Valentine's Day was important even if you didn't have a boyfriend.

Because love was important. That was why you gave candy to your little brother, because you loved him and he was a boy, and why you gave candy to all of your friends too. Even Minegishi even though they weren't a boy. They were a they and that meant that just to be safe they got candy on Valentine's Day and White Day too. Even if they pretended that they didn't like candy. They liked dark chocolate with no nuts so that was what they got. It wasn't enough to just get your friends and family chocolate, you also had to get them chocolate that they liked.

And if they didn't like chocolate then you got them nothing.

Dad didn't like chocolate, he didn't like spending time with her, so he got nothing. Not getting Dad anything at all made Mob feel all weird and sad, like she was doing something very wrong, but Valentine's Day was for chocolate and Dad hated candy more than any other kind of food. Also he was gone. He had important business to do, more important than spending Valentine's Day with her, and that was…a thing that had happened. It was fine. She was fine.

It wasn't like she had any shortage of people to give chocolate too.

"Here you go, Happy Valentine's Day." Said Mob as she gave a box of obligation chocolate to one of the Awakened. It was called obligation chocolate because you had no choice but to pass it out. It didn't feel like an obligation, though, because she was making people happy. A lot of people in Claw had nobody to get chocolate for them because there weren't that many girls and also a lot of the boys here didn't like other boys. That would have made things a lot simpler but people loved who they loved and no amount of telling people that there were a lot of single boys in Claw was going to change that. Even though finding love was a very important thing and she wished that everyone could find it.

People deserved to be happy and stuff like that.

"She got me chocolate…she got me chocolate!" shouted the Awakened as he hugged the box of chocolate and ran away. He really needed a girlfriend, or boyfriend, or theyfriend, or maybe just a regular friend. These weren't even very good chocolates. She had wanted to make enough for everyone in Tokyo HQ but even with Shibata's help there was no way she was going to be able to make that much chocolate in time. Not after all the time she spent saving Shiori…but that was ok. Anyway everyone was happy with what they had gotten.

Happy enough to run and dance down the hallway.

"She loves me! She really loves me!" sang the Awakened. Mob didn't know what she was supposed to say to that. She loved all them but as friends only…actually not even as friends. Not as close as she loved her friends, the people she lived with, anyway. Even Hatori who had left with Dad even though she had told him that he could stay with her and she would deal with Dad if he didn't like it. Or maybe Hatori counted as a brother now, not a friend, but that didn't feel right either. She didn't feel the same about him as she felt about Sho, or Mukai, but Mukai was a sister and not a brother. She still cared about him though so that was enough.

This was a day about caring about people and all the different kinds of love there were…and if other people thought that she cared more about them than she actually did then it was ok too because she was making people happy and nothing mattered more than making other people happy.

"She loves all of us!" shouted another Awakened. Mob nodded. She did, she really did. There was a line forming around her. She had mostly been going around handing out candy sort of like Santa but in February and with candy…chocolate. Did chocolate count as candy? Or was it it's own thing. She'd have to ask Minegishi later, when she was done with this. She had cleared out her entire morning so she could hand out chocolate to everyone in HQ.

She had never realized just how many people there were.

People always hung out in the lunchroom even if there wasn't a meal going on. The red uniformed Awakened were cleaning up after dinner, the bright red guys, and the dark red guys were just hanging around. The dark maroon guys were there too, the Awakened soldiers. There were a lot more of them hanging around here than there had been before. She knew these guys even less than she knew the others but they got chocolates too. Everyone did.

And if she ran out then she would just have to go and get more.

"Thank you so much, Vice President Suzuki! You're truly the greatest person who ever lived and it's an honor to stand in your presence and breathe the same air as you!" said the Awakened in front of her. This wasn't another soldier, no, this was just a regular worker…one with one of those blue ribbons around his neck. She didn't mind the blue ribbon Awakened. She was glad that they liked her and that they were happy to see her and…and that she had done so much to make them happy….

They could just be a little much sometimes.

Like now. He was holding both of her hands and looking right into her eyes and…and she knew that she was the stronger out of the two of them, strong enough that she even could have picked him up with her telekinesis, but she didn't want to do that. That would have been something that Dad would have done, something mean, and she wasn't going to be mean like Dad was. She was going to be better than Dad. She was going to be better to the Awakened, to her friends, and to her family both her siblings and Shoko and Shigeo when they were born…if they were born. That was a long way off.

