Sleep was a necessity.
He had never needed as much sleep as other people but he did need some. The only problem was that sleep would not come. No matter how much he tossed and turned he couldn't seem to be comfortable. He couldn't seem to find a spot on this bed that didn't itch or poke or just…one that felt comfortable…or maybe it wasn't the bed, maybe it was him. Maybe it was the fact that his mind wouldn't quiet its self long enough for him to get some sleep…normally he would have just gotten up and gotten some work done, if his mind was going to race like this…but right now he couldn't.
He couldn't leave this bed…he couldn't leave Shiori.
"Touichirou, stop it." Said Shiori with a groan. That was the fifth time that he'd woken her up. Every time she had gotten close to drifting off he tossed and turned and woke her up…he had never been this restless before. She couldn't blame him, he was going through a lot. If she had been more of a bitch then she would have told him that she'd had twice the day he'd had and he didn't see her keeping him up all night.
But she wasn't a bitch…not that much of a bitch, anyway.
"Stop what?" asked Suzuki, settling into a position. He was on his side, now, facing her. She was on her side facing him. It would have been the prelude to something if his mind was capable of going to that place right now. It wasn't. Right now his mind was barely present in this moment.
"Tossing and turning, I'm trying to sleep. Unlike you I can't just leave work at a moment's notice." Said Shiori, more harshly than she had intended. He thought that everyone was a free as he was…well they weren't. Some of them needed to be sharp for tomorrow. Some of them had enemies that posed a real threat to them…enemies that could regroup…enemies that…that…
Enemies that she could handle on her own.
"I never truly leave work." Said Suzuki. Even now it was like his mind was in one place and his body another. He'd received some…less than stellar news from Fukuda. Apparently Hatori hadn't been the man to leave in charge. Age meant nothing, it seemed. Shigeko could have done a better job. She was a child…nearly a child, but she had never done the damage that Hatori had. Suzuki should have asked her…but asking her would have involved talking to her and right now he didn't know if he could speak to her. What he would even manage to say to her without shouting or…or saying something that would have damaged their relationship.
What little relationship they had.
"Well then do you want to get some done? Preferably not in this bed?" asked Shiori
"I want to but I can't. My mind is elsewhere." Said Suzuki
"Your daughter again?" asked Shiori
"Yes." Said Suzuki
"I really have no idea what you're getting yourself so twisted up about." Said Shiori
"I already told you that she-" said Suzuki
"Yes, yes, I know that part. I don't know why you're getting twisted up over this. The solution to your problem is simple." Said Shiori
"I'd love to hear it. Honestly. I am at a complete and total loss." Said Suzuki
"You nail this guy's cock to an ironing board and then you get to work. Preferably on the highest setting, and with plenty of starch too." Said Shiori. Touichirou flinched and drew his knees up to his chest. She started to laugh but at the last moment it turned into a yawn.
"I beat him three quarters of the way to death…but I don't think that I could ever do that to another man." Said Suzuki. That was…he had been accused, before, of being sadistic. He didn't think that he was. He didn't enjoy violence, didn't seek it out, it was simply the best way to get to where he needed to be. He didn't think that he could have done that to another man, even if that man was Shimazaki Ryou.
"Want me to?" asked Shiori
"Would you?" asked Suzuki. He didn't know whether he should have been impressed or terrified.
"I'm getting close to that point. I mean, come on! This guy, who's closer to my age than your daughter's, slept with her…if that's even the right word for it. You're letting him live?" asked Shiori
"It isn't that simple. I want to kill him, believe me I do, but in doing so I will alienate her for the rest of her life…and I don't want that." Said Suzuki
"Didn't I just see you pop her one across the face a few months ago? And didn't you tell her to get out of your life back then? I mean not in those exact words but your meaning was clear." Said Shiori
"My meaning…I meant that she needed to stop digging into my affairs. I don't want her gone. I could never want her gone…even with the person that she is becoming." Said Suzuki. He had no idea how he felt about Shigeko…about any of this. Emotions were too complicated…too much…..
"Well you can't have it both ways, you know. Either she's a grown woman ready to make all of her own choices in life or she's still your little princess and she needs her father to come and save her. You need to make up your mind, and soon, because really this is making me not want to have children with you." Said Shiori
"I…also do not desire children at this time." Said Suzuki. There was a gasp, there, from Shiori. Then the mattress quaked as she rolled over and turned the light on. It was much too bright. He looked away…or at least he tried to. She reached over and turned his face back towards her.
"Touichirou, look at me." Said Shiori. Did he just say what she thought he just said? Touichirou not want children anymore? What next? Was she going to look outside and it was going to be snowing? People were going to be walking backwards? Cats on leashes or…or whatever?
