Hatori Nozomu was not difficult to shop for.

He needed new clothes, didn't have the best taste in games, and for some reason was trying to replace water with energy drinks. The green kind were his favorite bit he also liked blue and would drink red if there was no other color available. Purple was also a color he enjoyed but it had been discontinued some time ago. Hatori also loved orange chips. Suzuki didn't know why, the plain colored ones were much better, but it wasn't his to understand. It was Christmas and on this day you were supposed to shower your children with gifts and Hatori was the only one of his children that he had near to him.

He was also quite a bit easier to shop for than the others.

"Teach you to invade my universe…wait, no, teach you to defend your home planet…" muttered Hatori to no one in particular. The muttering was preferable to the shouting, in Suzuki's opinion, though silence would have been better. They were the only two people on the plane and, instinctively, he felt like Hatori was speaking to him. He wasn't, of course. He had been engrossed in that game since before, even, they had gotten onto the plane. It had been a productive day, another rival had been crippled and their assets stolen from them, so he could excuse this bought of unproductivity. He had been excusing it for some time now.

Several hours in fact.

They had come to this plane straight from work. There hadn't been any time to engage in all the normal Christmas rituals. Normally Suzuki wouldn't have cared but he knew that other people did and, yes, the thoughts and feelings of others didn't matter in the slightest but it was always good to take them into account. It just made everything easier, really, for him. Shigeko had the correct idea. Happy people were busy people, that seemed to be her philosophy when it came to Claw, and he had to admit that it worked. She was doing her best to put them in the black, all of those simultaneous parties had added up considerably, but attempted defections were down considerably. Usually this was the worst quarter for them, people missed their families around the new year or something he supposed, but Shigeko had gotten them down to nearly zero.

For all of her faults he could admit that she was worthy to rule by his side.

No, beneath him. She wouldn't be by his side. Not even his blood children would be. If he'd been able to pull from his pool of adopted children then Hatori was the obvious candidate to succeed him. As it stood Hatori wasn't even fit to run a bath let alone the world but there was potential within him. He was a powerful esper, be it unconventionally, and he was actually loyal to Suzuki. Obedient. Malleable. Not like Sho…how he had ever gotten such a stubborn, inconsiderate, lazy, idiotic, annoying child for a son was beyond him. Hatori…if only he hadn't been Hatori…or if only Shigeko could have been his blood child. She was capable, Hatori was capable, and therefore they could rule together and their child would be just as capable as they were together. Shigeko was at that age, too, wasn't she? The age where one thought about settling down…

He had no idea how it worked with female children.

He knew that at thirteen his romantic plans had begun and ended with finding a girl willing to be his girlfriend and allow him access to her body. He hadn't even thought of marriage as more than an abstract concept, he knew that it was a union between two people that his parents and many others had undertaken, and the thought of him with a wife had been incredibly difficult to even conceive. The thought of him ruling the world, or becoming an astronaut, or even managing to convince Tadashi to stop wasting time with his Famicom and get an Atari like every other intelligent person on the planet…he never had….but the idea of it, any of those ideas, had been easier to conceptualize than the idea of him with a wife. Even sex was something that he only had the most abstract understanding of at thirteen. Something that was whispered about by adults, speculated about by his classmates, and could be glimpsed in the pages of books that now, he realized, he should not have been sneaking into backrooms and reading. At the age of thirteen he had never thought that it was something that could actually happen for him.

Children grew up so quickly.

Shigeko was…Shigeko, Sho was a mess, and Mukai….she was still small enough to be perfect. Shopping for her had been a very simple thing this year, not that he did his shopping personally, so perhaps it was more accurate to say that making the list had been simple for her this year. She had been kind enough to tell him what she wanted. Mostly it had been dolls, toy weapons, and glitter in 'all the colors ever and red'. He hadn't gotten her 'the thing that could turn into any other thing' or 'the shoes that can fly' or 'the real life Pascal' because one of those things did not exists, one of those things was impractical, and he didn't care for reptiles. They were almost as bed as rodents. Getting everything else on her list had been easy. Not as easy as shopping for Sho, of course, all he really wanted were more art supplies.

He really was an amazing artist.

It was a shame that he hadn't been born female. Not only would that have made the line of succession a lot easier to deal with but, also, Sho would most likely have been most successful as a human being as well. If he had been born female his worst traits would have at best been positives and at worst been neutral. His caring nature wouldn't have made him weak, his constant whining and emotional instability would have been expected, his creativity would have served him well for meeting a partner, and his supposed homosexuality would not have had any bearing on his life. He most likely was bisexual, having inherited it from Suzuki, and even if he had still insisted that he was a homosexual then he would have had no trouble having a child. All he really would have needed were the raw materials after all, no need to convince someone to stay with you. He and Shigeko would have been able to raise their children together when they had them and his line would have been all the more secure for it…but Sho was who he was…but it didn't matter.

