It was important to make people comfortable.
Mob had done a lot of moving in her life, she had spent more time moving around than she had in her own house, and it was always hard. Waking up in a new place, a new bed, a new room…it wasn't easy. Having your own clothes, your own toys, your own soap and toothpaste and other stuff made it easier.
Shiori didn't have any of that stuff.
But Mob could help…sort of. Dad had brought her his things to use. They were boy things. She knew that if she had been in Shiori's place then she wouldn't have wanted to have to use boy's soap and wear boy's clothes on top of being in a strange place far from home. Of course Mob had never been kidnapped before so she didn't know exactly how Shiori felt right now, so this was the best that she could do.
She needed to do more.
"What are you doing?" asked Sho as he came up behind Big Sis. He didn't mean to freak her out. Why would he have? She nearly sent the plate of food he was holding up into the air. He managed to hold onto it with both hands. They didn't have a lot of food here, this was never meant to be a permanent house, and they had even less good food. They had a lot of rice and dried fish and canned vegetables and nato…so much nato…but they didn't have a lot of the stuff that people actually liked to eat. Poptarts and popcorn, ice cream and waffles, coke and chocolate milk, actual cereal that that hard chocolate in it or turned the milk green or something, even pudding…though Shimazaki would probably have been pissed at him if he gave it to Shiori…but he didn't care.
If Sho had been kidnapped and starved then he wouldn't have given a damn where the food he was eating had come from, only that it was something that people actually wanted to eat.
"Sho! Sorry, I didn't mean to do that!" said Mob as she held her hair down and pulled her aura back in. She had almost made Sho drop his lunch…another disaster she could add to her list. First she had let this stuff happen to Shiori by not believing Sho and then she had made a mess and made her own little brother have to go hungry….
Sometimes she felt like the very worst sister in the world.
"Yeah, obviously. You're not an asshole." Said Sho rolling his eyes.
"I-I'm not, I mean I don't try to by. Sorry, I just didn't see you coming. I was busy waiting for Dad to come out." Said Mob
"Just use the other bathroom." Said Sho. She looked like she was getting ready to take one of her long girl baths. She had her fancy soap and shampoo and conditioner, why you needed to put two different things on your head he would never know, and she had a bunch of those bath bomb things too. Not the cool ones they used to have when they were little that turned the water colors, the kind with flower petals in them and stuff. He would never understand girls, not even if he lived to be a hundred years old and he wound up having a bunch of nieces or even daughters if Ritsu wanted to adopt a bunch of orphans…that would have been fun, actually, having a bunch of kids.
A lot more fun than taking a long bath, anyway.
"No, I can't. I mean I need to talk to Shiori and give her this stuff." Said Mob
"Those are your clothes, and you're shorter than she is, they probably won't even fit her." said Sho. Clothes…he should have though of that. He had put so much effort into figuring out how to save her that he hadn't thought about what he would do once she got found…maybe he shouldn't have had kids when he grew up if he was this bad at taking care of people. Shiori probably thought that he sucked dick in a public bathroom like a businessman during Golden Week.
"I know I'm smaller but…but I didn't think to get anything in her size. I don't even know what her size is." Said Mob
"Well, I don't know either, I didn't think about clothes when I went to her house. I'm not a girl." Said Sho
"I know you aren't, and I don't blame you. I should have thought about this…I should have thought about a lot of things. I'm sorry." Said Mob
"Don't apologize to me, I packed my own stuff." Said Sho. Sisters! He wasn't a baby anymore. If he could put together a whole rescue mission then he could be trusted to pack his own stuff. Even Dad had told him that he was competent and coming from Dad that was like…it didn't matter what it was like because it had come from Dad and Sho didn't give a fuck what Dad thought of him. Dad could choke on an omelet and die for all Sho cared.
"No, I mean I'm sorry that it took me so long to believe you about Shiori being kidnapped. I was a…a b-word about it. I just…I guess that I was still mad at her about what happened with Dad and…and stuff." Said Mob
"If you were mad at her then what did that have to do with listening to me? I'm not dumb, you know, I know what it looks like when someone gets kidnapped." Said Sho
"I never thought that you were dumb, I was just mean, and…and I should say sorry to you, too, for doubting you…so I'm going to say it now, I'm sorry." Said Mob. She moved in to hug Sho but he held up the plate in his hands. Right. She couldn't hug him, it wasn't that he didn't want a hug, even though…even though she really felt like she needed one right now.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I accept your apology." Said Sho. He didn't want to be hugged right now. He just wanted to get this to Shiori…but it didn't look like it was going to happen because Dad was in there with her like a weirdo. They had two bathrooms with bathtubs. He could have just gone in the other one. If he wanted to look at a naked girl or whatever that badly then he could have just gone on the internet like everyone else and not made things weird.
