Joseph knew with complete certainty that he was going to hell when he died.
That was what happened when you sold your soul after all. Sure you achieved some kind of success on Earth, after all you didn't meet the devil at the crossroads if you didn't need something, but once your time on this world expired you were dragged straight down to hell. Probably kicking and screaming. Most likely before you had the chance to do any ghost pottery. Usually when you least suspected it, too.
Joseph wouldn't have minded being dragged kicking and screaming straight to hell right now.
"Are you alright?" asked Mob as she brushed some hair behind her back. Her hair was down now and she had done her best to put some curl in it. It was important, Minori had said, because her hair made her look like the girl from the ring. She didn't know what she wanted right now, what she wanted to come out of this dinner, but she knew that she didn't want to come out of this dinner looking like she had climbed out of an evil well…or however that movie went. Sho would have known.
Part of her wished that she had been at home watching scary movies with Sho than sitting here and trying to figure…all of this….out.
"I-I'm fine. It's just been a long day." Said Joseph. His feelings right now did not matter. This was what he had been trained for. Deep cover operatives were supposed to be prepared for anything. He needed to be a chameleon, to be able to blend in with anyone, to abandon any scruples that might have stood in the way of that goal. He had sat down with mob bosses, human traffickers, warlords, and even cannibal cultists. He had shared meals that he'd done his best to block out. Each sit down, each meal, had brought him closer to buying his freedom. To going home. To erasing the mistakes of the past. He'd chipped away at his prison sentence bit by bit. No more time in a cell for him, he was never going back to the hell that was esper prison, even if he had to do…the unthinkable.
What did they say, again? Lie back and think of England?
"For you too?" asked Mob
"Yeah, somehow I got roped into that big DDR contest the midlevel Awakened were having." Said Joseph
"Oh yeah, that thing. Did you win?" asked Mob. She really should have been down in the breakroom to judge that like they had begged her to but she'd had a lot on her mind all day. A lot being the person who was sitting across from her on the folding table that she had found in storage. Maybe if they had gone on a real date then she would have known how she felt…but a real date would have been a lot…and this was already kind of a lot.
It had been weird with Shimazaki, but also easier, since he had at least made it clear what he wanted from her.
"I placed third and won the satisfaction of a good job." Said Joseph with a laugh he didn't quite feel. Not that it showed, of course, he knew better than to let it show. He had to be whatever the situation needed him to be and right now the situation needed him to be….he didn't even know. Into her?
He should never have overplayed his hand like that.
"That's the best prize, I think, because nobody can fight over that." Said Mob
"Surprisingly enough they found a way." Said Joseph
"…but how?" asked Mob
"They just started yelling at each other. I got the hell out of there when the soda cans started flying. I didn't need a concussion on top of everything else." Said Joseph
"Yeah, then you would have had to see Fukuda and he's been…kind of sad since Dad left him behind again. It's hard for him, I think, being away from his best friend for this long. Of course Dad would have wanted to bring him with if he knew how to be a good friend but he doesn't and if he hasn't learned after all this time then I don't even think that I can teach him." Said Mob
"They had an honest to God falling out?" asked Joseph
"I don't know what happened but I know that Sho said that Fukuda said that Dad didn't need him anymore…even though he's been doing some very dangerous work lately." Said Mob
"Dangerous? More than normal? Is that even possible?" asked Joseph
"It is. Hatori's been scared, I mean. They're working with the triads, that's like the Chinese Yakuza, and Hatori's been worried about getting shot and stuff. At least that's what Serizawa said that he's worried about. They play games a lot together…but I already told you that." Said Mob. It was hard to remember, sometimes, what she had already told Joseph. He asked a lot of questions, an annoying amount of questions sometimes, but that was mean…and also it wasn't a bad think to be curious. There, that was something she knew about him. He was a curious person and…and knowing things about someone was different than knowing someone.
She knew a lot about him but she didn't know him at all…but you didn't have to know a person to do things with them. After all she had barely known Teru and he had been the first person she had ever…maybe that wasn't the best example to use.