Right now she just had to worry about how she was going to get out of this.

"I'm very, um, glad that you're so happy and…and you can have as much of my air as you want?" said Mob as she pulled her hands away. Immediately the Awakened started breathing in and out really hard like he'd just been exercising or hours. The one behind him in line, one without a blue ribbon, shoved him off to the side.

"Hey! You can't just breathe all of the air! Save some for the rest of us!" shouted the Awakened

"No! She said that I could have all the air so it's all mine! Stop breathing my air!" shouted the blue ribboned Awakened. Mob took a step back. Now they were all starting to fight over the air…the air! She had no idea how people could even fight over air. There was plenty of it to go around…right? Or did she have to get everyone a giant fan or…or some kind of divers' tank or…or hospital breathing machines….or something?

That seemed like a lot of very complicated work…and she had enough complicated work to do already as it was.

"She said that you can have as much of HER air as you wanted! You're breathing my air!" shouted another Awakened.

"There's plenty of air to go around, I'm sure of it!" shouted Mob, though it seemed like nobody was listening to her. She could barely even hear herself over the fighting. They were still fighting over the air. She wanted to tell them that talking about it, yelling at each other, actually used up more air than normal breathing. She didn't have the chance, though, because of the hand pressed against the lower part of her back that led her away from everyone.

She let herself be led.

She knew who was leading her. She knew that aura, and she knew that smell. Those specific cigarettes that he was always smoking. Joseph. He was back from looking for Shiori, a lot of people were. There was no point in looking for someone who had already been found after all. She didn't know what to have him do now, him and a lot of other people, that was something that she was going to have to figure out later. That and a bunch of money stuff, too, but Minegishi would help her with that when they were done with their nap. Serizawa would try to help, too, even though he was even worse with numbers than she was. Even if he wasn't that much of a help she still kind of wished that he was there, that he was the one who had saved her.

He was a lot bigger and stronger than Joseph was.

"Thank you, Joseph, for saving me…I mean for getting me out of there. I don't think that they would have hurt me, not on purpose anyway." said Mob as Joseph led her up to the elevator. She looked down at the basket hovering next to her. She was running very low on chocolates. He was thoughtful like that, like a friend should have been. She should have been more thoughtful of him. She only had obligation chocolates for him even though he was a good friend now. Not as good of a friend, or as close of one, as her other friends but it wasn't like he was one of the Awakened or a Division Leader or something. He was Joseph.

So sort of like a middle friend, then, or maybe she was just being kind of mean there. Maybe friends shouldn't have been ranked at all.

"It was nothing, I just saw that you needed help and acted accordingly. What are friends for?" asked Joseph as he hit the elevator button.

"Things like that, I guess." said Mob as the elevator opened. A bunch of people ran out chasing a soccer ball…she would deal with that later. She had told them a bunch of times not to play ball inside the HQ, a lot of the walls were just giant windows, but of course they didn't listen. They were like little kids, like Mukai, and she knew that she was supposed to be nice to them but they just made her…they made her kind of tired a lot of the time. Just being with them.

She liked her friends, her close and not so close friends, and her siblings a lot more…even though it was very selfish to feel that way.

"True, true. I would have figured your other friends would have come to your rescue. Serizawa or at least Minegishi." Said Joseph as he hit the button for the top floor without her even having to ask him. He was thoughtful like that. He didn't hit all the buttons and then laugh…but he wasn't Mukai or one of the Awakened so she didn't know why she had expected him too. Maybe she needed to spend more time with her friends and less time with the people here….but her friends were all busy and tired and, in Sho's case even though they were siblings and not friends, kind of mopey and sad…

Valentine's Day wasn't a good day for everyone.

"Minegishi is taking a nap at home. They had a fight with Shimazaki…well they told me that it wasn't a fight but it kind of was. I could hear them all the way in my house." Said Mob

"What were they fighting about? Same old, same old?" asked Joseph

"I think that they were fighting about me again. Minegishi said that they were fighting because Shimazaki wants to keep on sharing a room but I think that it was about me…every time they fight it's about me even though I said a bunch of times already that I never wanted anyone to talk about what happened ever again." Said Mob

"Maybe they're just worried that they'll lose their boyfriend." Said Joseph as the elevator got to their floor. Mob let him get off first. She had to think about what he'd said…was that what people thought of her? That she was a boyfriend thief? Well, she kind of had been…but that was just because there had been a big misunderstanding! She would never have stolen anyone's boyfriend! She didn't even want one right now!