If at first you don't succeed then try, try again.

It was such a shame that Hatori wasn't his blood and had no ability to contribute to his bloodline. Shigeko wasn't his, Sho wasn't female, and Mukai was only three. There was no telling that she even would have developed feelings for Hatori and even if she had that level of an age gap would have been very strange and probably unworkable. Five years separated him and Shiori and, even then, they ran into odd little moments like her not remembering the taste of bread in a school lunch, they had stopped with the rolls by the eighties which was a shame in his opinion, or even things from later in time such as the sheer amount of despondence the period in which the economy crashed. She had been alive but her memories of the time had been different. He had been about to start his life at that time and she had been in junior high school and, according to her, going through something of a delinquent phase. There was that difference in shared life experience which was, for him, just an odd quirk but could have been something insurmountable if she had been over two decades younger than him. What would they have even talked about? The strange things happening on the internet? He didn't even know. Five years was a decent age gap…though really there was no point in even speculating on Hatori's behalf since he was terrible with both men and women, anyway.

Such a shame.

So that was where that Hatori bloodline ended. If it had been possible he would have found some way to make Hatori truly his son but, unfortunately, this was their existence. Hurling through the air a thousands of meters a second trying to get to Australia and get things settled before the New Year. Sitting in a hermetically sealed compartment trying their best to keep sane for their remaining time together. Enjoying Christmas in what would have been a comfortable silence if not for Hatori's incessant muttering.

This was their holiday.

"Yeah, well fuck you too…" muttered Hatori. He balanced his laptop on his knees while he reached out for his energy drink. Suzuki passed it to him with his powers. The last thing he needed was Hatori's laptop falling and breaking. He didn't have a new one for him in the bag of Christmas gifts, and he needed a computer of some sort for his work. The last thing Suzuki needed right now was a setback.

"Than-what the hell?! Damn it!" said Hatori as he slammed his laptop shut. Suzuki made sure to hold the can steady. The last thing that they needed was a sticky mess. He was worse than Sho, sometimes, when it came to making a mess. Shigeko had at least halfway trained Sho to pick up after himself. Hatori on the other hand…

"Quiet down." Said Suzuki

"What? I just died, It's an emotional thing." Said Hatori

"Did you make it to the save point?" asked Suzuki

"It's not that kind of game, I mean I wish that it was, but it's not. I mean I can make it into one but then it's cheating and I don't feel like cheating yet. People are going to notice and then I might get banned again and that's always annoying." Said Hatori

"So you have to start from the beginning again? I pity you." asked Suzuki. He had always hated that in games, being sent right back to the beginning. It had always seemed like such a waste of time, especially when he was playing something knew. That was the one instance in which Tadashi had been corrected about the superiority of the Famicom. Save points were a godsend. Codes as well, though Tadashi had never been able to remember those. His memory had never been that good, really. It had always fallen on him to remember their homework, or their passwords, or the secret knocks…he had probably figured it out at some point in the last thirty three, nearly thirty four, years. He didn't need Suzuki anymore and Suzuki didn't need him.

"Yeah, I'm back in the lobby…whatever. I have better things to do than hang out with a bunch of losers all Christmas." Said Hatori

"I thought that you played with strangers because they were the only people who could stand you." Said Suzuki

"I do. Most of the time, anyway." Said Hatori

"So how do you know that they're losers? For all you know they could have very fulfilling lives." Said Suzuki

"If they do then why are they playing games right now instead of spending time with their families or girlfriends or whatever?" asked Hatori

"They could be homosexual orphans." Said Suzuki

"Yeah, I guess…but I think statistically they're probably losers. I'm not, though! I'm hanging out with you. Before you tell me that I'm a loser with nothing to do on Christmas." Said Hatori

"I would never call you that, it wouldn't be good for moral, and there is plenty to do on Christmas. Typically there's music, food, and the exchange of gifts." Said Suzuki

"We both hate Christmas music, we already ate, and it's not like you got me anything." Said Hatori. Suzuki reached off to the side and pulled his coat off of the giftbag. He had a point, they should have exchanged gifts long ago. There just hadn't been a good time for it. Hatori's eyes were wide, he could feel his aura reaching into the plane, and he couldn't seem to decide if he had forgotten how to breathe or if he was breathing too much.

He didn't have to get so worked up over something as simple as a Christmas gift.