"Yeah, Serizawa. I haven't seen him in a while." Said Joseph
"He's been at home helping Sho with the hamsters, or helping with Mukai, or just playing videogames. Sometimes he just can't be around people, I mean people he doesn't know." said Mob
"Well he's lucky to have someone like you, then, that's so understanding." Said Joseph
"I don't think that I'm especially understanding. Actually there are a lot of things that I don't understand….um what we're doing right now." said Mob
"We're…having a lovely homecooked dinner that you made for us." Said Joseph. He passed her the puck. The last thing he needed was to be the one playing offense in this situation. It was always easier to react than to act in these situations…situations with women. He had figured that out when he had been her age….oh God….
He eyed the crystal decanters on the shelf. For once she hadn't offered him a drink.
"Um….yeah, that's what we're doing. Homecooked food is the best after all. Maybe I should have made that first prize in the dance dance revolution competition instead of…um…whatever the first prize was. Whatever it is that they were fighting over." Said Mob quickly. She kept her eyes on her plate. She needed a drink. She wasn't going to have one, though, and she wasn't going to smoke anything either. Smoking and drinking was what had led her to making that mistake with Shimazaki back on her birthday. She didn't want this to be a mistake. She wanted this to be something that she knew she wanted from start to finish. She was just going to have to figure out what she wanted.
It shouldn't have been this hard.
"First prize was a mystery box, so probably either something really good or something really stupid. Of course knowing them it's probably something that they think is cool, which of course the rest of us know is stupid." Said Joseph. He smiled. She frowned…damn, ok. Dial it back.
"That's mean…I mean it's true but it's mean." Said Mob
"Oh, sorry about that. My Japanese isn't that good and I guess that there are some things that sound better in English than they do in Japanese." Said Joseph, intentionally deepening his accent and praying that she bought it.
"Oh, ok. I get it. I can be pretty clueless too. I mean Serizawa says that I'm not but I know that I am. He just says things sometimes just to make me feel better." said Mob. Serizawa was really nice like that. He was always trying to make her happy…she wished that she had been having dinner with him right now instead of Joseph. She would have at least known what she had wanted from him. His company, to talk to him, and then probably to sleep next to him in the big bed since Sho kept on locking her out of their room for some reason.
He would have probably done more than pick at the curry she had made, too.
"Well, he does care a lot about you." said Joseph. He didn't know how he felt about the way she had said his name back there. On the one hand if she was spoken for then he could abort the mission. He had intended to fluster her, maybe plant the idea in her head that maybe he was worth keeping around, he had never thought that it would have gone this far. Her experience with Shimazaki Ryou, and the aftermath, should have been enough to dissuade her from pursuing anything serious with him. At least not until she was older…
Suzuki's were truly an unknowable people when you got down to it, weren't they?
"He does…and I care a lot about him, too. I shouldn't have left him at home, I mean he wouldn't have liked that contest, the one they had today, but there are lots of other games he could have played with the Awakened. Hatori did put a whole gaming room in after all." Said Mob
"You don't think he would have won?" asked Joseph
"No, he doesn't like to draw attention to himself like that even though he's to tall that he kind of draws attention to himself wherever he goes…which isn't a lot of places now that I think about it. I mean I don't really go a lot of places anymore so he doesn't." said Mob. She missed it, a little, moving all the time. At least she kept busy when they moved. She kept so busy that she didn't even have time to think about stuff like this…boyfriend stuff. Finding one, if she wanted one, what she would do if she had one. Shimazaki…it had been so weird with him but at least he had made it easy on her. She liked it better when the boy made it easy on her, when she didn't have to figure anything out…when she didn't have to make any choices.
If your choices were made for you then at least you didn't run the risk of making the wrong one.
"You're staying put for a while then I take it?" asked Joseph
"Yes, I can't really go anywhere. I mean I can if I leave someone else in charge but I don't really know who I can leave in charge. I mean there's always Minegishi but they don't like to be in charge…and also people don't like it when they're in charge." Said Mob
"Oh yeah, the apple thing." Said Joseph. The apple thing was just the tip of the iceberg. Without President Suzuki in charge the inmates had pretty much been running the asylum and they liked it that way. Minegishi's temporary rule had brought back law, order, and training…a lot of training. Pointless busy work, too, if the rock stacking room was anything to go off of. He wondered if they knew that it had been a tool used to drive people crazy in the second world war…knowing them it probably was.
He should have been grateful for the person sitting across from him, that she was the one in power, but it was hard to feel grateful while he also felt like he was about to throw up.