Well….

It would have been nice, having someone who loved her and cared about her and…and the other stuff that came with having a boyfriend. The stuff that felt really good…even if it had been kind of weird with Shimazaki, since they had been friends for so long and also that he'd done all of that with Minegishi too, it had also been really nice and…and maybe it would have been nicer with a boy who hadn't been her best friend's boyfriend…but it wasn't like she was ever going to know. She didn't know anyone she would have liked to fall in love with, or do that with. She most just knew Awakened and it wasn't like she was ever going to meet someone and if she did then everyone would have just gotten mad at her again because she was so young and everyone she knew was so much older and-and-and-

-and she had to refill her chocolate basket. There. That was what she should have been worried about right now.

"You alright?" asked Joseph

"I-I'm fine!" said Mob. He was way ahead of her. She practically had to run to catch up with him. She had to talk to Minegishi later and tell them, again, that she didn't want to steal their boyfriend. Any of them. She didn't want to, she was so tired of talking about what had happened, but it just…it wasn't going away. It was like when you had a bunch of really stubborn spots on your forehead under your bangs and no matter what you tried they wouldn't go away and everyone told you to stop putting things on your skin and that they would go away on their own but then that just made them worse and, eventually, you had so many on your forehead that people could even see them through your bangs.

But worse because it had to with feelings, not skin.

Feelings were hard, and complicated, and sometimes didn't make any sense. Like how she liked hanging out with Joseph but when she came into her office and saw him sitting there in Serizawa's spot she kind of wanted him to go and find something to do. She wished that Serizawa would have been there, he never made her feel weird. He always managed to make her feel good without even trying. Like when he said nice things to her or he let her win at videogames or just…by being there next to her. He didn't ask a lot of questions, either, not like Joseph did. He was a very nice person but he did ask a lot of questions and it did kind of get annoying sometimes.

Not that she would ever say that, though.

"Here, you can have one. I got chocolate for everyone in the HQ." said Mob as she passed him the basket. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She had been kind of ignoring it all day. She was in another texting group, someone had found her number, and right now all they were doing was saying 'I know you are but what am I' over and over again. Every time she tried to leave they just added her again…she was going to have to have Hatori get her out later…there was a message from Hatori, too, he was thanking her for her present…that was nice of him.

It was nice to get nice messages every once in a while.

Underneath his message was an alert about another post…she only had one friend who she got alerts about. She only had one friend who even posted things…and she kind of didn't want to open it. Minori had been so weird lately. They weren't even friends anymore but Mob was still worried. She posted a lot of sad things…and this one was no exception.

She wondered if Minori had gotten dumped.

"Valentine's Day is just state sanctioned prostitution. We sell ourselves not only to each other but to the candy companies as well. One of the most beautiful exchanges of human emotion and caring has been cheapened to the point that love can be expressed with a cheap box of chocolate." Read Mob as she walked over to her desk. She had an email marked 'urgent' so she really needed to get to that. Work was important…and it wasn't like she and Minori were even still friends…but that had still been very worrying. Getting dumped must have hurt a lot worse than doing the dumping. She didn't know what any of that had to do with doing sex stuff with people for money but Minori had always known more about these things than she did.

She was still such a little kid, such a first grader, compared to Minori.

"So…we're against Valentine's Day now?" asked Joseph as he chose a box of chocolate. Mob shook her head and sat down in her chair.

"No, that was just something that my friend Minori posted. I mean she used to be my friend but then we got into a fight at her birthday because I didn't want to do stuff with this boy she knew, well it was more than that I think, and now we don't talk but I still see what she posts." Said Mob

"Minori…that's the Asagiri girl, right? The daughter of one of the big backers?" asked Joseph

"Yes, but he's not a backer anymore. He's mad at me because I shared coke with Minori so now he doesn't come to functions or give us money anymore. Dad was mad at me about that but we're doing alright without his money." Said Mob

"You found a new Asagiri level backer?" asked Joseph. Mob shook her head and opened her laptop. The urgent message was right there when she refreshed her email…she had just checked it an hour ago. How could something urgent have happened in an hour?