"I'm looking at you, though that light is very bright." Said Suzuki as he sat up. He didn't want to argue with her that shining a light that bright was just going to wake the both of them up. She didn't seem like she wanted to be argued with, and she seldom did, but right now…well it wasn't as though he'd been getting any sleep anyway.
"Well too bad because it's not going off. Now look at me and tell me that you don't want children anymore? Because that's what it sounded like you just said and, let me tell you, you need to make up your mind. I just made my peace with having children with you, Touichirou, and we do not have time to be flipflopping on this. I'm forty one, next year I'll be forty two, and you know how the rest goes. You like math…whatever. We don't have time to be changing our minds about this. You may be able to father children up until the day you die but I only have so many fertile years left." Said Shiori
"….I honestly don't know what I want. I want to have children with you, I really do, but right now…right now the idea of having sex with you…not you specifically but the idea of sex in general…it's makes me feel…not good. I'm sorry, I'm not used to expressing my emotions like this. I simply mean that even if you asked me to right now I doubt anything would happen on my end." Said Suzuki
"Well, yeah, a grown man took advantage of your kid. That would turn anyone off…but you do want them in the future, right? Even if we're talking about some kind of artificial turkey baster doctor's office scenario?" asked Shiori. This was something that he should have brought up when it wasn't midnight! She couldn't even think…he had been the one pushing for kids and now…she couldn't with this man right now. She just could not.
"I don't think that doctors use turkey basters for that…actually I've never even seen one in my life." Said Suzuki
"Do you go to the gynecologist regularly? Do you know what happens in those stirrups?" asked Shiori. She knew full well that they didn't use an actual turkey baster but she wasn't going to let him act like a know it all right now.
"No, I've never set foot in a gynecologist's office…and you're correct. I'm not qualified to speak as to what happens in that situation." Said Suzuki
"Good. Now that we've got that out of the way then answer my question. Is that how we're doing this? Because if we're doing this then we both need to be in this thing one hundred percent." Said Shiori
"I…I honestly don't know. I want a child with you more than anything in the world and….and I suppose that it would be our best option. I just worry…I have no idea how conception and pre-life affect our abilities and those of our offspring. I worry that something could be lost in such a conception. I have no definitive answers, though, nobody does." Said Suzuki
"Well then we'll ask a doctor…I don't know…" said Shiori shaking her head. A kid without powers….it wouldn't be the end of the world. There was a good chance that they could have a normal kid. Nobody knew how these things were inherited, nobody that she had spoken to anyway. Second generation espers were the rarest type, rarer even than female espers. They were essentially walking around blind when it came to this…to what they would get…so they had to be prepared for anything.
Including a perfectly normal, mundane, child.
"I currently have the most data on our kind. If I don't know then nobody knows." Said Suzuki
"Well then we'll just have to find out. We'll probably make an esper and if not then it isn't the end of the world." Said Shiori with a wave of her hand.
"Yes. It would be." Said Suzuki
"Really? That's your biggest concern? If our kid has powers? Not if it, I don't know, gets addicted to drugs before it's a teenager? Takes up drinking in nursery school? Ends up deliberately disobeying ever single thing we say?" asked Shiori. She couldn't believe him. This was…he had made mistakes with two thirds of his kids, big ones, and he was worried about their hypothetical future child getting powers? Really?
"Those are also concerns but I doubt that we have to worry about anything like that?" asked Suzuki
"How can you possibly be so blasé about this? Your daughter I know for a fact has problems and from what you've told me your son isn't exactly a little angel either. Your youngest is still too early to call." Said Shiori
"Our child will have you for a mother. I cannot be both mother and father on my own, it isn't possible, and my children…they needed a mother growing up. A good one, not…not the mother they had. I chose poorly when I chose Masami…and I didn't really choose her to begin with. We simply got married because she was pregnant and I may not have completely understood marriage, raising children, and what it all entailed at the time. I didn't know what I was getting into with her but with you I know. I choose you, and it is a choice this time. I know you as a person and I want to spend my life with you…and I want to have children with you. You're going to be a better mother than Masami could ever have hoped to be." Said Suzuki. Shiori looked away from him. She turned red, from her cheeks to the tips of her ears and even down her neck. He had no idea why.
"Well you really know how to make a girl feel special." Muttered Shiori. What did that say about her that she was happy that when his ex-wife was weighed against her she was happy that she came out the winner? She was acting like such a kid right now.
