Sho always wanted the same thing for his birthday every single year.
It was kind of boring, in Mob's opinion. She always wanted a lot of different things for her birthday, not that she ever told people what to get her of course. That wouldn't have been nice. She was just happy to get anything from her friends. What she really liked, though, was getting new socks. Comfortable ones. New Frozen t-shirts were good too, and makeup, but only if Minegishi was the one getting it for her. They knew a lot about makeup for someone who never wore it…not that she expected anything from them for her birthday, not after what she had done…but she shouldn't have been thinking about her birthday anyway. It wasn't her birthday, it was Sho's.
Or at least it would be in a few hours.
In a few hours Sho, her little brother, would be thirteen. It was kind of a big birthday, being a teenager. At least that was what it felt like. Twelve was still, technically, a kid. Thirteen was a teenager. She hadn't felt like a kid in years, and she wasn't sure what the difference between a teenager and an adult was, but she was happy for Sho. That he was a teenager now, that they were the same age, that one day he would be all grown up and then he wouldn't want to hang out with her anymore and…and…
Mob kept on wrapping.
Sho had asked for more art supplies this year, just like he did every year. It saved him having to go to the store. It all looked the same to Mob, the pencils and the paper, along with the crayons and other things, but Sho had said a million times before that it was all different. It was all also hard to find sometimes, too, depending on what country they were in. That was why he always stocked up when he could. Mob paid attention to what he liked, what names on the packaging, and what country they had come from. She had to make this a good birthday for Sho and that meant getting him the right stuff, and wrapping it nicely too. Not that Sho cared too much about wrapping paper, he just tore it off.
She cared, though, a lot.
She used her hands to wrap Sho's presents. It was one of those things that was just easier to do by hand. Dad had said, before, that the true marker of power was being able to do a lot of very fine movements with your powers and stuff. Mob didn't disagree with Dad, not about that anyway, but she didn't feel like practicing right now. She had to get this done the right way. Also if she used her powers then Serizawa might have wanted to practice with his…and he wasn't the best at wrapping presents in the first place.
Not that she would ever have said something.
"Oh no…" said Serizawa as he held up a present. There was way too much paper at the top and not enough at the bottom. She could see the bottom of the box…not good. If she could see it then Sho could see it and then the surprise would be ruined and then his birthday would be ruined and then his thirteenth birthday would be as terrible as hers had been. The parts that she could remember, anyway.
She couldn't let that happen.
"I can fix that, don't worry." Said Mob. She reached over and took the present in her hands. She could always put more paper on…but then it would look kind of sloppy and messy. Sho didn't care but she did. Also it would show in the pictures. Taking pictures was very important. The more pictures they took the more that they would be able to remember. She could hardly remember her birthdays before she was five, and not at all before she was three. It was important to remember the fun times. You never knew when they would be over…and, actually, it wasn't enough to just remember them. You had to remember them right.
They had to have been good times.
She looked around the room. They were in Dad's room, which was also the present room. She hid Sho's presents in here because she knew that he never would have come in. This was the perfect room for not only hiding birthday presents but Christmas presents too. Those she would wrap later, of course, right now she had Sho's birthday to worry about. She had to make it nice…she grabbed a bow from the wrapping bag. It was a red one, for Christmas, but it would be alright for this. Sho liked red, well he mostly like green, but he liked what was inside best of all.
He was going to love this present.
"There, see? You can hardly even tell now." said Mob as she handed Serizawa back the present. He put it in the pile with the others. She may have gone overboard this year…but thirteen was an important birthday, and anyway there was no such thing as too many presents.
"You're so smart, Miss Suzuki. I never would have thought of that." Said Serizawa
"You would have, I think so anyway." Said Mob
"No, I wouldn't have. I don't really know how to wrap presents…I've never had anyone to give presents to before." Said Serizawa
"You've given people presents before. Remember last Christmas? And my birthday?" asked Mob
"Hatori just let me put my name on the stuff he got." Said Serizawa
"Oh…well that's ok, too. It's the thought that counts." Said Mob
"You really don't mind?" asked Serizawa
"Of course not. I don't care what presents I get, I just like being with you guys and having people who care about me and stuff like that." Said Mob. Stuff wasn't that important. She had a lot of it already and if she ever needed to buy something new she just could have ordered it on Amazon or gone to a store. Friends weren't so easy to get, and to keep.
