura to remain calm. Just because Shigeko wasn't there didn't mean that…that she wouldn't have made good on her promise. He knew that she would leave if he harmed a single hair on Sho's head…but the boy was still so insolent…but Shigeko….she may have been done growing up but she was still his child and he still had some emotion towards her…
He didn't know what he would do if Shigeko left….if she never came back.
"Fuck! Fuck! I swear to God!" said Mukai with a laugh. She didn't know why everyone got so mad when she did this but it was really funny!
"See what you did!? Now your sister-" said Suzuki
"She's copying you too, Dad, and this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been staring at me! Seriously! I'm just eating dinner, what's so cool about?" asked Sho
"Well you're eating everything on your plate, which is a change of pace from how you usually carry on at mealtimes, but that was not what I found so fascinating. You've grown by at least seven centimeters since I saw you last." Said Suzuki
"So? What do you care?" muttered Sho. So what if he'd grown? That only meant that Big Sis would have to get him new clothes when she came back. He hoped that it was soon, his shoes were getting too small again. At least his coat fit better now…even though it was summer. He really shouldn't have been wearing that thing. It was thirty degrees outside and also that coat had come from Shimazaki and they weren't friends anymore…they weren't as good friends as they used to be. He didn't hate Shimazaki…sometimes he even missed him. If he and Shimazaki had been having dinner it would have been something fun, like loaves of bread, so they could feed birds at the park too…or fish….or people's dogs…
It would have been weird, having dinner with Shimazaki after he fell in love with Big Sis, but it would have been better than sitting here at the table with Dad.
"I care, Sho! I carry you." Said Mukai. She threw a handful of rice into Sho's plate. There, now he would grow up to be big and strong.
"I…don't…but I will congratulate you." Said Suzuki as he caught the rice Mukai had thrown and put it back onto her plate. She was still so small…but she would grow past this. She would grow…well he wouldn't congratulate her on that. She was female, that would have been strange, but he would congratulate Sho. Suzuki remembered what it had been like to be Sho's age, to hit his first growth spurt. Suzuki had measured himself daily, stood against the doorframe and drawn a line, to chart how much he'd grown…
The things he'd been proud of, back then.
"Why? I didn't do anything to make myself grow…and you've never congratulated me on anything in my life." Said Sho. This was a trap. It had to be. Did Dad know about the resistance? His aura showed…ok, ok, no…if Dad knew then Sho and Fukuda would have been in a traitor hole together right now…so he was safe but…but where had Fukuda said he was going, again?
"That isn't true and you know it. I congratulated you when you got your full powers, I've congratulated you on countless numbers of your artistic endeavors, and I congratulated you when you proposed to that lovely girl you were seeing." Said Suzuki
"Yeah well…well don't congratulate me on growing, it's a weird thing to congratulate someone about and…and don't talk about Emmy! I don't ever want to talk about her again….ever….until I die." Said Sho
"Sho's going to die, Caterpillars, over there." said Mukai. She pointed at Sho just so he knew Sho was the one who was going to die. That meant go to sleep in a box…she wanted to go to sleep in a box too! Why was Sho the only one who got to sleep in a box!?
"We're all going to die, Mukai, your brother before you and me before the both of you. Death in an inevitability." Said Suzuki
"…that's so weird, Dad, I don't…where do you come up with this stuff?" asked Sho
"It's not 'weird' it's the truth. I'm forty six and you're both twelve and three. I'll go first, then you, and then your sister since she's nine years younger than you and female. I don't know what's so difficult to understand about that, it's basic math…though you never did care for math. I never understood that about you. I never understood anything about you…." Said Suzuki. If he hadn't been there, if he hadn't looked over the curtain as Sho had been pulled out of his mother's body, he would have thought that he'd been given someone else's son or a changeling or….or something. Whenever Suzuki had pictured his son he had pictured a young boy just like himself…but the best parts of himself. He had pictured a young prodigy, a psychic of unparalleled power, a kendo champion as well, someone intelligent too, someone with a thirst for knowledge….the best parts of him. What he had gotten was Sho…Sho who was somehow everything about himself that he had hoped was recessive.
Everything.