"I don't know, Dad usually handles that. I mostly just do other stuff." Said Mob

"Right, right, you handle the day to day operations around here. How are those going, by the way? I noticed that we had healthy snacks in the vending machines now. Your doing?" asked Joseph. Mob tried to remember. She had called the people in to fill them but she couldn't remember with what….but there were apples now. She opened the message…no more apples in the vending machine please…

How did that count as urgent.

"I don't know…I think that Minegishi put the apples in the vending machines…I don't know if it's a bad thing…" said Mob. She started to reply that things could only be sent to her personal email, and marked urgent, if there actually were urgent…but then that would have been mean, wouldn't it have? She started but then deleted the message…she had to figure out how to tell people that apples were good for you and that there was nothing urgent about apples….

She didn't want to reply but she had to. It was the polite thing to do.

"I never said that it was bad, just different. The change in leadership was pretty sudden and all. People are worried about the state of the snacks." Said Joseph

"Ok, ok, I'll get more junk food if that's what people want..." Said Mob. Maybe that was all that she had to put in the reply…but there was enough junk food as it was. Maybe if the Awakened ate less sugar then they wouldn't be so crazy all of the time. Maybe she should have taken the coffee out of the vending machines and cafeteria too…no, no, she needed coffee and it wasn't fair if she had something that other people weren't allowed to have. Unless it was drinks or her pen, there was no way that they could handle either of those things…

Her pen was dead and Minegishi had drank everything in her fancy liquor bottles.

"They do, me I'm ambivalent but the Awakened…well they did not deal well with the change in management. They're wondering if that's going to be a regular thing. I mean your dad left you or Fukuda in charge pretty often even though this is, objectively, the seat of power in Claw." Said Joseph

"I don't know…I can't tell the future. I'm not supposed to leave but Shiori needed help and…and stuff…" said Mob as she started another draft of the email. What was she even going to say? It was hard to think with someone talking to her. Serizawa talked too, a lot, but he never bothered her while she was trying to work…not that he was ever a bother! Not that she could ever think that about one of her friends…

One of her close friends, at least.

"How did that work out? With her I mean. I was looking for her on the other side of the world when it happened so the most I have is hearsay to go off of. Apparently, your Dad completely lost control and destroyed an entire forest?" asked Joseph

"What? No, he didn't lose control…he was just really mad…and he didn't destroy the forest he just hurt a lot of people in the underground base…thing…" said Mob. Maybe if she told them that there was plenty of junk food in the dessert section at the cafeteria to go around and that there was plenty of air to go around, too…or maybe if she ignored the air thing it would stop on it's own. Like Mukai when she got mad and threw a tantrum…or maybe it would be like when Sho was little and threw tantrums…maybe it would just get worse and worse….

"An underground base? In Japan? Aren't you guys really, you know, earthquake prone?" asked Joseph

"Um, yeah, I guess so." Said Mob

"I mean how does that even work? If it was feasible then there would have been more built in Claw Japan. I mean there's a few in Claw America but we've got a lot less tectonic activity to worry about." Said Joseph

"I don't know, I'm not one of the engineers or the construction workers or…or Dad, I mean he likes tunnels…I don't know." Said Mob as she closed her email. Maybe if she thought about it after Joseph left then it would come to her…another urgent message. She clocked on the little alert…and now they were asking her how they were supposed to ration the air so that everyone got their fair share…she didn't even know that air could be rationed!

"I mean we do have a lot of very conspicuous buildings. Is it true that there's a red skyscraper in-" said Joseph

"Joseph, please don't take this the wrong way but I have a lot of work to do right now and I kind of need quiet to think so…um…please save your questions for later." Said Mob. There. That had been polite…right? More polite than what she had been planning on saying about the apples…they even had chocolates, what were they complaining about? Saying that would have been mean. She had been nice…nice-ish…she had spoken to him in the same way she would have spoken to Serizawa. He was a very understanding person…

But Joseph was a whole other person entirely.