"Everything's ok now?" asked Mob. Even if he didn't hug her then…then it was ok just so long as everything was alright. He just…he loved her. Even if he had left her for so long he loved her and she loved him and…and they had just been apart for a long time, that was all. Once they were back together then everything would be ok…but just her and Sho. She didn't know how things would ever be ok again after she had let all of that bad stuff happen to Shiori and after she had seen Dad…do all the things he had to do to rescue her….
"Yeah, everything's ok." Said Sho
"We're friends again?" asked Mob
"We were never not friends, Big Sis. I mean as close to friends as we can be. I don't think that siblings can be friends since, you know, we have no choice in being together." Said Sho
"You have a choice, you can always leave. You don't have to come back to Tokyo with me. You can…you can live in the Seventh Division to be near your…that boy you like." Said Mob. It still felt kind of weird, sometimes, thinking of Sho as someone with a boyfriend. Even though this was the part of the year when they were the same age she still felt like Sho was too little for stuff like that. She'd had a boyfriend once, she knew what people did with their boyfriends, and she knew that Sho was too little to even know about those kinds of things…even though he was actually a couple centimeters taller than her now…
"…I don't know what I'm going to do. I mean Fukuda isn't going to want to go back and I can't think of a reason to go there without him or…or going with Mukai when Tsuchiya wants to visit her friends…or when Minegishi wants to visit their boyfriend, I guess." said Sho
"You can come back with me if you want…I miss you, Sho, I always miss you when you're gone." Said Mob
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I miss you too…and…and I miss hanging out with you but it's like…I don't know. I miss him too, but in a different way. I mean it would be pretty fucking weird if I missed you in the same way since I'm gay and you're my sister." Said Sho, rolling his eyes. Of fucking course he wanted to go back with her but he wanted to be with Ritsu and…and choosing was really hard. He didn't know why it had to be this hard, why he couldn't just have a family and a boyfriend…
Actually, he knew exactly why it had to be that hard. The reason's name was Dad…well actually it was Suzuki Touichirou but it would have been weird to call Dad by his given name.
"Yeah, because I'm a girl…also because we're related. I can't decide which would be weirder, the girl thing or the related thing." Said Mob
"Neither is as weird as Dad being in there with her." said Sho. Big Sis looked at the door and then looked away really fast.
"Yeah…that is kind of weird." Said Mob. Mom and Dad had never spent time together like that before, not that she could remember. She could barely even remember them being in the same room together, normal room, let alone the same bathroom. She didn't want to think about it, though, her parents being like that…or her Dad being like that with someone else. Dad loved Shiori and Shiori loved Dad and that was what people did when they loved each other…and then you got a new brother or sister that you didn't really want or need…
"He's being such a dickhole right now." said Sho
"Don't say things like that, he might hear-" said Mob
"I mean if he wants to see a girl naked then he can just Google-" said Sho
"Little Brother!" said Mob, her face turning red and her aura burning bright. She didn't want Sho to even THINK about stuff like that! About anyone! He was too little and that was their Dad and…and….and it was just GROSS!
"What? Why else is he in there for. They're probably just doing stuff-" said Sho
"Sho!" said Mob
"And he's making her because he's a jerk and he doesn't get that she nearly starved to death and stuff." Said Sho
"Sho…don't talk about stuff like that. You're too little to know about stuff like that…I mean I know that you do but-but you're my little brother and that means that you'll always be too little!" said Mob
"This is the part of the year where we're the same age, and anyway you don't have to freak out. It's not like I like knowing about this shit with Dad…if I did then I'd be really fucking weird." Said Sho
"I'm not freaking out. It's just…it's like you said, it's pretty f-wording weird…so we shouldn't think about that stuff. I mean if we're getting a new brother or sister-" said Mob
"We're getting another brother or sister?! This is-wait, is she having a baby or is Dad going to, like, double adopt Hatori or something?" asked Sho. Another baby in the house would have been the best thing ever! Taking care of Mukai had been better than taking care of a thousand hamsters! And a lot more fun, too. If he had another sister…a brother would have been ok, too. He didn't care if Dad replaced him anymore, he kind of already had with Hatori…another baby would have been good. Shiori would have been it's mom and…well not his but she would have lived in the house with them and she could have helped him take care of his fish and stuff…
Yeah. This was going to be pretty great.
