Shimazaki Ryou was going to die.

There was no way around it. He was going to face death with dignity...or maybe just getting his ass kicked. That was probably more likely. There was no way in hell Mob was going to let Suzuki kill…but on the off chance that he did…the very off chance…Shimazaki was going to face death with dignity. He was not going to get down on his knees and beg. He wasn't going to cry. He wasn't going to curl up in a ball like a…what were those animals called that curled up into balls?

Toshi would have known.

Toshi knew everything. Like the names of animals that ran fast and turned into balls, like from that game people liked. Toshi didn't like games but they were smart. They could read seven difference languages that he knew of, including braille for English and Japanese. Shimazaki would admit that his English braille wasn't that great…or his English in general. He actually wasn't sure what he was going to do if Suzuki let him live and then they all went to an English speaking country…since Toshi had ended it…

Toshi was thinking of ending things.

It hurts. Right there, right above his heart, it hurts, Shimazaki curls up into a ball. The floor is cold through the nest of old blankets and clothes he made. The old storage unit, an entire lifetime of crap in one room. Old blankets, kid clothes that he was planning on giving to Sho or maybe even one of his blood kids if he ever had any that he knew…if Toshi ever agreed…Toshi was never going to agree. Not now. They had told him in plain Japanese that they wanted to end it…that they were thinking of ending things….the pain is right there above his heart…

Maybe he's going to have a heart attack.

That's what nearly did Suzuki in. A heart attack. So many people died of heart attacks a day…it was kind of anticlimactic. The great Suzuki Touichirou, most powerful esper in the world, dies because Hatori…little asshole that he is….told him about…about shit that was none of his business! Shit that was nobody's business but his and Mob's and also Toshi's because Toshi was a part of this thing too. They were…they had been the love of his life…

Now he had no idea what they were.

This was his fault or Mob's fault or…or he didn't know. Maybe it was nobody's fault. It wasn't like Mob had ever told him in so many words that she had told Toshi. He had just assumed that she had since they were so close…and it wasn't like he had ever hidden it. He loved Mob, she was great. Not just because she had perfect tits and the third cutest ass he'd ever seen in his life, and legs from here to tomorrow, but because she was just…Mob. She cared about him. She was so free with how she cared about him…and free with her own feelings, too. Toshi…sometimes getting Toshi's feelings out of them was like pulling teeth with pliers. They didn't want to share what they were feeling and he…well it wasn't worth the work. It was bitter work, sometimes, getting to know what Toshi was thinking or feeling….that had been the main difference between them….not that he had ever stopped loving Toshi! He hadn't.

Mob was just, sometimes, an easier person to love.

He rolled onto his side. It smelled like mothballs in here. Mothballs and fire, a little, since a lot of this shit had been pulled from what was left of the house. He hadn't meant to burn it down. He had been a dumb kid and forgotten a metal spoon in the microwave…and the fact that the bowl had been plastic hadn't helped matters. He hadn't meant to burn his house down even though everyone, including Toshi, thought he had. Why would he have wanted to burn his house down? All of his shit had been in there. Mom had…well mom's ashes had been in there too…she was around here somewhere. She had a grave, of course, but there was nobody buried there. He had taken her ashes and put them…he didn't know and he didn't feel like looking.

Mom was probably happier in her urn, anyway, then…wherever the hell he was going from here.

He might have been about to die. He could always try running but…but there was nowhere to go. There were Claw bases on every single continent, including the penguin one. He had no idea what Suzuki was going out there besides leaving people to die…maybe he was headed to a traitor hole. If it was cursed badly enough it could hold him…Mob would never have let that happen to him. Mob loved…mob cared about him…even if she had run away…well he had run away too…and so had Toshi….and last he checked Tsuchiya and Shibata were packing their bags…

Everyone left in the end.

Even though they had no reason to. Ok, he wasn't as stupid as people thought he was. It was a weird age gap. Thirty two, not his birthday until October, and thirteen was nearly twenty years. He knew people thought that it was weird. He had never gotten it. Mob was Mob and it didn't matter if she was thirteen or thirty. She was always going to be the amazing person she was now so why wait for her to get to be his age and for him to be, well, probably dead? It wasn't like he'd tricked her. It wasn't like he was one of those guys who went after younger girls because they were easier. He knew that he was good looking, if he wanted to sleep with someone all he had to do was ask everyone he met and eventually someone would say yes. It wasn't about the sex, though the sex was pretty good, it was about her as a person…and people could sleep with whoever they wanted to. It was none of his business so what he did was none of theirs. It wasn't like Mob didn't have a good time, anyway, ninety five percent of everyone was for her. She was a worse head pusher than Toshi and she had no cool down period…she was amazing…

And she was gone.

