Mob didn't think that she was that good at painting nails.

She had trouble staying in the lines, sometimes, especially when the nails she was painting moved. Mukai couldn't help it, though, she was little and she didn't really like sitting still. She had asked for this, though, and Mob wasn't going to let her get away with only half of her nails painted.

That wouldn't have been very nice of her at all.

"Mukai, hold still." Said Mob as Mukai tried to squirm away. She held Mukai in place with her powers. Not only was she going to smudge her nails but she also could have fallen off the counter, too. They were in the kitchen now, Minegishi was taking a bath in the bathroom, and Mob wanted to get this done before they finished up. She didn't want to run into them. She didn't know what she would have said or done if she had run into them.

Paint their nails?

"Paint my nails! Right now!" said Mukai as she shoved her hand in Mob's face. She had smudged her nails, again, and now Mob would have to restart….she would probably have to wait for Mukai's nails to dry, too, so she didn't just come up to Mob later asking her to fix her nails. Mob wouldn't have had the time later. She had to get back to Serizawa once his nap was done.

She was too out in the open out here.

"I am, I am, but it would go faster if you didn't keep on smudging them." Said Mob

"I didn't do anything!" said Mukai. She kicked Mob in the chest…and it kind of hurt…but she'd had worse.

"Yes you did, you kicked me and you smudged your nails…but I forgive you for both, little sister. I don't know why you keep on fighting me but I forgive you just the same." Said Mob as she showed Mukai her hand. She pulled it back.

"I forgive you, Shigeko, I forgive you." Said Mukai. She was nodding, now, even though Mob had no idea what she was nodding about. What did she have to forgive Mob about? Mob was just trying to be a good big sister. She didn't really want to…well she did want to spend time with Mukai. When Fukuda had taken her away she had wanted nothing more than just another minute with her little sister. She liked hanging out with Mukai, even if she did kick, but she didn't want to be out here. Nobody was home but Minegishi and Shimazaki. Even Tsuchiya was busy today…so it must have been big, whatever it was, maybe even big enough to keep Shimazaki away for the rest of the day….

But Mob wasn't counting on it.

She held Mukai's hand tight and got to work. She didn't think that she was going to be able to do anything as complicated with Mukai's nails as she had done with her own. She had done Elsa nails, like how Minegishi used to do for her. She put on two shades of blue, the clear glitter varnish, and then snowflake nail stamps. Mukai's nails were so small that no mater what Mob did she managed to get nail polish all over her hands. No matter how many times she tried to get the extra nail polish off of the brush, no matter how many times she wiped it off on the sides, she still made a mess…

That was what she was good at, making messes.

Mukai made a lot of messes too. Just that morning she'd knocked her cereal bowl off of the table and then onto the ground. She'd tried to clean it up, which had been nice, but she had also rubbed an entire roll of paper towels onto the spill. She had been trying to be helpful and…and that was good. At least there had been a way for Mukai to clean up the mess she had made. Mob had no idea what she possibly could have done to fix the mess that she had made.

At least she could stop herself from making it worse.

Her eyes wandered to the cabinet above the microwave. There was a braille label on it, she could read it without touching it. That was where the community chest was, that meant the fun stuff cabinet. Liquor and stuff, good liquor, the kind in pretty bottles. There were other things in there too…but Mob didn't want to think about that right now. She got weird when she drank too much and smoke too much. She did things that seemed like they were good ideas at the time but really she'd just made a mess…and made her friend fall in love with her…

She hadn't meant to.

She didn't want to think about it. She could feel her aura, see it, and…and she kind of wanted a drink. Badly. This could…every time she told herself that it was the last time. It never was. Not when it came to sex and not when it came to drinking and smoking either. Someone, probably Dad but maybe Sho, had stolen the stuff from between her mattress and her box spring and that had helped. She had told herself that because all of her stuff had been stolen that it would have been easy for it to be the last time…but she knew where Shimazaki kept his stuff, the stuff that didn't go into the community chest, and….and he had said that she could have whatever she wanted since he loved her…she didn't have to say it back and she didn't want to but she knew that he wanted her to and…and it was just so hard sometimes. Cleaning up messes…trying not to make them worse…

It was the community chest and she was the community after all….