"Oh." Said Joseph

"Um…was that a good 'oh' or a bad 'oh'?" asked Mob. If it was bad then…then she didn't know what she would have done to make it better…take it back, maybe? But she did need to work…but he had been asking her a lot of questions…but work was very important and even if she didn't think that these emails were urgent that didn't change how the people who had sent them felt…but the people who had sent them weren't her friends. Not like Joseph was.

He may not have been one of her close friends but that did not give her the right to hurt his feelings like that.

"Just an 'oh'. I hadn't realized that I was bothering you." said Joseph

"You weren't, really, it's just that I have a lot to do and I'm more used to quiet when I work. I mean Serizawa doesn't usually talk to me while I'm working, that's all. I mean he talks to me but he knows when to talk to me and when not to talk to me…I mean he knows when I want to talk. I mean it's just because he's a better friend, I know him better…I mean." Said Mob. She sounded like Serizawa when he thought he said the wrong thing and got all freaked out. There was a difference, though, she knew that she had said the wrong thing…and then she just kept on saying it. It was like she was in a hole and she just kept on digging it deeper and deeper and deeper…she kind of wished that there had been an earth quake right then so she could have been buried in it.

"Well I'd like to get to know you better." said Joseph. He looked away from her when he said that, and he swallowed too even though he hadn't had anything to drink…he must have been really upset. She couldn't blame him. She had practically told him that they weren't friends anymore…how could she have been so mean? So clueless?

"You can. I mean you can talk to me and stuff but just, um, not when I'm working. Or maybe when I'm working. I don't know…I just don't want to make you sad." Said Mob

"I'm not sad." Said Joseph. She wanted to believe him…but that was something a sad person would say…but then again he was her friend. Not her good friend but her friend, and friends didn't lie to friends….so that meant that he was telling the truth!

"Ok, that's go-" said Mob

"I just want to know what it takes to get to know you better." said Joseph before he put his hand on her leg…really high up on her leg. Mob couldn't think. Her laptop screen turned blue. The cup of pencils on her desk tipped over. The basket of chocolates on the floor started to float. This was…this was…

She knew what this was.

She was clueless but not totally clueless. She'd had a boyfriend before. She knew what it meant when a boy did this to you. Shimazaki always did this before moving his hand up and then…well there were a bunch of things he did afterwards. Sometimes he picked her up and kissed her, sometimes he did the thing with…the thing she liked…and sometimes he did the other thing she liked…she liked all of the things…

But not with Joseph.

"I-I have to go and finish handing out the obligation chocolates…um…bye!" said Mob as she jumped out of her chair. She used her powers to grab the basket and the rest of the chocolate. She nearly ran out of her office. She knew that she was being rude but…but that just…that was not something she wanted to do right now! At least not with him. Sure he was tall and nice but also he just…wasn't someone she knew that well. If she was going to do that with someone then it was going to be with someone she knew! Well, with someone she liked but…but at least with someone she knew well. Shimazaki may not have been the love of her life but at least she knew him well and he knew her…

A very good friend.

Not just a regular friend. Not just…she shouldn't have been ranking her friends like that and she shouldn't have run away. If he liked her, or at least wanted to do that with her, then it was mean to just leave him…it must have hurt, too, being rejected….but she didn't want to do that with him…but maybe that didn't matter. Maybe she just needed to think less about what she wanted and more about being a good friend. It wasn't like she wouldn't have liked whatever it was he was trying to do, she knew that she liked all of the things, but maybe she just…maybe she just didn't like all of the things with him…but he was her friend so didn't she have to?

Like with the chocolates?

Minegishi had told her that she didn't have to do anything with anyone that she didn't want to…but they didn't ever tell her about what to do when someone you wanted to be friends with wanted to do things like that with you…and it wasn't like she could ask them. They were just going to get mad and tell her that she was too young. Everyone would tell her that…but she wasn't too young. She was thirteen and a half, nearly fourteen, and that wasn't very young at all. That was…she didn't know what that was. In years she was young but she didn't feel it…she actually wasn't sure what she felt right now. It had been a while since she had done any of the things and…and she may not have loved Shimazaki like he loved her but there were things that she had loved but…but she didn't love or even like-like Joseph and…and she didn't know him that well and…and…

And right now the only obligation she had was the basket of obligation chocolates hovering next to her. That was what she would focus on right now.