"They probably wouldn't have let the Awakened have any prizes in their contests since they fight so much…but maybe they have a point about that." Said Mob. They were really smart. Mean sometimes, but smart, and maybe she should have listened to them more. The only problem was that it was hard, sometimes, to know when to listen to them. They had told her that Joseph was way too old for her but then they had also told her to figure out what she wanted…what were they going to say if she wanted to be with him? If she wanted to be at least friends with benefits with him if not boyfriend and girlfriend?
Maybe, if something did come out of this, she would have done best to keep it to herself.
"That's true, the last thing those people need is another excuse to fight. I don't know what's been wrong with them lately. I'd say that they were all drunk but you banned them from drinking." Said Joseph. Good, if he could just steer the conversation away from…whatever she had in mind. She was wearing heavy makeup. Her hair was done up, too, in some loose curls. That dress looked new, and tight, and shorter than what she normally wore. She was wearing perfume, a different kind than she normally wore. Normally she wore that cheap body spray shit, today she smelled expensive.
Joseph didn't need to refer back to his training to know what she had in mind.
"I know that I was being mean when I said that they couldn't drink but it's for a good reason. They're like little kids…and it's been worse. I think that they've been getting restless because Dad keeps on saying that he's, that we're, almost done and then we can make our move." Said Mob. Joseph was looking right at her, now. Maybe he thought that she was pretty. She had dressed up, sort of, for this. That was what you were supposed to do when you had dinner with someone, right? Maybe she had gotten too dressed up. He was looking at her like…well she was reminded of the way that Shimazaki looked at her, even though that made no sense since he couldn't look at anything. This was too much…but this was what he wanted, right? To be with her?
And she wanted to…she wanted to get through this dinner…and then she would figure out the rest!
"Yeah, your Dad has been promising that for a while now. Sometimes I feel like the day is never going to come. Not that I'm impatient, of course, I know that these things take time. A lot of the others, though, are starting to get kind of antsy." Said Joseph. This was why he was here. This girl was a fountain of information. Nobody had told her that loose lips sink ships. This was the top dollar information that he got paid for. Maybe if she at least gave him a vague time frame then it would be enough to buy his freedom, enough to go home, enough that he could disappear into the world and never look back at any of this. Enough that he could become a new man.
He would need to become a new man if this wound up going the way that he was afraid it would go.
"I feel that way too. It's hard, not knowing what's going on." Said Mob softly.
"Yeah, I know that fee-" said Joseph
"What is going on? Here, I mean." Said Mob quickly, before she could change her mind. Joseph immediately looked down at his food.
"We're having dinner together, right? Like we said before. This is…uh…this is very good curry. You did good." Said Joseph as he poked at his food. He had been eating around the cheese. Never in his life had he had cheese in Japanese curry. A first for him. A good first. Good, at least, compared to the rest of the situation that faced him.
They hadn't trained him for this.
"Thank you, I made it myself…um…but you already knew that I had made it myself. I mean I used curry cubes in it but I made it over the stove all on my own." Said Mob as she watched Joseph pick at his food. She had made it right, if Sho ate it then she knew it was right, but Joseph didn't like it. Maybe he didn't like leftovers. Maybe she should have made something that morning, maybe that would have been better…but then that would have been a lot. This was already a lot but making something special would have been even more of a lot…and this was already feeling like a lot.
Maybe too much, even.
"It's good." said Joseph
"You haven't eaten any." Said Mob. Joseph looked down at his food and had a bite. He made a weird face as he chewed, a different face than the one he had been making all night. She wondered if this had been a bad idea. She didn't know, hadn't known, what she had wanted so she was figuring it out. Minegishi had said that she was the one in charge here and she didn't want to be bossy but she also didn't want to have to do anything that she didn't want to do…the only problem was that she didn't even know what she wanted to do.
He was really tall.
That was something she knew about him. She was short, though, so a lot of people that seemed tall to her might have just been normal sized. Hatori had seemed tall to her when she had met him but now he and Sho were nearly the same height and Sho was her age…she shook her head. She didn't want to think about her brother now, either of her brothers, since Hatori was a member of her family now…maybe Nozomu would have been better. Siblings couldn't be on a family name basis because they were all in the same family…but Hatori was still called Hatori…
This was really complicated.