"I don't know if she is yet, I didn't ask her or anything, I just know that Dad wants to have one and…and it wouldn't be so bad. I mean if she wants to join our family then we should let her. Even if she's kind of mean and she makes Dad even meaner than he normally is we should still let her become a Suzuki…we should be nice like that." Said Mob
"She's really not that bad. Just because Dad-" said Sho as the door opened. A bunch of steam came pouring out, it hit him right in the face, but he could still see…or maybe he was getting delusional. He saw Dad standing right in the doorway…
And he was dripping wet.
"What about me?" asked Suzuki as the children stared up at him with wide eyes.
"You're all wet." Said Mob quickly. She had to be he one to talk first. If Sho started talking then there was going to be a good chance that Dad would get mad…and that was the last thing that she wanted.
"I'm aware." Said Suzuki
"Why are you all wet? If you wanted me to wash that for you then all you had to do was ask." Said Mob
"How is any of this any of your concern, Shigeko?" asked Suzuki
"I'm…worried about you? You could…catch cold?" asked Mob. Sho rolled his eyes. She was glad that it was all he did. Dad seemed…he seemed happy. His aura was, anyway. She wasn't going to think about why. She was just going to be grateful that mission Dad was gone and happy….has a girlfriend…Dad was there.
"That's what Fukuda is for. Now excuse me…and if you two want to bathe then do it in the other bathroom…but not together. You're too old for that." Said Suzuki
"We know that, Dad, we're not weirdos!" said Sho. Big Sis put her hand over his mouth and shushed him.
"We weren't waiting to take baths, we just want to see Shiori. We have food and clothes for her." said Mob quickly, before Sho could make Dad mad again.
"Oh…that's thoughtful of you both. Shigeko, give her what you have to give her. Sho…go and take a bath in the other bathroom. You need it." Said Suzuki
"We will!" said Mob. Sho was licking her hand. He did that all the time, he used to when they had been little, and it hadn't worked in that long. She kept her hand there even though he was being gross. She didn't let him go until Dad walked away and was far enough that she couldn't hear his footsteps anymore.
It didn't take long.
"I'll take a bath, but not in my clothes!" shouted Sho. He hated it when she did that. She was lucky that they weren't little anymore, if he had been a little kid then he would have bitten her.
"Use soap too, please." Said Mob as she took the plate from his hands with her powers. She didn't wait for him to be tell her that he was mad at her, he always got mad when she did that. She just hurried over to the bathroom door and knocked.
It was always polite to knock.
She knew that they were both girls but…well she didn't know Shiori that well. The only girl, person who had been born a girl, she knew very well was Minegishi and she always knocked if she had to talk to them when they were in the bathtub. They always kept the curtain closed, too. There weren't any curtains in these bathrooms, it was just a big tub in the middle of the room like from when Dad used to be little…
Mob knocked really loudly, just to be polite.
"Can I come in? I have food and clothes and soap and shampoo and conditioner and bath bombs for you." said Mob as she knocked. She heard the sound of water moving but Shiori didn't say anything.
"Sho, my brother…but you know that already, he made you lunch…well it's mostly snacks…but it's all for you." said Mob. There was more silence broken only by water moving…too much silence.
"I'm a girl." Said Mob as she knocked again, in case Shiori thought that Sho was still with her.
"You don't say." Said Shiori
"Um…I do?" asked Mob. She didn't know if she should have knocked again now that Shiori knew that she was there.
"You said you had actual shampoo?" asked Shiori
"I do! I have the kind in the bottle and I have a shampoo bar and I have-" said Mob as the door swung opened.
"As long as it's better than the stuff your Dad uses it's fine with me." said Shiori.
"I-I think is it." Said Mob as she walked through the door backwards, just to be polite. She heard Shiori laughing…it wasn't that she was trying to be funny, she just wanted to be nice…but she wasn't going to be mad. It wasn't nice to be mad at people that had been through a lot.
Especially if they had been through a lot because of you.
"I brought you some clothes, too. They're my clothes, not yours, but I just thought that you'd want to wear girl clothes and not my Dad's." said Mob. It was really hot in there. She could feel her hair sticking to her head…it didn't feel good. She wanted to take her sweater off but that might have been weird. She put the food and stuff down on the table with her powers…she was supposed to leave now, right?
Or did she have to wait to be told?