"Wow…you're so nice. I mean I don't care about presents either! I mean, um, it's nice to get them…but I like being with you more. You and everyone else. I mean I never liked my birthday before, or Christmas, and Mom got me plenty of stuff even when it wasn't a special occasion…but I never got her anything…" said Serizawa. Mob reached out and took his hand in hers. She knew what it meant when he got all sad like this, he would probably try and go hide in his room next, and she wasn't going to let that happen…well she wasn't going to keep him prisoner or anything like that…but she didn't want him to go.
She didn't want to be alone right now.
When she was alone Shimazaki tried to talk to her…well not totally alone, he just didn't like Serizawa for some reason. She didn't really want to Shimazaki now, well she did, but not about what she was sure that he wanted to talk about. She didn't even know how to talk about that…what she could even say. She didn't want to break his heart by breaking up with him, she'd had her heart broken before and it had been awful, but she didn't want to be his girlfriend anymore either. Not if it meant that she couldn't be Minegishi's best friend, too. She didn't know what to do…but she knew what she didn't want to do…and she knew what she had to do, too.
She had to get these presents all wrapped up for Sho's birthday, and she had to make Serizawa feel better too.
"I'm sure she understood and, anyway, you can send her a present now if you want. You make money, I know, I'm the one who sets everyone's salary." Said Mob
"I-I don't know. I haven't said anything to her or seen her since…since I left and…and I know that she's much better off without me. I mean I don't know what she'll say if she suddenly hears from me like that. If I were here then I-I wouldn't want to hear from me…" said Serizawa. Mob pushed the wrapping paper to the side, scooted over to him, and gave him the biggest hug she could. He hugged her back after a short delay, one where his aura got very bright. She fixed it before he could do anything. It always felt weird, absorbing people's extra energy, that was why he was the only person she did this for. She felt weird as his energy merged with her aura…weird and sad.
Such sad energy.
You could kind of tell how someone felt by their aura. Dad said that auras were souls, or something like that. Mob didn't know if that was true or not but she did know that just feeling someone's aura could tell her sort of how they felt. Absorbing someone's aura kind of made her feel their feelings…and he was sad…now she was sad. Sho was growing up and pretty soon he'd been ruling the world and she'd be all alone and Mukai was growing up and…and maybe Tsuchiya was just going to take her away one day and…and her friends would probably leave her and stop being her friends…and she'd never have a Shoko or a Shigeo and…and Dad would never love her again. He'd start a new family and then she would be all alone…
Serizawa hugged her back.
"I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to be near you, Serizawa, I really don't. You're one of the nicest people that I've ever met and the best friend that I have now, since Minegishi's mad at me, and…and I wish that you wouldn't say such mean things about yourself." Said Mob as she was hugged tightly. Too tightly…not that she was going to say anything. That would have been mean and, besides, she didn't mind that much. She'd had worse hugs in her life. Dad used to hug her a lot tighter than this, back when he still loved her.
"I'm sorry that happened to you, Miss Suzuki. I don't know why they're mad at you but I can tell that you care about them a lot and…and it's not fair. That you have to feel this way." Said Serizawa
"I'll be ok, really." Said Mob, patting him on the back. She couldn't really feel her body all that well anymore…but she wasn't going to tell him that. It had taken a lot to get him to this point, to where he wasn't so afraid of himself that he couldn't hug people. She didn't want him to backslide. So she let him hug her until he was all hugged out…and she was ok. She would regain the feeling back in her arms soon, they had only gone to sleep.
Her back, however, was another story.
"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to hold you so tightly, I mean…um…do you need Fukuda? Because I can call him if you want…I mean it's late…but this is an emergency!" said Serizawa as Mob rubbed her back. She couldn't help it, it hurt. Well it always kind of hurt, she spent most of her day hunched over at her desk now. She kind of got why Dad was always complaining about his back...but it was nothing that she couldn't live with. Nothing worth calling Fukuda about.
"I'm ok, really. Please don't call Fukuda." Said Mob
"But-but it's an emergency." Said Serizawa
"It really isn't." said Mob
"It is, though. I know how much it hurts when your back hurts. I mean I know what it feels like when your back hurts. Of course it hurts when something hurts, that's how pain works…sorry, sorry. I can just be kind of dumb sometimes and I don't always know what to say, I mean of course you know, I told you already…but it's just-" said Serizawa
"Serizawa, you know that I don't like it when you talk about yourself like that. You're not dumb, I would never think that about you, and anyone who does…well, they probably aren't a very nice person anyway." Said Mob
"I-I'm sorry, Miss Suzuki. I just meant that I know what it's like when your back hurts…and I don't want you to feel this way." Said Serizawa
"Wait, does your back hurt right now?" asked Mob. That was certainly worth calling Fukuda, or maybe bringing Serizawa over to Fukuda. Sho had locked himself in their room again and whenever he did that it meant that he didn't want any company, he had said so, and she knew Fukuda. He was probably going to try and hang out with Sho even though it was in the middle of the night. Fukuda would probably want to have a sleepover and then Sho would end up missing his whole birthday party, and then all of her work would have been for nothing.