Suzuki's hair, his eyes, his freckles, his pale skin, his vulnerability to the sun….his emotional vulnerability as well. His anger, boiling and unbridled, his sadness, the sort that threatened to spill out... the sort that he had spent most of his life learning to control. Sho was…Sho was somehow all the worst traits of Suzuki's within one human being. His stubbornness, his need for control, the strange way he took his meals, even... well Sho thought he was a homosexual, but he wasn't. He was bisexual and he just didn't know it yet. Suzuki had spent most of his life thinking he was heterosexual, and now knew better, and show a deal with the same thing. Sometime in his forties. Possibly with a very close friend. Possibly the sort of thing that would ruin his life. Possibly the sort of thing that would have traumatized his own son if the boy had ever found out….
The sort of thing that he would never be telling Sho about, of course…even if it would have saved him years of headache and confusion.
"You never tried to understand anything about me…you hate me." Said Sho
"For the last time I do not hate you. If I hated you I would have wished for your death, or your suffering, or even worked to undermine your life. I have never and will never do that. You're my son and despite the fact that you've disappointed me so many times and in so many ways over the years I don't hate you. In fact I'm proud of you. Seven centimeters in a month and a half is an accomplishment. I know when I was your age I was very proud of myself, well I would have been if I had grown so much in such a short amount of time." Said Suzuki
"I'm growing! Not Sho, me! I'm growing every day!" said Mukai
"Yes, I have noticed your increased height as well. I simply did not remark upon it when I first saw you because you were busy telling me stories of your time at the Seventh Division. You're doing very well for yourself, Daughter, now you really should get back to dinner if you wish to continue growing…and please stop throwing your food. You need it more than I do." Said Suzuki
"I'm growing! Going to grow up big and strong! But no green things!" said Mukai as she got back to picking the green things out of her food again.
"Wait…you were short as a kid?" asked Sho as a piece of green pepper landed in his hair. He shook it out and watched Dad. Now it was Sho's turn to stare. Dad…had been a kid once, Sho wasn't dumb he knew people weren't born as adults, but…but he couldn't picture it. Even though he'd seen pictures and tapes of Dad…he still couldn't picture Dad being shorter than him. Ever, even when he'd ben Mukai's age.
"I was of average height and weight until the age of about eleven or twelve, it was then that my peers started to outpace me…but I hit my first growth spurt in due time as you have now….and try to stretch out when you sleep as to avoid painful muscle spasms later." Said Suzuki. He didn't know why he had advised Sho like that. He shouldn't have cared. Sho was his firstborn son, he was going to have a second son soon enough, and that will be the son he needed to focus on…but Suzuki had been twelve and a half once, too, and he knew the pain that came with growing so fast…and he wished that his own father had warned him about the pain and everything else that was to come as well.
"…I figured that out already….and Fukuda told me about hot baths too but I don't like baths." Said Sho
"Sho doesn't like baths, Caterpillars no bath time for Sho!" said Mukai as she covered her nose. Sho needed to take lots of baths, with the magic soap, so he could be extra clean. He could take Mukai's baths for her too while he was at it.
"I am aware…though Sho really should be taking one every day." Said Suzuki
"Why? You don't….and anyway you know why I don't like water." Said Sho
"I do, actually, when you're sleeping…and I am well aware of you and your hydrophobia. I have no idea why it persists for so long. The bathtub is nothing like being Awakened." Said Suzuki
"How would you know? You've never even been in an Awakening machine." Said Sho
"No, but I was at the lab when you awakened your powers and I watched you closely." Said Suzuki
"I'm watching you!" said Mukai as she made binoculars out of her hands...and nobody even so much as looked at her…she should have had dinner with Mama, she would have looked.
"Yeah, I remember! You just stood there watching me suffer and-and you didn't care!" said Sho
"I did watch you suffer and I did care. I made sure that you weren't pushed to the point of dying." Said Suzuki
"Like hell you were. You wanted me to suffer, you've always wanted-" said Sho
"Think, Sho, think. I am trying not to get angry with you, I really am, but right now you need to think. You are my son and as of now my only male offspring. I do not want you to suffer or die. Yes, I do not care about the day to day of your life unless it begins to affect me, so please start bathing regularly, but I do care about keeping you alive. In a way I care for you." Said Suzuki
"What do you mean…for now? Are you…are you having another kid? Because Big Sis said that you have a girlfriend and that she was trying to have a kid and-" said Sho. He knew…he knew but he didn't want to know…this was bad, like Fukuda had said…and it didn't make any sense! Why would some lady want to be with Dad? Well Mom had but Mom…Mom was mystery!