"Stay in the lines, please and thank you!" said Mukai. Mob looked down…oh. She'd gotten distracted. There was a whole stripe of pink across the top of Mukai's hand. She should have been paying better attention. She'd made another mess…that was all she ever did, make messes, but at least this one was easy for her to clean up.

"I'm sorry Mukai, but it's ok. See? It's still wet so I can just wipe it off." Said Mob as she tore off a paper towel with her powers and dragged it across the top of Mukai's hand. She reached out for it, like she did when she was a baby, but there was one difference. Now she had her aura….and make something close to telekinesis. Mob felt a tug, a little baby tug, or maybe a little kid tug at the paper towel….

She let Mukai have it.

"Here you go, Mukai, but try not to smudge your nails." Said Mob. She put the paper towel down onto the counter. Mukai squeezed it between her feet. So she could listen. She wasn't sure how well Mukai understood things, nobody really did, not even Tsuchiya and she was her mom. Mukai was so little but she was smart, too. Sometimes it was amazing how she could walk and talk and stuff. She used to be so little….

She was getting so much older.

She was going to be Mob's age in ten years. That meant that in ten years someone was going to like her and there was going to be nothing that she could do about it…maybe she would like him back, the boy who liked her…but that wasn't good idea. If she liked the boy but he didn't like her back then she was going to get her heart broken. Was that just how it went? You liked someone and either you broke their heart or they broke yours? How in the h-word was that fair?

She felt her braids rising up.

Mukai grabbed her own braids and tugged on them. Mob could see her nails getting smudged, there was nail polish in her hair now. Would she need a bath? Well she took one almost every night…maybe Mob could bring her back to her house and give her a bath. That would have been a good excuse but…but then she would be in her own house all alone and…and she wanted to hang out with Serizawa so of course she was going to stay here. Mukai's bath would just have to wait…but her hair still looked funny with the nail polish in it but she didn't care. She was only three, she was too little to think about how she looked and what people thought, she was lucky like that. She was lucky to be little….but also unlucky. She didn't get to pick anything in her life. She was too little to even paint her own nails, she needed Mob for that.

So maybe nobody was lucky.

"My hair is taller than yours!" said Mukai as she tugged on her braids.

"No, mine is longer because I've been growing it for longer…and also my hair is different from yours." Said Mob

"No, my hair is taller! It sticks up!" said Mukai. She let go of her braids and left them standing up just to make her point. Mob forced her braids to lay back down against her back. Mukai's hair did the same thing Sho and Dad's did. She had gotten their hair. Mob had gotten…she didn't even know where her hair had come from. Not Mom, her hair had been wavy, and also it had been brown. Nearly blond. Mob…well she had always known that she was different from everyone else in her family. She and Sho were both half Japanese but Sho had gotten all the half and she had gotten all the Japanese. That was what she and Sho had figured out, anyway, when they had been little.

Maybe they had been wrong.

She didn't know if that was how it worked. Mukai was half Korean but she still looked mostly like Dad…but still a little like her mom. Mob could sort of remember her. That weird lady who had always come into Dad's office just to bother him. The one who had gotten Dad coffee and tea all the time even though Dad always sent Mob when he was thirsty. Mukai had the same round face and eyes as her mom…but Mob couldn't see any of her mom in her face. Not even an eyelash. She wished…she didn't know what he wished. She had spent her whole life wishing that she looked like her family but now…now she didn't even know what her greatest wish was.

Maybe to be a different person all together.

"See? Look here!" said Mukai

"I see, but that's just because you have Dad's hair. Mine is still longer…but I guess that yours can count as taller. You win, Mukai, you're the winner." Said Mob. She kind of wished that she was a different person. If she had been then she wouldn't have had these problems. If she had been someone else then maybe she wouldn't have been someone who made messes…maybe she wouldn't have been someone that Shimazaki had fallen in love with. Maybe she would have been….well she wouldn't have been Mukai's big sister or Sho's big sister and she didn't know…she didn't know who she wanted to be but she knew who she didn't want to be.

The last thing that she wanted to be was an only child.

"I'm the winner! Me! Mukai!" shouted Mukai

"You are…you're the winner and you're the best little sister in the world, too." Said Mob as she once again took Mukai's hand. The last thing she wanted to be was an only child. Sure being the big sister wasn't always easy, actually it was hard most of the time, but it was worth it. She and Sho were friends again, it had always been like this. They fought or something went wrong and they separated but they always came back to each other. That was what made it all worth it, knowing that she had someone who would always love her, and also knowing that she would have someone she would always love, too.