Well not…he had no idea where she and Toshi had gone off to. Toshi had packed a bag too, one for themselves and one for Mob, and then…and then they had ended it. Said that they were thinking of ending things…he didn't know what in the hell he was supposed to do now. Toshi was his everything and had been for so long. They had problems, mainly because they were two people with a lot of problems, but…but they had never ended things before. He rolled over again. He knew that Toshi wasn't on his left or his right. He didn't smell them or feel them…or sense them, even though he was kind of trying to turn that off right now.

It was easier to imagine them that way.

Like how sighted people closed their eyes. Close your eyes and pretend….he had never been good at that. If he closed off his perceptions then he could see…sense…he could imagine them. The roughness of their hair, the way they smelled…that earthy smell mixed with their deodorant….their fabric softener that never smelled quite like flowers. The softness of their sleepshirt. He stuck a leg out. If he realty imagined he could sort of feel it, their fuzzy Toshi leg against his, like….like if there were here in this nest with him.

They weren't.

The only thing in this next of old clothes was him. Him and the mothballs. There were mice, too, in the walls. He could hear them moving. Maybe Suzuki would leave him alone. The man was terrified of mice after all. Heh. His one weakness…so anticlimactic. Mice. There were worse things. Being alone. Being so alone that you couldn't even remember what another person sounded like or smelled like or felt like….being alone with no way out. Feeling your ways across a room hoping that this was one of those rare times when the door was left unlocked. Realizing that it wasn't. Feeling your way to the window that sometimes was opened…but it wasn't…and the curtain was nailed around it so people couldn't see you…so you couldn't even feel the sun…so you didn't even know if it was dark outside or light….

Shimazaki had no idea what time it was.

His phone was on the ground next to him. He could have asked it. It wouldn't have made any difference, though. Light, dark, it wouldn't change the outcome. He was still fucked, royally fucked. He was still all alone…again. Alone inside of four walls. Alone inside of…there was nobody here and there wouldn't be. When the door closed you had no idea when…when it would open again. When you would stop being alone again. You were alone in the dark and the quiet…it was too quiet.

Shimazaki picked up his phone.

The quiet made it wrong. The aloneness he could sort of deal with. At least when there was music playing then…well then you could at least feel like someone was there. That is if you didn't sense the world around you. It was a blessing and a curse, his powers, them fully coming in. In some ways it had been better when he'd been a kid, when he'd had to feel his way around a room, when he'd had to carry a meter stick just to make sure he didn't accidentally bump into his piss bucket…at least back then it had been easier to pretend…at least then his eyes had always been closed. Metaphorically.

A Toshi word.

Look at all the lonely people. A Toshi song. They actually did like this one, it made them feel better. He had never gotten it. He knew what it was about, this was the first English he had ever learned. Not well, of course, Mom had given him the gist of the song when he'd been a kid. He hadn't known that Father McKenzie had been a priest and not a Dad…Mom hadn't been the best at English either. He had known that there was a sad, lonely feeling to the song…it had been nice to know that other people were sad and lonely too…that there were other people in the world.

Penny Lane.

Better. On Penny Lane there was a barber showing photographs of every head he'd had the pleasure to know and all the people come and go…it seemed like a nice place. An easier song for Mom to explain. It had been a nice place, in his head, a place where people were free to come and go…a place where there even were other people. He hadn't known anyone but Mom, Dad, and…well his dog came later….there were so many people in the world….it was amazing how big the world was…he could go anywhere in it if he wanted to…

He could go anywhere.

It wasn't like there was a shortage of work for someone like him. He knew how to find shady people in every country even though he didn't speak nearly as many languages as Toshi did. He was a pretty damn good hitman but he knew how to do other things. He could be a bodyguard, he could move guns and drugs and whatever else needed moving, he could even get into people stealing if he needed to….of course it all went back to Claw. If you were big enough and shady enough you had some kind of dealings with Claw…with Suzuki. There was no hiding from him. Not even here…or maybe yes even here.

The man was afraid of mice and this place was infested with them.