"Merry Christmas. Open your gift." Said Suzuki as he tossed Hatori's gift onto his lap. Hatori jumped up in his seat, the plane dipping forward a bit. Suzuki reached out with his powers and corrected it before it turned into a real problem. He didn't trust the pilots with his life or Hatori's.

"Hey, I got you something too." Said Hatori. He reached into the bag at his feet and pulled out a Christmas bag. He passed it to Suzuki before turning his attention to his gift. It had been smart. He decided, putting his things in a bag. He had never been a fan of wrapping paper. He hated the sound that it made when it ripped, he hated the sound that it made, and while it was satisfying to tear apart the potential for papercuts was far too great for his liking. Bags were so much more efficient, anyway. You could just upend them into your lap and go about your day.

Not that he was going to be doing that.

He moved the tissue paper to the side and folded it, he'd save it for Mukai. She liked to tear at paper. She could have the bag, too, she liked to crawl inside of them. The gifts inside of the bag, however, he was going to be keeping. Another soft sleeping shirt, another Space Invaders one, and also beneath it a shirt that once again declared him to be the number one Dad. He didn't really need to declare it, when you were the best you didn't exactly go around shouting it, but it was the thought that counted. There was also a card at the bottom of the bag.

A commercially printed one with a Christmas tree on the front.

He used to get handmade cards from Sho back before Sho had turned into the person that he was today. They had always been enjoyed, even when Sho hadn't been the best at drawing. Back when he had still been learning. Back when people had been nothing more than very large faces with arms and legs. Back when trees had been a combination of a brown rectangle and a green circle. Back when houses had been large circles with squares for windows…back before he had even been capable of reliably drawing circles and squares or any shapes at all…back when he had been too small to write…

He wasn't small anymore. He just didn't care to draw or write…for Suzuki, at least.

That was fine, he didn't care. He had never much cared for this holiday anyway. He was a grown man and he could have gotten himself anything he needed…though now that he thought about it he had needed more comfortable sleeping shirts for a while…it didn't matter. The thought was nice but at the end of the day December twenty fifth was just that, December twenty fifth.

And a card was just a card.

"Thank you for adopting me, you're a really great Dad even if you can be kind of a…it looks like you crossed out several bits of profanity there…and then you settled on jerk. I wish you were as nice to your other kids as you are to me…and this is just unreadable here, and here you managed to misspell Minecraft…honestly. Hatori, you need to practice with a paper and pen…what else is here…best times of my life, pigeo-oh, Hatori Nozomu. It looks like you tried to write pigeon." Said Suzuki. Hatori had pulled the hood of his sweatshirt down and had his head hung low. Beside him the contents of his gift had been spread out over the seat. His aura withdrew deep within him.

"I didn't think you're read it in front of me…" muttered Hatori. Suzuki had found himself straining to hear…that was just because it was loud in there and Hatori was very quiet, that was all. He wasn't losing his hearing and he didn't need Tadas-Fukuda. He didn't need Fukuda and never would need him again…he could keep Hatori safe on his own. He could keep his own son alive.

"I'm amazed that I could. You really need to work on your handwriting." Said Suzuki. Also he needed to learn to do something about the way he spoke, it was bleeding out into how he wrote, but that was a conversation for another day.

"Wait…you aren't pissed?" asked Hatori

"No, at best mildly annoyed. Your handwriting is worse than Sho's I have no idea how you managed it but you write even more poorly than your younger brother. You're older. Be better. You have an example to set." Said Suzuki

"But I called you-" said Hatori

"I know what you called me, and what you attempted to call me. I've been called worse in my time and yes I know that I can be, for lack of a better word, a jerk…I haven't been called that in decades. Sho's called me worse, do better…don't call me anything. Try to set a good example, and don't let him set a bad one." Said Suzuki

"And…you aren't pissed? At me? At all? Even a little?" asked Hatori

"No, I am not…though I am becoming mildly annoyed with this conversation. Change the subject." Said Suzuki

"Uh…Merry Christmas?" asked Hatori

"That is not another subject, that isn't a subject at all. Get back to your game. Clearly you're not up to having a conversation right now." said Suzuki. He picked Hatori's laptop up and put it back down onto his lap. He even opened it for him. There. That was something that he could deal with…and he didn't mind it, talking to Hatori…or being ignored. He could have gone either way. It was just another day, just another plane ride, and he preferred to spend these plane rides in a comfortable silence. It wasn't so difficult to speak to Hatori…though sitting in silence with him could be difficult-

"Fuck you! And you! And you!"

-much more difficult than Christmas shopping.