Always having someone there…

Even if things did go wrong. Even if they did fight, sometimes, and even if sometimes people came between them they would always come together. She would always come back to Mukai, too, though they had never fought before. Sisters were supposed to fight, even Elsa and Anna fought sometimes. Like in the deleted scene from the movie where they were in the dressing room and Anna wouldn't stop trying to borrow Else's clothes. Sisters did that sometimes…though Mukai was nowhere near her size. Would Sho have done the same, maybe, if he had been a girl…she didn't know for sure, she had never had a sister close in age.

And she never would

"I'm the best! Me, and you, but me! And Mama!" said Mukai

"Yes, everyone else is the best…but you're the very best. I always wanted a little sister, you know, for my entire life. I used to ask my mom all the time when my new little sister would come. I just…I guess that I didn't think it through, you know? I'm…really good at that, not thinking things all the way through. I wanted someone to play dolls and dress up with, someone to watch Frozen and do singalongs with…but I didn't think about how I would take care of her. I mean my mom was still in charge back then and I didn't see this coming…but I should have! I mean…sorry, sorry. I'm just…please don't do the things that I do. That's the thing about being a big sister, its like…there are so many things I have to warn you about. Things that you're too little to even know about and…and there's just so much…" said Mob. Mukai put her hand on too of Mob's…and slapped it.

"No being sad! Stop it! Right now! Please and thank you." Said Mukai

"I wasn't sad just…worried. I mean I know that you don't get it, you don't even know what worry is-" said Mob

"Worried about you." Said Mukai. Mob blinked. The bottle of soda on the counter next to her went rolling onto the ground.

"I…didn't know that you worried about things…but I shouldn't have thought like that. You're a person the same as I am and you have all the same feelings that I do. You're small but you're still a person." Said Mob

"A person's a person no matter how small." Said Mukai

"That's true, a person is a person no matter how small. You're a person and you worry about things but I just…I'm sorry, I don't know what you have to worry about. Everyone does everything for you. You don't have to worry about getting anyone up in the morning or getting breakfast on the table or cleaning or doing homeschool or if our dad loves you or if your mom is going to ever come back or if the person in love with you is ever going to stop being in love with you-" said Mob

"Worried about you. Stop being sad." Said Mukai. The bottle of soda that had fallen to the ground just a moment ago decided to jump back up onto the counter. Mukai had looked right at her when she said, their eyes had met, and…and he knew that sometimes Mukai just said things because she hated the quiet but that had sounded like Mukai had meant it. Mob had worried her…

She had made another mess.

"Mukai, little sister, please don't be worried about me. I just…I'm the grownup here and you're the kid. You have to worry about yourself-wait, no, not even. You're little and right now you don't have to worry about anything at all besides growing up and having fun and learning new things, ok? I'm the one who had to worry. I'm the grownup and…and I'm sorry to have worried you. I never wanted to do that…I'm so sorry and I don't know what I can do to make it up to you." Said Mob. She bowed, too, because that felt like it was right. She was saying a really big sorry after all. What else were you supposed to say when you made your own three year old sister worry about you? She bowed but Mukai didn't seem to care.

She just tugged on Shigeko's bangs…and she was really strong for someone so small.

"Are you doing that because you're mad at me or because you felt like pulling my hair for the sake of pulling my hair?" asked Mob

"Mad at you…you won't finish. Finish my nails, right now." Said Mukai as she pulled Mob up by the hair. She sounded a little like Minori there, well the way she used to sound. They hadn't spoken in a while but Mob hadn't unfollowed her from anything. Her posts used to be about new stuff she'd bought or classes she was taking, the last one had looked like a really fun art class, but now they were about how everything sucked and was pointless and how people were myopic and boring…whatever myopic meant…

Mean things like that.

Mukai was never going to end up as mean as Minori, Mob would make sure of it. Sure, she could be kind of mean now, but that was OK. She was still learning how to act, and Mob was there to teach her how to be a better person. How just because she was a Suzuki it didn't mean she had to end up like Dad. Mob was her sister and it was her job to teach her how to be a grownup, to be an adult, to be a Suzuki.

To be better than a Suzuki.