"Oh, this is good then. I was worried." Said Suzuki
"Well you should be, but not about me. I agree, obviously I'm going to be a damn good mother, but what about you? What kind of a father are you going to be? And don't give me that crap you said before about being a good provider. It's the twenty first century, we're both going to be parents and providers to this kid. So just tell me what kind of parent that you're going to be." Said Shiori
"I am…not going to be my father." Said Suzuki
"Well, obviously not. Your father beat you with a shinai. I can't imagine that it did anything good for you." Said Shiori
"I am going to be different from him but…but not just in that way. I'm not going to force our children to spar with me without armor on, or at all. I've never even forced my children to spar with me with armor on…they have no interest in kendo and I'm going to keep it that way. I'm not going to…I've made an effort not to force my interests on the children that I have. My father would become very upset with me if I had an interest which was different from his…it was stifling…" said Suzuki
"So, what then? You're going to be the same kind of father to our kid that you've been to the other three? Because right now that doesn't seem like it's been working out to well for you over the years." Said Shiori
"I…am going to learn from my mistakes. Without even thinking about it I tried to be someone different from who my father was. That's why I never shared kendo, or any of my other interests, with the children…and why I never stifled theirs. Shigeko is very interested in cosmetics and clothes and dolls, well not so much dolls anymore but she was, and Sho has always been a very talented artist…and Mukai mostly seems to like jumping on things…but I've never stopped them. When I was a child my father told me…I think that I've told you this already. When I was a child I wanted to be an astronaut but my father told me to have practical goals in life…" said Suzuki
"So you decided that world domination was the way to go." Said Shiori
"Yes, but not a first. That came later after I met Tadashi. My father wasn't happy with that goal either…and you know how that story ends. It wasn't intentional…but I don't want my children to make themselves into orphans, to have cause to do so, even if it was on accident…I never want to put any of my children in that position…" said Suzuki
"There's a middle ground between letting our kids run wild and letting them plot our deaths." Said Shiori. There was a thing called overcorrecting and apparently Touichirou didn't know the meaning of the word. So she was going to have to be the one to do all the parenting too…she was going to have to do it all…so then what was the point of having him around? She might as well have gone to a sperm bank or he might as well have hired a surrogate!
"I never plotted my father's death in any serious way. It was an accident, truly, when I killed him and my mother. I never want to put our child in a position where they would lose control like that. I want…I want to give our children the ability to live their lives…but I don't know how to do that within limits. I gave my daughter no limits and she's become the person she's become. I tried to make my son into what I wanted him to be and…I don't even know what he's become. Mukai is still a being of pure impulse, I have no idea what she's become…but you're going to be a good mother and I know that you're going to know how to raise our children so they become the people that they want to be but also the people that we need them to be. I have complete and total faith in you." Said Suzuki
"Touichirou…it sounds like it's going to all be on me…and at that point, if I'm going to live like a single mother, than I might as well just go to a sperm bank…and I don't want to do that. I don't want to be a single mother and if you're planning on making me live like that then…then I don't know if this is going to work out." Said Shiori
"I never asked you to be a single mother. I have every intention of marrying you. I just…you never set a date and I admit that I haven't had a lot of time leftover to devote to you lately. I admit that…that my absence may also have contributed to Masami's…to my ex-wife's desire to leave. Tadashi thinks so and he's usually correct about these things…and I'm inclined to believe him since he and Masami were apparently very close friends." Said Suzuki
"Well, yes, obviously you're going to have to move to Osaka when our child is born. I just meant that it feels like one hundred percent of the parenting duties are going to fall to me…but, yeah, you had better be planning on moving to Osaka when this kid is born because this here for a few days here and there and then off to the four corners of the world thing is not going to work out. You are not leaving me to do it all by myself." Said Shiori
"I'm sure that Shigeko would help you." Said Suzuki
"Touichirou, what did I just say? You are moving here or we are not having a baby." Said Shiori
"I…I am going to the final phase of my plan soon…within two years…and that will keep me very busy…" said Suzuki
"Touichirou, it's either you move your base of operations here, learn to parent or…or you won't have a baby to parent." Said Shiori
"You're…you're giving me an ultimatum?" asked Suzuki. He didn't deal well with ultimatums…he never had….
"Yes." Said Shiori. She was prepared to deal with whatever he said. If he ended up getting dressed and walking out the door at midnight then that was fine by her…the thought hurt…but she'd get over it. She'd had worse.
"I…can…I can delegate." Said Suzuki
"Thank you." Said Shiori
"Shigeko can have Tokyo. You're right, I have a choice to make. Either she's a grown woman or a little girl and…and I can't treat her like a child anymore. She can do whatever she wants and…and she can't possibly do a worse job than Hatori. She's been me in my stead before and…and she can handle this. Thank you." Said Suzuki
"Alright…that's a decision…" said Shiori. She nodded. That was a choice. She could see his logic and…and he knew Shigeko best, maybe she was ready for this. Maybe…she was only thirteen…this was a disaster waiting to happen…or maybe she was actually extremely competent and Shiori was underestimating her. She honestly had no idea.
"Thank you." Said Suzuki. This was why he was marrying her. She knew best. Women in general knew best about these sorts of things, childrearing and such, and also…also unlike Masami she lived much the same life he did. Delegate…it was such a simple solution…Shiori was simple like that. Good. He wanted someone simple, not unknowable…very good.