He heard them moving in the walls, squeaking, living their little mouse lives…he wondered if mice ever had these sorts of problems. He wondered if mice ever had to deal with breakups…or maybe they just fucked indiscriminately. That was a good life, actually, just finding someone and fucking them…but it was better when they stuck around…when it was someone you cared about. When they had time to learn you, the things you liked, and all of that emotional crap too….it had been nice while it lasted. With Toshi…and maybe with Mob. He didn't even know what she wanted…probably to get Suzuki off of her back. What was it with Dads and their daughters? If Shimazaki had a daughter, one that he definitively knew was his, he would have wanted her to have someone who loved her and who took care of her and, yes, who knew what she liked in bed. The details of which he didn't want to know, of course, but he wanted her to be happy…the metaphorical kid he was never going to have. Toshi wouldn't have said yes anyway and Mob…he didn't want to have a kid with her. That was just…that was a Toshi thing….

Well it wasn't anything, now was it.

He laid back down. He didn't know if it was dark outside or light. He didn't know if he was a dead man walking or a banished man sitting or just a lonely man waiting to see if his partner still wanted anything to do with him…he had been an idiot to think that Toshi would have been ok with him and Mob…of course it was weird for them. He wasn't an idiot, he knew that he and Mob were…well it was weird for people. He didn't entirely know why people cared so much about the age gap but he knew that, socially, the whole thing was weird….but this was Claw. Who the fuck cared about things being normal?

Apparently everyone.

His phone vibrated. That could have been anyone or everyone….he couldn't ignore it. Maybe it was Toshi telling him that they had overreacted and now they were sorry and they just wanted things to get back to normal…or it could have been Toshi telling him that they were taking an assignment at the ends of the earth and they never wanted to see him again. It could have been Mob telling him that she never wanted to see him again either, since of course she was always going to pick Toshi. It could have been, too, Suzuki telling him that he was going to die soon…that he had to show up to his execution. That he had…or maybe a wandering telepath had overheard his thoughts and had decided to tell him what the name of the animal that turned into a ball was.

Hedgehog.

Sonic the hedgehog. That was…he knew the song. He had heard that song so many times and now he remembered…the human mind was a strange thing. Maybe this was a sign. Maybe he had his answer and now he could die a content man…he checked his messages…and yup, he was going to die. Suzuki Touichirou had demanded his presence. Not requested, demanded….this was either going to be his last day on Earth or not…and he hoped that it wasn't. He wasn't ready to go, not now. He hadn't seen himself making it this far, thirty two and a half, and….well he wanted to make it to thirty three. Then to thirty four. He had a lot of life to live…with Toshi…and…and he didn't know if life was worth living if he didn't have Toshi….

But he did want to live long enough to find out.

So he did what he had to do. He put his coat back on and left his clothes nest. He'd clean it up later…or never. It was his storage unit and his stuff. Maybe the mice would have more use of it than he did. Maybe the mice…and there were plenty of them…maybe a mouse would break up with his mouse partner and then lay down in that old nest of blankets until his mouse boss sent him a cryptic mouse text on his mouse phone and interrupted his mouse listening of the greatest mouse music known to mouse and then that mouse would have to get up and face what may have been his mouse execution or the very least his mouse beat down and then-

Well he didn't know what the 'and then' was.

He assumed, though, that it was painful. Finding Suzuki was easy enough. He was loud, his aura was like standing in front of the speaker at a concert. What sort of concert depended on how he felt…right now he was a metal show. Heavy metal, the kind where even if it was in Japanese you had no idea what they were saying. The kind that Toshi had taken him to when they were in Oslo that one time…Toshi hadn't even liked metal, they just liked watching him squirm…and he was squirming. This was way too loud. He could barely hear Sho…he was around. He sounded kind of like breaking an aluminum can with a glass bottle, but not the other way around, or maybe…he wasn't sure. It was hard to hear him above Suzuki. Fukuda was there too….and the only thing he could compare that asshole to was a broken speak and say…like when the batteries were dead and the voice was all slowed down and made you feel like you were dipped in petroleum jelly when you heard it…

Fukuda was here, though, so that was good.

He was going to live. The moment he teleported into the room Suzuki's barrier went up…and he couldn't hear Sho anymore….and he could barely hear Fukuda. He wasn't afraid…in any way that he could show. He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against Suzuki's barrier even though it felt like leaning against an electric fence. He was fine…he wasn't going to die. He was…well maybe Fukuda was just here to watch him die…that bastard had probably been waiting for this day for a while…well Shimazaki was ready….

No he wasn't.

"Hey Boss, nice day we're having-" said Shimazaki with an ease he didn't feel.

"Don't speak." Said Suzuki

"Alright then, I'll just be shutting up." Said Shimazaki. He made the 'zip the lips' motion. No need to let Suzuki see how he was feeling…and he wasn't feeling that bad. Either he died or he didn't. That was fifty-fifty odds…he had never been much of a betting man…and if he had been he would rather have gone to Vegas. He'd promised Mob a while ago that they would do Vegas one of these days…he'd promised her a lot of things that couldn't happen if he was dead…unless he haunted her or something.