"Well aren't you thoughtful." Said Shiori as she went through the pile with her powers. Strawberry shampoo, a cupcake shampoo bar…whatever the hell that was…two different kinds of conditioner…a bar of soap shaped like a strawberry milkshake…
Still better than the utilitarian stuff Touichirou used.
"Um…I try to be?" asked Mob as she felt Shiori's powers moving near her. Her aura kept on trying to push hers away…probably because Mob still wasn't sure if she liked her or not. She had been so mean when they'd met but she'd also been through a lot and you had to like someone after they'd been through something like that…right? You couldn't not like them, that would have hurt their feelings, and Shiori…her feelings must have been more hurt than Mob's had ever been in her entire life.
"You are, I was just being…yeah. Thanks." Said Shiori as she brought the least teenager-y products over to the tub. She hated scrubbing down before a bath. Mom and Dad, of course, had always hated how she actually cleaned herself in the tub, it made the bath dirty or whatever, but she didn't really care much for tradition right now. She loved Touichirou but she didn't love what his soap did to her skin and right now…right now what she really wanted to be was comfortable.
Of course compared to the nervous wreck Shigeko was Shiori might as well have been laying in a tropical volcanic hot spring on vacation or something…God, she needed a vacation….
"You're welcome…and I'm sorry!" said Mob
"For?" asked Shiori as she looked over the bath bombs. So much honey and sugar…who thought that it was a good idea to bathe in honey.
"Not believing Sho about how you got kidnapped…sorry about that." Said Mob
"That's all?" asked Shiori, dropping a plain lavender bath bomb in the tub. That was what she was sorry about? That was the apology that had been a long time coming. She was…grateful…to all of the Suzuki's for their part in her escape but that didn't erase just what had transpired on that day. Yes, Touichirou had been harsh with her, but she had still been sneaky and intrusive, and she was more than old enough to know that she had been out of line. If there was going to be anything other than barely contained animosity between them then she was going to have to do some heavy duty apologizing.
"Um…I mostly just have blue clothes, not black, and I know you like black so…I'm sorry? And I'm sorry that I only have strawberry shampoo. I don't know what kind you like…um…the bath bombs are all different, though, if that's-" said Mob
"No, I mean are you going to apologize for how it went when we met? About showing up unannounced and-" said Shiori
"You're still mad at me about that?" asked Mob. That had been years and years ago…a year ago, about, and…and so much stuff had happened since then! Like Shiori getting kidnapped? Didn't saving someone from being kidnapped erase all the bad stuff that had happened before? And…and Mob hadn't been the one to do anything wrong. She had just gone looking for her Dad, who she loved, and who…who didn't need to bring another Mom into their family and…and stuff!
"I'm not happy about it." Said Shiori
"I'm not happy either, I mean you made Dad hit me and say that he didn't love me anymore-" said Mob
"Your Dad does whatever he wants, I don't control him, and he had every reason to be upset with you…but, yes, he can be kind of over dramatic sometimes." Said Shiori
"…it still hurt." Said Mob. She did have a point, Dad had always been kind of a…word that Sho would have used, even before he had met Shiori…but still. He hardly ever hit her and when he did…on that day it had been harder than he'd ever hit her before. She'd had a mark on her eye for a really long time afterwards and it had been hard to hide even with makeup. Didn't that matter for anything?
"Maybe don't follow people around then, or show up unannounced at their homes. I don't know what possessed you to do that in the first place. I mean it's such a blatant act of aggression-" said Shiori
"I-I didn't mean to do that! I was just….I was just worried about Dad and…and I don't want another Mom. I don't want another brother or sister, either, and…and I just got worried…and I didn't like you either but now I like you…I mean I didn't mean to let that happen to you. The kidnapping thing, I mean." Said Mob
"You really are Touichirou's daughter, aren't you?" asked Shiori with a laugh, a dry one. What was it with this family and taking everything upon themselves? Touichirou, Sho, now Shigeko…she wondered if the toddler was at home thinking that she was responsible for world hunger or the hole in the ozone layer or poorly blended smoothies or…or something.
"Yes? I mean I know I don't look like my parents but that's just because they're both half Japanese. Sho got all the half and I got all of the Japanese." Said Mob
"Sure you're not adopted?" asked Shiori
"No, I came out of my mom's stomach. Mom and Dad would have told me if I wasn't…I mean I think that they would have. I don't know, my Mom was kind of…she didn't talk to me a lot after she got sick but my Dad definitely would have told me. He loves me…I mean he used to love me." said Mob
"Touichirou still loves you, you just give him a lot of grief. If he didn't love you then he wouldn't have beaten that man you slept with half to death." Said Shiori. She was going to ignore the whole 'mom's stomach' thing and get to the real problem…not that any of this was her business. Shigeko wasn't her daughter and she was too tired to do any seat of her pants mothering anyway…and Shigeko didn't want it…
But she was just…really small. Short. Just a kid, really, even though Touichirou couldn't see it.