"You're welcome…so, is that it? Or do you have another bizarre problem that's been keeping you up all night?" asked Shiori
"I don't think that I have any bizarre problems, just my usual ones…but if you really want to know-" said Suzuki
"Touichirou I was being…and you couldn't tell, right. Yeah that was my….yeah. You know, I said that you can tell me anything but…but it just…it amazes how many things you can't handle on your own. I mean you can rule the world, or at least come closer to it than anyone else in human history ever has, but you can't raise your own kids?" asked Shiori
"Those are two different skill sets. Raising children…it never came up. It was never something that I needed to know how to do. It was never supposed to be my role in life. I can admit when I need to…to learn and…and you know best. Dealing with people, and a lot of parenting is that, has never been my strong suit. In taking over the world you don't have to understand the people under you, you just have to be feared by them…and anyway Tadashi has always done better with people than I. Sometimes I feel as though there would be no Claw without him." Said Suzuki
"If you like him so much then why don't you marry him? Because, really, it does sound like you want to sometimes." Said Shiori. Childish. She knew that she was being childish but anyone could have been after the day she'd had. She needed sleep and then…well tomorrow she would find out who had tried to kidnap her and then she would make them pay…but sleep would come first. If Touichirou ever let her get to sleep.
"I would have if I could have but we're both men and during the time period in which I was considering marriage, and even now, that is frowned upon by society…also I wasn't being completely honest with myself about who I was back then…but I am being honest now. So thank you for that, you helped me with that and…and you have helped me in so many ways. I love you, Shiori." Said Suzuki
"I love you too, Touichirou, I really do…and I need to go to bed now. I have a lot to do tomorrow. I have leads to investigate and vengeance…goodnight." Said Shiori before she turned around and put the light out. She pulled the blanket over her head and wrapped herself up…hopefully Touichirou would have tired himself out…
Of course he hadn't.
"Vengeance? Against who? For what purpose?" asked Suzuki turning the light back on. Shiori was still turned around. He didn't know if it was alright to turn her around…he risked it. She was not asleep, he could tell by her breathing. She put up a barrier the moment his hand made contact with her waist.
"You had better not have been planning on manhandling me." Said Shiori, her back still to him.
"I had been…but only because I knew that you were not asleep. If there is vengeance that must be taken then let me take it for you. You are my wife…my soon to be wife…and any slight against you is a slight against me." Said Suzuki. Shiori didn't turn around, no, she simply burrowed farther into her bed.
"If you must know some morons tried to kidnap me today. I beat them. A few people died. I'm fine. Can we please go to bed?" asked Shiori. She was not going to ask him for help. She could handle herself. Unlike him she didn't have to go running to other people every single time she had a problem in her life to deal with.
"No, I don't see how we can. Why didn't you tell me this? You…you could have died. You are….someone could have taken you from me. Someone could have taken…someone could have taken my wife from me…" said Suzuki. All the lights in the room went on. The bed rose up nearly to the ceiling. His aura was showing, equal parts yellow and red…he…he could identify this emotion. Fear. It was fear…he didn't like it…
Identifying this emotion didn't mean that he could deal with it.
"Touichirou, we aren't married yet…and even if we were I could handle myself. I'm not you, I don't need…I can handle myself. If I need your help then I'll ask for it." Said Shiori, still not turning around. She could feel his eyes and aura on her, she could feel the way the bed was floating, she could feel…it was late. She would deal with this tomorrow.
"I can help-" said Suzuki
"Touichirou, deal with your problems at home and then worry about mine, ok? Now I don't want to talk about this anymore. I need sleep and you need sleep so just…just go to sleep already. You have a plan, right? You know what to do about your daughter? So now you have no reason to toss and turn and keep me up until all hours of the night." Said Shiori
"You're…you're correct. You're always correct. You always know just what to say…I love you for that, you know? I love you more than I know how to express." Said Suzuki, meaning every single word he said. She had made it better…now he knew what he would do. He needed to treat Shigeko the way she seemed to want to be treated. He couldn't simultaneously treat her like a child and an adult. It wasn't enough to stay out of her life and ask that she stay out of his. He needed to give her the kind of life she wanted, the kind of life that he wanted her to have, and…and he couldn't protect her from everything, not if she didn't want to be protected…
She could have Tokyo.
He needed to delegate and that was why he had children, to pass his life's work along to. Sho…he couldn't be trusted to run a bath but Shigeko…she was like him. Her best work came from, well, work. She…well her judgment hadn't been the best the first time she filled in for him but she was a child then. She was…she was older now and hopefully her judgment would be better. This freed him up to deal with the things which really needed his attention….like Shiori, their growing family, and ending the lives of the people who threatened her.
He slept well that night, better than he had in a while.