"Do you really think that this is the time to be acting like that?" asked Fukuda smugly….smug bastard. What was he so smug about? He could have easily been in Shimazaki's place if Suzuki hadn't been in love with him or whatever. It wasn't like that asshole was on the straight and narrow…he must have been fucking Suzuki or something to have been forgiven so easily over and over again for all of these years…

Shimazaki wondered if that was still an option. He wasn't above fucking his boss if it meant that he could live another day.

"Suzuki just told me not to talk but I think we both know the answer to that question." Said Shimazaki with a shrug. He heard Suzuki's aura there. He sounded like the part of the metal song where it was nothing but screaming…and now he was going to leave him alone. That was…that didn't sound like the prelude to anything good.

"Tadashi. Enough….I don't want to hear your voice right now either. What I need is…I need to do what has to be done." Said Suzuki

"Fine, but if you're going to kill him let me get out of the splatter zone. You know I don't like gore and viscera." Said Fukuda. Shimazaki was not high enough to deal with this. If he'd had any coke left…no, that would have made him confrontational. He held his head low. Suzuki liked that. He knew that Suzuki could kill him, he was one of the few people in the world stronger than Shimazaki, and he knew that Suzuki…if someone had been keeping track of his body count he would have bene one of the most prolific serial killers in Japanese history…and he was pissed off at Shimazaki…what did he do? Try and defend himself?

Could he?

Toshi would have known what to say. Right now the only thing Shimazaki could come up with was that he loved Mob, would never have done anything to hurt her, and was fully prepared to spend the rest of his life trying to make her happy or whatever…probably not the thing that Suzuki wanted to hear. He also probably didn't want to hear that it wasn't a sex thing and even if it had been Shimazaki had always made sure that Mob got hers…definitely not the thing Suzuki wanted to hear about his daughter….

He wished that Toshi had been here. They would have known just what to say…if they weren't still pissed at him.

"I'll keep it to a minimum." Said Suzuki in that same bored tone he always took…even though he was pissed as fuck right now….

"Want me to call up body disposal too? I have no idea where Minegishi is or if they're planning on coming back." Said Fukuda. Shimazaki…if he was going to die then he wanted to be food for Toshi's plants. At least then he could have been useful to them. Then maybe they would have remembered how much they'd loved him…maybe they'd even mourn him…maybe they'd regret what they'd said….regret ending things…..

"I'm not going to kill him, Shigeko would…I don't wish to have any more conflicts with Shigeko at this time. What I am going to do is make him wish that he was dead and then when I'm done you're going to heal him and then…and then I have a personal matter I have to attend to. Is that clear?" asked Suzuki. Ok, so he wasn't going to die. Just a beatdown then…he could deal with that. He'd gotten one when Suzuki had first thought that he had been into Mob. He hadn't been, of course, she had been ten and that would have been wrong. This couldn't have been worse than when Suzuki thought he had been into Mob…right?

That last one had been pretty bad…maybe he did need to defend himself?

"Before you beat the shit out of me just know that I care about Mob a lot and-" Shimazaki didn't get a chance to finish. That had clearly been the wrong move….Toshi was smart, they would have known what the right move was. That is if they even felt like helping him. If they even cared about him…if they hadn't been serious about ending things. The thought of Toshi ending things with him…it hurt even worse than that first blow to his stomach.

Or the second one.

Suzuki was pretty damn strong when he wanted to be. That wasn't even with his powers…but the next one was. Those had been Shimazaki's ribs…and that was one of his kidneys…and then his knees gave out. Every instinct he had was telling him to fight back but he knew that there was no fighting back against Suzuki. The man was a force of nature…it felt like. Fighting back against him would have bene like fighting a hurricane or an Earthquake…actually, worse. A hurricane or an earthquake wouldn't have gotten pissed at him for fighting back. The last thing he needed to do right now as to piss Suzuki off worse than he already was…if that was even possible…

This was even worse than that first time all those years ago.

He curled up into a ball. This was undignified but he wanted to at least preserve some of his internal organs. He could hear Sho now, his voice and his aura, and he was begging Suzuki to stop…like that would have worked. There was no stopping Suzuki. This was just…it was a thing that was happening. It was a thing that was going to keep on happening whether he liked it or not…so he just had to whether the storm. Sure it hurt but….but the thought of being without Toshi…his mind kept on going back to Toshi…they were thinking of ending things…

It hurt worse than death, Toshi ending things….it hurt even worse than this.