Mob didn't mind making breakfast.

It was actually a lot easier to make breakfast when Dad wasn't home. She didn't have to make a bunch of different meals. Dad always wanted eggs and ketchup, it was his favorite, so of course Sho had to have something else since he and Dad couldn't ever agree about anything. She didn't like Sho eating nothing but poptarts, sugar was bad for you, so she would end up making him something…and then sometimes something different for herself, too, because she was the one cooking so she at least should have had what she wanted. That was a lot of cooking.

She was happy that she, Sho, and Mukai all liked the same things…and Dad wasn't there to be mean about it.

"Make me three pancakes." Said Mukai, kicking the table. That got Shigeko's attention. She turned around and-and then shouted.

Really loudly.

She held her hand close to her chest and shouted. Mukai jumped down from her chair and pulled on Shigeko's skirt. She wasn't supposed to act like that! She was holding her hand like she was hurt and…and she needed to go to Mama! Mama could help!

"Come on, let's go to Mama!" said Mukai as she tugged on Shigeko's skirt. Shigeko just pushed her hand away with her colors and went over to the sink. Mukai tried to pull her back, with her hands and with her colors, but it didn't work. She was still too little, a lot littler than Shigeko was…it's wasn't fair!

"No, no, I don't need to. I'm fine, really!" said Mob as she held her hand under the sink. The cold water would help. She'd gotten burns before. It was alright, it was fine. She didn't get hurt often but she knew that she was going to be fine. She's gotten burned cooking before…never this much of her hand…but she was going to be fine.

Butter was good too, right?

She remembered Minegishi saying something about butter. It was either that you needed to use butter or you needed to never use butter….she was going to take her chances. She opened the fridge with her powers and took the button out. Mukai ran over and started taking things out. Mob would close the fridge as soon as she was done. First she had to try the butter thing….she hoped it did.

It did.

"You're not bread." Said Mukai as she took the drinks out of the fridge. Milk for Shigeko, coke for her, and also another coke for her…and Sho could have something else. Mayonnaise…ketchup…mustard….natto…gross! Natto!

She threw it away.

"Mukai, stop it." Said Mob as she put the natto back in the fridge. Mukai jumped up and tried to take it out.

"I don't like natto!" shouted Mukai

"That's alright, I'm putting it back, not asking you to eat it. Now put the drinks back too before the milk goes bad…ok?" asked Mob. Mukai crossed her arms and shook her head.

"Coke for breakfast." Said Mukai

"Mukai, you know that soda isn't a breakfast drink-" said Mob

"I want to drink coke!" shouted Mukai. Shigeko sighed and picked the coke up…but then she put it down on the table so that was ok…but she gave one to Sho, too, which was not ok. Mukai reached over with her colors, she reached over as far as she could, and she got it to wobble…it wobbled again….and then it tipped over.

Shigeko caught it with her colors.

"Mukai, let Sho have that one. You don't need to have two cans of soda, it's bad for you." said Mob as she pulled a glass down from the cabinet. She reached up higher and pushed some healthy snacks out of the way. She felt around with her powers while she kept on eye on the stove. She knew that she'd hidden it somewhere….

There!

She felt something bottle shaped. She pulled it down. Good. Sometimes she hid things so well from herself that she lost them. She had to hide things well, she didn't want Sho or Minegishi stealing from her. Or Dad…well she wouldn't have to worry about Dad now, he was gone…..but things were better now that he was gone.

If he had been there then he probably would have hated her, the person that she was becoming, just a little bit more than he hated her now.

"You're bad for me!" shouted Mukai, slamming her hands against the table.

"Mukai, I know that you didn't mean that. I know that you love me-" said Mob

"I love you! I meant it!" shouted Mukai

"Mukai, stop-" said Mob. She was the one who'd wound up stopping. Between making breakfast, pouring her drink, and stopping Mukai from breaking her hands on the table she hadn't felt Sho. She hadn't felt him get up, or come to the kitchen, or even stand in the doorway….there he was…with his hair all wet…

"Sho! You took a bath all on your own?!" said Mob, putting the table down. This was great! If Sho was starting to take showers on his own then that meant that he might have been getting better. None of the Awakened ever got better…but Sho wasn't the Awakened, he was himself, and she had hoped for so long that he'd get better…

She wished that she'd made something better than pancakes for breakfast.

"Don't make a big deal out of it." Said Sho, pulling his jacket shut. It wasn't that cold in here, not even for Tokyo. He didn't care.