Part of her was grateful, of course, that Hatori was happy and that Dad was happy. The rest of her still thought that it was kind of weird that Dad had adopted him, especially since Dad knew that she used to like him back when she had been ten or eleven. It felt like a million years ago. Those feelings had passed. Hatori was nice but he wasn't nearly as cute to her as he had been when they'd met, or as tall, or as funny, or as…anything, really, other than a friend. She wondered what it would have been like if he had liked her back. Probably weird for everyone else, since they had taken the thing with Shimazaki so weird, though Shimazaki was eleven years older than Hatori, being thirty three and Hatori being twenty two.
Joseph wasn't that old, or that young.
He was closer to Minegishi's age…Mob shook her head again. Ok, now that was just wrong. Thinking about Minegishi when she had been thinking boyfriend thoughts. That was the most wrong thing that she had ever thought up in her life, even worse than the time she had tried oat milk. Yeah, Minegishi like that was even worse than oat milk, and almond milk, and soy milk put together. They weren't like that, they were just her friend, and if they had been here then it would have been weird. The weirdest. Even weirder than being here with Joseph.
Ok, so Joseph wasn't as good of a friend as Minegishi was.
He wasn't even as good of a friend as Hatori was, and she hadn't hung out with Hatori in a long time. Joseph was…a sort of friend? More than an Awakened but less of a friend than Hatori, or even Tsuchiya now that she thought about it. But maybe it didn't matter how she felt about him. He clearly wanted to be more than friends with her, that was why he had agreed to go on this date with her. Maybe he wanted to be her boyfriend. He had said, before, that he wasn't looking for a girlfriend but that had been a while ago. His feelings might have changed by now, it was hard to tell with people sometimes, they changed their minds so often.
She didn't know what she wanted.
She knew that she liked a lot of the stuff that came with having a boyfriend. She liked having someone who listened to her problems, who liked being around her, and also someone who did all the things with her. Especially a few things that she wasn't going to think about now. She was alone, she had a couch, and there was a boy right there. This was how it had gone with Shimazaki…now that had been weird. Before and after. During it had just been a lot of feeling really good…the kind of good that she missed. So maybe she did want a boyfriend, or at least a friend with benefits. It wasn't like she was a kid anymore. This was what adults did and she was practically an adult. She was a young adult, maybe. That was the section she bought her clothes in, now, and the kind of books she read. She wasn't a kid anymore and if she wanted to then she could have asked Joseph to be her boyfriend and her friend with benefits.
She was just going to have to figure out what she wanted, first….of course it was hard to figure out what she wanted when she didn't even fully know what was going on.
"See? It's very, very good." said Joseph
"Thank you." said Mob
"It's a good dinner. Better than whatever they're dishing out in the cafeteria." Said Joseph
"It's fish and fries tonight. It used to be fish and chips but that confused a lot of people…and it's important to always know what's going on." Said Mob
"Yeah, it's hard having dinner when you have no idea what it is. My mom used to make this thing, noodle caboodle, and to this day I have no idea what she put in-" said Joseph
"Joseph, what's going on with us? And please don't say that we're eating dinner. You already said that twice. I think that it might be my fault that you don't understand the question. I forget, sometimes, that Japanese isn't your first language. I mean you barely even have an accent…but that doesn't matter, it's just me being clueless again." Said Mob
"We are…whatever you want us to be. Friends, more than…well we're not enemies, I don't think that either of us wants that." Said Joseph, resisting the urge to tug on his collar. She was making direct eye and aural contact now. Normally she didn't look a thing like the president, there were all of those adoption and cuckold rumors floating around, but here in this instance he could see proof that she was in fact Suzuki Touichirou's daughter. That blank, unwavering, penetrating stare. Those tiny pupils that bore right into him…her eyes were nearly black, you had to really make eye contact with her to see those pupils, but once you did you couldn't undo it. She was boring into him, picking him apart, trying to figure him out…
The best offense was good defense.