"As of now, no, and my romantic life is none of my business just as yours…and your sister's….are none of mine. I haven't even commented on the hickey you're trying to hide under your jacket collar." Said Suzuki. He had been trying not to look. Honestly, what was this fascination with his romantic life? When he had been a child even the thought of his parents so much as holding hands with one another sent bile to the back of his throat.
"Sho's has an owie, over there, see?" asked Mukai as she pointed to Sho's owie…it was kind of hard to point to his owie when he was pulling his coat up over it.
"That's not a-I don't have a-don't talk about my-" said Sho
"I have no desire to talk to you about that portion of your life…beyond giving you some advice that I wish my father had given me." Said Suzuki
"What? Don't be gay?" asked Sho
"No, well my father passed that down more as an order than a piece of advice, but I will…I'm going to advise you to give careful consideration to who you become romantically and se-physically involved with. You may think that you have feelings for someone, you may actually have feelings for someone, but you must also weight the pros and cons of acting on those emotions or you could end up breaking what should have been a very productive partnership…" said Suzuki
"What…what are you…I don't have a boyfriend! I don't have a boyfriend and…and I don't want you to have a girlfriend and…and I don't need a stepmom so if anyone's messing up here it's you!" said Sho. Did Dad know? Was this Dad's way of telling Sho that he knew…no way…no way! Dad…Dad was too clueless to pull anything like that off….right….
Dad was almost as clueless as Big Sis.
"I wasn't accusing you of having a boyfriend…though now there is a part of me that's concerned….but it's nothing I need to concern myself with just as Shiori is not someone you need to concern yourself with. She has no interest in being your stepmother so therefore you have nothing to be concerned about. Your sister will care for you should you still need it so stop worrying and don't give me-her, don't give her any reason to worry." Said Suzuki
"Don't worry, I won't! Now come on, Mukai, we're having a picnic somewhere else!" said Sho as he got up and picked Mukai and their plates up with his powers. The last thing that he wanted to do was to keep talking to Dad. This was weird, talking to him, hearing him say things like he cared about Sho...he didn't! Dad didn't give a fuck about him, Dad didn't care if he lived or died, and that...that was just the way it was!
That was the way it was always going to be.
"Sho! I can fly on my own!" said Mukai as Sho carried her away with his colors. This was fun but she was a big girl now and she wanted to stay with Caterpillars! He was nice….even though Sho made him mad and stuff….
"Be careful with your sister! And don't make a mess!" said Suzuki. His words fell on deaf ears, as usual. Sho was at that age. He had always been like this but now it was going to be so much worse…Suzuki should have been glad to be alone at the table. He should have been glad that he could have a peaceful meal without his son there to interrupt. Shigeko usually tempered him but Shigeko was gone…
All of his children were gone.
He could hear the television, and Mukai's shouts, from the other room. She was his youngest…but one day she would grow up. One day he would go from being Caterpillars to Dad to Touichirou. One day she would shoot up seven centimeters in six weeks. One day her observations would turn to sarcastic quips or worse…one day her langue would degrade even further than it had now…
That was nature's way.
Suzuki wondered if Mother and Father had ever looked at him and thought 'who is this person' or 'what happened to my child' or even 'what did I do to deserve this'….they had probably thought something like that in their last seconds of life…but before that. When Suzuki had been thirteen, twelve….around that age…he had been a good boy, he remembered, though his children had no idea what they put him through either. He could have been terrible…though it wasn't as though he had anyone he could ask. Tadashi's accounts of their time as adolescents was just as biased as his was…anyway common sense told him that this was hard for any parent to deal with. The children growing up, mouthing off, telling you that you hated them, running off to all corners of the world without even so much as a note…this was just what happened when one had children….
One sat alone at a table.
Four chairs. One occupied…Suzuki was going to make the best of this. He picked at his dinner, now cold, as his two of his children laughed together in the other room.