"You smell good today, Sho. You used to smell bad but now you smell good." said Mukai

"Thanks, I guess." said Sho as he sat down. He pulled his collar up over his neck, both to hide and to keep Big Sis from looking. She'd had a lot to say the first time she saw his neck, and he didn't feel like going through that again. Even if it wasn't super important to keep the whole thing a secret he still wouldn't have wanted to talk about stuff like that with his own sister!

"Mukai! Sho doesn't always smell bad…and he doesn't smell that bad anyway. You don't, Sho." Said Mob, turning away from the stove. Sho was easy to get used to, and it wasn't like it was his fault or anything. He didn't like water, none of the Awakened did, though Scars did make the Awakened take showers when they refused to…Mob was going to have to do something about that. Maybe they'd get better on their own, like Sho had.

He really did smell a lot better...not that he didn't smell not terrible before.

"Yeah I did, that's why I took a bath today. Now quit making a big deal about this. It's not a big deal." Said Sho. There was nothing more annoying than someone telling you what you were and were not allowed to say. He knew that he should have been extra nice to Big Sis, so she'd be more on his side when the day came, but it was kind of hard when she was telling Baby Sis what she was acting like a combination of Dad and Fukuda.

"It's not a big deal. No big deal!" said Mukai as she pushed her glass over. Sho and Shigeko caught it with their colors at the same time.

"Mukai! What'd you do that for?" asked Sho

"It's no big deal." Said Mukai

"She's right, it's not a big deal." Said Mob. She scooted Mukai's chair away from Sho's and put Dad's old chair between them. There. That should have been enough space. It was too early in the morning for them to be fighting like that.

"It kind of is. I just got out of the fucking tub, I don't want to go back in!" said Sho. He picked Mukai's cup up and put it on the other side of her. It had taken all that he had, it felt like, to get himself into the shower that morning. It didn't matter what Big Sis was making for breakfast, he doubted it would give him enough energy to go back in again.

"The fucking bathtub!" said Mukai

"Mukai, remember I told you not to say that word?" asked Mob

"No." said Mukai

"No, you don't remember? Or no, you don't want to listen to me?" asked Mob

"No." said Mukai

"It's not a big deal. It's not like Dad's around to hear her. He's the only one who ever said anything…him and Fukuda but Fukuda defected or whatever." Said Sho

"Like the dishwasher." Said Mukai. The dishwasher was defected, that was why the whole kitchen had been a swimming pool this morning.

"Fukuda didn't defect, he's in Seoul." Said Mob as she set everyone's plats down at the table. She took a spot between Mukai and Sho. It was kind of squished but she didn't mind at all.

"Oh…he didn't tell me he was going to Seoul." Said Sho. That was fine, Fukuda didn't have to tell him every little thing, and Sho had figured that he was in Seoul anyway. Seoul or the Castle…it would have been nice, though, if Fukuda had at least texted…whatever. It wasn't like there was any way to kill him, anyway.

"He didn't tell me either….but we don't really talk to each other…but it would have been nice to have him around." said Mob

"Why?" asked Sho. Big Sis held up her hand…it was red! The whole outside was totally red!

"What the fuck?!" Shouted Sho. That was…that was….the worst thing that he had ever seen in his life.

"Yeah, Shigeko, what the fuck! What the fuck is wrong with you!? Fuck you!" said Mukai, jabbing her finger right into Shigeko's throat. Now she was going to look like Sho…good! She deserved it for…for whyever they were mad at her!

"Sho! See what you taught her?" said Mob trying her best not to lose control. Not even for a moment. She took a drink from her milk…and was proud that she hadn't spat it back out. Strawberry vodka with milk was NOT the same as strawberry flavored milk...somehow the feeling of having wasted perfectly good milk was worse than the feeling of the burn on her hand.

"I don't give a fuck about that! You're all burned up! Did you call Fukuda?! Is he on his way? Do you need to go to the hospital?" asked Sho as he stood up. He tried to make his breathing steady. He couldn't freak out. If anything she was the one who should have been freaked out. People DIED of burns! He knew. Emmy had sent him enough burn ward pictures to know what happened…this was bad…how could she have been so calm!?

"That's where people go to die." Said Mukai. Mine had said so. Mama had asked them if they needed to go to the hospital but then they said that people when there to die. Mama shouldn't have tried to make them die. That wasn't a good thing.

"I'm not going to die, I just touched the side of the pan. I ran it under cold water and I put some butter on it, it's ok. Now please, eat your food. I thought you liked pancakes." Said Mob, tucking her hand into her sleeve. Sho sat back down and picked up his fork. Good. Now they weren't going to fight. She hated it when they fought, and she hated it when he worried about her, too. She was the Big Sister and he was the little brother. She should have worried about him.

And Mukai too, of course.

"I want Panda." Said Mukai as she pushed her plate away.