"Kind of, but it's not that bad. It was worse this morning." Said Serizawa
"Do you need Fukuda?" asked Mob
"No, you don't have to bother him." Said Serizawa
"It's not a bother, though, it's his job." Said Mob
"I still would feel like I was bothering him and…and anyway it's my fault. I'm just not used to sleeping on the floor yet." Said Serizawa
"Why are you sleeping on the floor? Your room isn't a tatami room, it's just a regular one…but if you want I could have a tatami room built for you, and I can get you a futon too." Said Mob. She hadn't really slept on the floor that often. Dad had always said that real beds were best and that nobody, not even his parents, had slept on the floor. Mob didn't really get it but if Serizawa really wanted to sleep on the floor then she would make it happen for him. After all that was what friends were for, they took care of each other.
"I-I'm alright. Shimazaki just moved into my room and…and now we're roommates…and he said that we could share the bed but he takes up a lot of it and he moves around a lot in his sleep and one time he thought that I was Minegishi and one time he thought that I was you and…and it's just easier for me to sleep on the floor. You don't have to change the house or anything, I'll get used to it." Said Serizawa
"Minegishi kicked Shimazaki out? Or did he just want to move in with you?" asked Mob. There was a difference and that difference was an important one. If Minegishi had kicked him out then…then things were worse than she had ever imagined. Mob had seen enough TV to know that when married people stopped sleeping in the same bed then that was a very bad sign. Minegishi and Shimazaki weren't married or anything but they were boyfriend and theyfriend, and they had been together for even longer than her parents had been…maybe, and also Mom and Dad had slept in the same bed until the very end, too, and things had been bad enough between them that Mom had left…or maybe one day she just felt like running away from home…
But either way Mob could not let Minegishi and Shimazaki end up like Mom and Dad.
"Minegishi kicked him out." Said Serizawa
"Oh no!" said Mob
"Miss Suzuki!" said Serizawa
"This is all my fault! Now they're going to break up and it's all because of me! I mean Minegishi said but…but I thought that they had just been mad and that they were going to change their mind and-and-and I don't know what to do!" said Mob
"I-I don't know what to do either but…but they aren't yelling at each other! I mean Tsuchiya and Shibata yell at each other sometimes, and my mom said that my Dad left us because she yelled at him a lot, but they aren't yelling so…so maybe there's hope? Please have hope. It's so hard for me to see you like this." Said Serizawa. His aura was flaring and his voice was cracking…she looked up. His eyes were glassy like he was about to cry…she had to stop this. Conceal, don't feel, like Dad had always said. Power was nothing without control, so she had to control herself. Especially since Serizawa couldn't really control his feelings.
She hugged him.
"It's ok, I'm ok, and…and you're going to be ok, too. You can stay here until I find a way to make Shimazaki and Minegishi stop fighting, ok? Or for even longer if you want." Said Mob. There, that was one problem solved…and about a million more that she still had to worry about. She didn't know what she could even do. They were fighting because of her and she didn't know how to try and fix it without making it worse…but she had to try something.
After she was done here.
"But…but this is President Suzuki's room." said Serizawa as Mob let him go.
"I know but he's not coming back so…so this can be your room now, ok?" asked Mob
"If-if that's what you want, Miss Suzuki, but only if you want." Said Serizawa
"It is, now come on. Let's get this done before it's Sho's birthday. We can't have a birthday party without presents." Said Mob. She had to get this done with and then she had to move Serizawa's stuff in and then she had to fix things between Minegishi and Shimazaki and then she had work stuff to do and Christmas to worry about…she had so much to worry about…
But that was ok.
She was the one who took care of things, that was her job, and she didn't have a choice. She didn't mind it that much. She would rather have been the one to take care of things than for things to have gone wrong…and if that meant a lot of extra work then that was ok. She just wanted everyone to be happy…she didn't know how to make everyone happy, though, so she would start with what she knew. She knew that she had to give Sho a happy birthday and that meant wrapping his presents extra nice.
He wanted, and got, the same thing every year. He knew what he was getting but that didn't mean that she still couldn't wrap everything up for him nicely…that didn't mean that she couldn't do this right.