Mob had no idea what was so great about being a Suzuki. Dad had been going on and on and on about how lucky she had been to be a Suzuki, when she had been little, and he had told Sho about how it was important to keep the bloodline going. Dad had never sad, though, what was so great about being Suzuki's. They had powers, true, but powers weren't everything. Sure they were strong but that didn't mean that they didn't have all the same problems that normal people had.

Was there really such a divide between Suzuki's and everyone else?

Maybe she was just bad at being a Suzuki. Dad sure seemed to think so. He hated the person she had become…but who had she become. She was the same person she had always been. She was still Mob, she was still Suzuki Shigeko, and not matter what she did who she was as a person could never change. She was a Suzuki and she was bad at it…but it wasn't like there had ever been anyone to teach her how to be good at it. It wasn't like Mom had stayed and taught Mob anything….or even taught her anything before she left. Sure she had showed Mob how to make Dad's favorite breakfast and how to braid her own hair but…but Mom hadn't taught Mob anything that mattered. She hadn't told Mob what to do when your friend wanted to be your boyfriend. She hadn't told Mob anything about love or even…or even the other thing. How to make sure that when you said something was the last time you meant it. You didn't get drunk or get stoned, remember how good it felt, and then push your sort-of-but-not-really-but-yes-really boyfriend's head down…not that she wanted to know about any head pushing Mom might have done….

But some words of wisdom would have been nice.

Mob was teaching Mukai but who was teaching Mob? She forced her powers to stay calm. Dad was teaching her…he had taught her how to control her powers…but conceal don't feel was the kind of thing that only worked for so long. Eventually you started to feel like….like you were getting a headache from all of this…like your head was always pounding. Like you needed a drink or…or just your pen, just something to take the edge off of the pounding headache. Mom hadn't done any of the things that Mob did…but then she had gotten sick. She had stayed in bed all the time, that was how bad she'd felt, and nothing she had tried had made her feel any better…not that she had tried a lot of things No, she hadn't even tried warm milk…she'd just had Fukuda come over all the time even though she knew that he was no help. Mom…of course Mom hadn't taught Mob anything, she hadn't known anything! She hadn't known that if something wasn't working you had to try again…she didn't know that you had to keep on taking care of your family not matter how you felt or what you wanted and…and she hadn't known that Mob as going to become a grownup someday. She hadn't known that Mob would get taller and people would fall in love with her and that she'd have sex or….or…Mom hadn't even thought to warn her about her period!

It was like Mom had just…forgotten that it was her job to teach Mob how to be a grownup….and adult.

Mob didn't entirely know how to be a grownup yet. She had made a lot of mess in her first year of being grownup, but she was learning…well enough. As long as she stayed one lesson ahead of Mukai then she'd be fine. She had already gotten a ten year head start, so maybe by the time Mukai was thirteen and Mob was twenty three, she would have it all figured out. Hopefully she would have figured out how to get Shimazaki to stop loving her, and how to keep a friend without falling out on their birthday, and also how to keep your little brother from yelling at you and getting mad at you. She liked how Sho always came back to her, but she did hate the fighting part. Maybe by twenty three she would have everything all figured out….maybe even how to keep a best friend.

The bathroom door opened.

Mom had been almost finished with Mukai's nails. Mob picked Mukai up off of the counter and carried her back to Serizawa's room quickly….this was ok. Too much sleep was bad for him. His internal clock already wasn't that great and she wasn't about to make it worse. That would not have been what a good friend would have done. So it was OK to wake him up...and it was OK to avoid Minegishi too. She knew she had no reason to feel guilty, Minegishi had told her that it was OK, but she still did. So maybe it was best that she didn't bother them and make things awkward.. that was still kind of selfish...oh! She knew! She knew what she would do! It was better not to disturb them because if they had been in an hour long bath, that means that they were stressed about something and she don't want to make it worse.

So she would leave them alone.

Instead of spending the afternoon with her best friend, painting their nails, watching movies, daylight, or just drinking coffee and reading books, she would spend it in her second best friends room with her little sister playing video games. That was OK, she liked video games, and she liked Serizawa and Mukai. She liked…she liked that Shimazaki didn't get along with Serizawa, or anyone. That meant that even if he wasn't busy for the whole day he wouldn't come and try to hang out with her or…or do any of those other things…things that she was never going to do again…and she meant it this time.

Today was going to be about Serizawa, Mukai, and nail painting…even though she knew she wasn't so good at it.