"It's not opened. If you don't want pancakes I can make you a waffle or some cereal or eggs-" said Mob. She didn't think that it was opened, anyway. She was afraid to look. If it was opened then they wouldn't have been having breakfast together…and they had to have breakfast together. They had to have as much time together as they could get.

"I want Panda, please and thank you." said Mukai. She tried to get down from her seat but Shigeko stopped her with her colors.

"We'll have lunch there, ok? But only after breakfast." Said Sho. He had to jump in before Big Sis and Mukai got into one of those circle fights. They probably would have gotten stuck in there until Panda actually did open.

"Panda for lunch!" shouted Mukai as she picked up a pancake with both hands. She bit into it because it was a bread. Mama always cut them up but you didn't cut up bread. Mama was silly sometimes.

"Thanks." Said Mob. Sho just shook his head and poked at his pancakes.

"You don't have to thank me, I didn't do anything." Said Sho

"You got Mukai to stop shouting, that's something." Said Mob

"That wasn't anything, it was easy. When you're nice to people and you give them whatever they want then they listen to you. You know, like with the Awakened?" asked Sho. Pretty much all of the Awakened like Big Sis better than Dad. Probably because she was nice to them and let them come on company trips and stuff. A lot of them wore blue even if it didn't go with their uniforms and made Dad mad…

There were a lot more Awakened than there were upper echelon people.

"They don't always listen that well. The other day I had to help two of them get their arms out of the vending machine…and they were both just holding onto the candy. They're a lot like little kids, actually, like Mukai." Said Mob. They were sometimes, and she didn't like this word, tiresome. That was a word that Dad used for everything that bothered him. Tiresome. It wasn't a good thing, a good feeling, to be called tiresome…so she wouldn't be calling anyone that.

Not out loud, and not if she could avoid it.

"Wait…they put their arms in the vending machine at the same time?" laughed Sho

"Don't do that, Sho, it's dangerous." Said Mukai

"I wasn't going to do it, it's just kind of funny, that's all." Said Sho

"Good…but it's not funny, it's kind of…it makes me tired, that's all. There's so much to do as it is and…and sometimes I just get tired." Said Mob

"Why don't you just tell them to stop? I bet that they would. They love you and when someone loves you then they do whatever you ask them to." Said Sho

"Sho, you love me, but it takes at least two days begging to get you to take a bath. Also you never put your clothes in the hamper, you keep on letting your hamsters have babies, and you have fish now too…and you didn't even ask me." said Mob. The house was getting kind of crowded. The living room was hard to use, now, because there were all of the hamster tunnels. The fish tank on the coffee table kind of blocked the TV, too. She didn't mind it when Sho got new pets, she just wished that he would have warned her…or left the pets at Fukuda's house.

All the pets but Meow-Meow, she loved that cat. Even if he did love to sleep on their clean laundry and shed all over it.

"I just took a bath without you telling me to and…and I can do more of that other stuff, too, if you want." Said Sho. He wasn't going to be a dickhole. He couldn't afford to be one, not even if he wanted to. He had to get her on his side. He didn't see the point of putting his clothes in the basket, they could just pick stuff up with their powers, and if his hamsters wanted to fall in love and start families then that was their business….and also the fish didn't even do anything so he had no idea what her problem was-

-he wasn't going to be a dickhole.

"That would be really nice, thank you so much." Said Mob. She just shrugged again and pulled his jacket close across himself. She turned the heat up a little bit. It was November now and the cold had finally come in. Not that she was going to miss summer that much. Summer in Tokyo was way too hot.

Not that winter was much better.

Summer was hot, winter was cold, and there was no way to take a break from either season. She was stuck here. She hadn't ever been stuck anywhere before, not since she had been little. It was…it was easier if she thought of this as just a job, not a permanent thing, just a job like filling in for Dad. That she could go somewhere warm in the winter…like Disneyland in American…or somewhere cold in the summer…cool, not cold. The North Pole was nice in the summer…and wonderful in the winter…

She drank her milk. It still tasted bad.

"Thank you Sho!" said Mukai, slamming her fork against her plate. She had to say thank you, too. That way she would win.

"For what?" asked Sho

"I don't know. Give me syrup." Said Mukai. Sho passed her the syrup with his powers…but then Shigeko took it away!

"Tell me how much you want." Said Mob as she held the syrup above Mukai's pancakes. She couldn't be trusted to do it on her own, not without making a mess, and Mob didn't have time to clean up any messes. She barely even had time to make breakfast…no wonder Dad was so grumpy all the time.

"I can do it all by myself, I'm not a baby." Said Mukai as she reached for the syrup with her colors. They couldn't reach through Shigeko's colors. The pink and the blue swallowed the red right up!