"…three quarters of the way to death but…but he won't do that again and I don't want to talk about that right now! Or ever!" said Mob as she pulled her shirt up over her face. She still had her back to Shiori but this just…this was what she had to do! She didn't want to talk about that anymore! It was private and it was over and…and didn't people have anything better to talk about than who she used to go out with!?
"He should have finished the job." Said Shiori
"That's not a nice thing to say." Said Mob
"I know, and I stand by what I said. You're thirteen, that guy was nearly my age, and you're too young to make those sorts of choices so, of course, you had no say in-" said Shiori
"I really don't want to talk about this, ok? It's my business and it's private and…and it's not like I'm making you go out with…I mean it's not like I want to talk about….I don't want to talk about it…"
"I get it, it must have been hard for you to get hurt like that-" said Shiori, trying her best to be understanding. What her understanding of being understanding was. Her mother would have screamed until her face turned purple if she had done a tenth of the things Shigeko had…but her mother wasn't there, she wasn't her mother, or Shigeko's. She wasn't anyone's mother…yet…or maybe ever, considering her age and….well…Shigeko wasn't exactly selling her on the whole 'having a Suzuki kid' thing…
Or maybe it would have been better if it had been one of her own. She wouldn't have made these kinds of mistakes.
"I didn't get hurt. I really wasn't sad at all when we broke up and…and we're still friends, I mean it's a little weird, but it's mostly just hard for me because me and my best friend aren't as close as we used to be but it's kind of my fault and they're the one I really want to get back to normal with but…but I don't want to talk about this kind of thing with you or-or with anyone…ok? And…um…I'm sorry about what happened when we met. Let's keep on talking about that." Said Mob. She said the last part way too loud, she knew she was being rude, but Shiori as being all nosy and…and it was all over and there was no reason to ever talk about it again so that was what Mob was going to do, never talk about it ever again!
"Alright whatever you want…and apology accepted, I suppose." Said Shiori. She assumed that this was the best that she was going to get right now…and she didn't want to push any farther. She'd said her piece and that was it. Shigeko wasn't her child, her responsibility, and she had enough to worry about as it was. She still had her home, her city, and what she knew were going to be so many dead fish…she didn't need to worry about Shigeko.
But part of her still did.
"And don't bathe in honey and sugar, it's bad for you." said Shiori as she passed the unused bath bombs back to Shigeko. She wound up having to tap her over the head with them since she insisted on keeping her back turned.
"I-I thought that sugar was only bad for you if you ate it? My best friend says that sugar is poison but they also have a drawer full of dark chocolate so…I don't know." said Mob
"Well why don't you go ask your friend why it's a bad idea to bathe in sugar, alright? I'm not your mother." Said Shiori as she opened the door with her powers. She was done with company now…anyone's but Touichirou's, anyway. Where had he gone to? How long did it take to put a couple of phones in rice? Of course he wouldn't have had to in the first place if he had emptied his pockets before jumping into the bathtub fully dressed.
"Um….ok? I mean not now because they're in Tokyo but ok…um…have a nice bath, I guess?" said Mob. She may have been clueless but even she knew that an opened door meant that it was time to leave. She didn't want to stay where she wasn't wanted, anyway, or maybe she just didn't want to stay with Shiori.
She still wasn't nice.
She didn't know what Sho saw in her. She didn't know what Dad saw in her. She didn't know what she was supposed to see in her…but that didn't matter. She had been through a lot and Mob had to be nice to her. She didn't have a choice. She wasn't going to be that kind of person, that mean kind of person, she didn't know how she could have possibly been able to live with herself if she turned into that sort of person. So she wasn't going to be that sort of person, she was going to be the sort of person she was now.
She was going to be a good person.
She had saved Shiori, done her part to help, and now she could go back. Back to her friends…just Minegishi and Serizawa…and maybe Tsuchiya and Shibata if they were done visiting around…and Shimazaki too, even if things were weird between them now. Sho might have even gone with her. Not Dad but…but Dad was Dad, he hadn't been nice to be around in a long time. He hadn't been…been comfortable to be around in a long time…
And really, she just wanted to go home and be comfortable again.