"I didn't day that you were a baby, I just said that I wanted to do it for you." said Mob

"Big Sis…" said Sho. Mukai was totally big enough to do her own syrup…but if he started a fight then Big Sis would be pissed off. Her version of pissed off, not the normal person version of pissed off. He had never seen her that kind of pissed off…and he couldn't make her any kind of pissed off, anyway. He had to get her on his side…or at least close enough that she would listen to him.

"I don't think that she's big enough to pour it on her own, ok? The last time she tried that the floor had sticky spots for weeks." Said Mob

"It's not that. It's just…um…maybe I can pour it for her? You know, to give you a break and stuff." Said Sho. That was the next best thing to letting Mukai do her own. He knew how much she liked, buckets full, and he didn't care if it was bad for her.

"That would….that would be nice. Thank you." said Mob. Sho sure was being nice today….maybe he was getting more mature? Well he had snuck off to see his boyfriend, or another boy she hadn't asked and he hadn't said anything, but also he was taking baths without being told and said that he was going to clean up after himself too…

And she did appreciate the break.

"Let's take a break. A break at…at Disneyland…or Panda…or at pandas. Let's take break." Said Mukai as she watched her pancakes get covered in syrup. Sho didn't stop until they were just right, he was nice like that. Nicer than Shigeko and Mama put together.

"Mukai, we can't go anywhere. We already took a trip to Universal for Halloween-" said Mob

"Worth it!" said Sho

"-and, besides, there aren't even any holidays in November." Said Mob as she used her powers to cut Mukai's pancakes up for her. Mukai tried to push the butter knife away but Mob didn't stop. She couldn't let Mukai pick them up like slices of bread, she'd just end up getting sticky and then she'd just end up getting everything else sticky too.

Then Mob would just have more to clean…she needed a break…

"What about Culture Day?" asked Sho as he used his powers to rip Mukai's pancakes apart. Partially to help Big Sis and partially to make sure that Mukai didn't get upset. It made more sense to eat pancakes by hand but also Big Sis thought that it was bad manners…and he was going to let Big Sis win this one.

"What do you get in Culture Day?" asked Mob. Did it count as a holiday if you didn't get anything? Or maybe it was like international friendship day…no, she gave presents then, too….should she have been giving people presents for culture day all this time?

"I think that day off. I saw a bunch of signs for stuff being closed on Culture Day…so maybe we can take a break then?" asked Sho. Hopefully another trip, too. People liked trips and they'd like Big Sis more if she threw more trips. Then maybe she would realize that she had more of Claw than Dad did and then she would take over the world and…and then the world would probably be a better place.

He wouldn't have minded ruling the world, actually, if he and Big Sis could have made it a better place together.

"We can…and maybe another trip, too, but this time for more people…like maybe the Seventh Division too. Then maybe if Tsuchiya sees her old friends she'll stop talking about leaving." Said Mob

"Yeah! And maybe more of the Awakened and-and the upper echelons too would like you better. I mean they like you now but if we get them to like you more than Dad then…um…can I have a poptart?" asked Sho. Too much too soon. You couldn't just let the other person know the whole thing at once. Fukuda had said so…and even Fukuda could be right about things sometimes.

"Take two more bites and then you can have a poptart, ok?" asked Mob. There was the old Sho…maybe he was getting more mature now. It was nearly his birthday, they were going to be the same age again, but she remembered being thirteen. Her birthday…it hadn't felt much different from being twelve.

The parts that she could remember, anyway.

Sho was going to be thirteen in a month…that was the next holiday. She wasn't sure if Culture Day counted as a holiday, they had never even gotten it off before, but Sho's birthday…that was more than a holiday. It was his birthday and…and it was so hard to think of Sho as being her own age. He was always so little…he was as tall as she was…but she saw him as being so little. She didn't know what she was going to do when he got to be her age…warn him about love and stuff…but he was a boy….but he didn't gave anyone else to warn him…

He didn't have anyone else to take care of him.

"OK…but two, not just one." Said Sho as he took three bites, which was one more than two, which was more than he'd had to do. One more…but that was still a lot. He had earned that poptart just like he, and everyone else, had earned their day off.

"Deal…but take one more bite." Said Mob. She had made him breakfast…but she didn't mind that he wanted a poptart. That was just the way he was…the way he had been since he had been a kid….since they had been kids. He was still a kid. Even though he was nearly her age he was still just a kid…but also not…it was confusing. How much younger he looked…maybe because he would always be her little brother no matter how much older he got…

And he would always argue with her about breakfast, too, but Mob didn't mind.