"No…I don't want us to be enemies. That's the last thing that I would want." Said Mob
"Good, at least we're on the same page about-" said Joseph
"But I don't know what I want us to be? I mean I know you like me, or you at least want to do stuff with me. Minegishi said to a while ago but I didn't believe them…or maybe I didn't want to believe them." said Mob
"We don't have to-" said Joseph
"I don't know what I want. I mean I know what I like, a lot of stuff, and I know that I couldn't ever do that with someone I didn't know and…and I don't really know you. I mean I know a lot of things about you but I don't really know you, if that makes sense." Said Mob
"That makes perfect-" said Joseph
"But I don't know if I've made enough of an effort to get to know you. You're a friend but not a good one, I mean you're good at being my friend, but you're not the same kind of friend as my other friends. You're not…you're not Shimazaki. I know him and he knows me but it was also really weird with him." Said Mob
"The last thing I want is to make things we-" said Joseph
"So that'd the thing. I don't know if it would be weird with you. I don't know if I could be your girlfriend, I don't think that I could be someone's girlfriend who I didn't know, but I think that if you wanted to we could try to be friends with benefits. I think that's what you want, I remember you said before that you weren't looking for a girlfriend, but you might have changed your mind…um…that's all I have to say. Sorry to interrupt you so much but I just had to get that out." Said Mob. She was red, she could feel it, and she knew that it was probably showing through her makeup. She had listened to Minegishi and not used heavy makeup since it was bad for her skin…they were smart like that. They were the smartest person that she knew. She wished that they had told her what to do in this situation, some advice besides not doing something she didn't want to do. She knew that she was the President, she was Joseph's boss, and she could tell him to do whatever she wanted to do…but that seemed mean, and also she didn't know what she wanted to do…
Well, she knew what she maybe wanted to try…maybe. Not everything, no, everything would have meant risking Shoko and she knew that she couldn't have a baby with someone she wasn't in love with, or didn't at least know, but there were a lot of other things that she liked…things that maybe part of her missed….
"I want….whatever you want. I'm not looking for anything serious right now but I am looking to get to know you better. You're very…you're a very attractive woman and I'm up for whatever you're up for." Said Joseph. It took everything in him not to vomit, and it had nothing to do with the cheese in the curry. There it went, his soul. He had thought he'd sold it before. Sold it for money, for power, for his freedom. There were so many lines he'd crossed, lines that he didn't know he'd crossed until they were crossed, times when he felt a little bit of his soul getting pulled away from him…
Well there went the last of it.
"We could try being friends with benefits. I mean I don't know if I want to be friends with benefits with you but we could try…um…what's the word?" asked Mob. There was a word for it, a word for when you just did things with someone, a word for when you didn't have a word for what you were. Minori would have known. Well, so would Minegishi, but this wasn't the kind of thing that she wanted to share with Minegishi. They weren't that kind of friend. They would have just gotten mad because Joseph was so much older than her and Mob didn't need that right now. She needed someone who knew what to do and would tell her what to do…that kind of friend.
For the first time in months she wanted to call Minori…that might have been a bad sign.
"You want to-to sleep with me?" asked Joseph. He couldn't. He knew for a fact that he physically couldn't…but that was what they made those little blue pills for. Honey trap. That was the word for it. He was good looking, he knew it, and it wouldn't have been the first time it had come to this…it would be the first time with someone that-that young…
He threw up a little in his mouth. He hid it by taking a sip of water. He wished that it had been brandy in his glass, or vodka, or maybe something stronger…like cyanide.
"No! I mean, um, not that. The stuff that comes before but not that. I just, and please don't take this the wrong way, but I don't want to have a baby with you. I don't have any of those things that keep me from having a baby with me and they don't feel as good anyway and…um…I just don't know you well enough to make a whole new person with you. Also I know that there's an operation that I can get if I do get pregnant but Minegishi says that recovering from that hurts a lot and I don't think that I can go to Fukuda if I do need to recover because I don't want people to know that I…um…do stuff like this." Said Mob
"Ok…so no sex. That's…I can agree to that." Said Joseph. So, there was a God after all and he did watch over people. Either that or the devil had decided to ease up on some of his earthly suffering.
"Really? Ok, that's good. I'm glad. I really am glad, I mean. I mean that I'm glad…sorry, sorry, I said that already." Said Mob
"Uh…you're right, you did." Said Joseph. So this was…a thing that was going to happen. Her eyes darted to the couch. This was a thing that was happening right now. Joseph centered himself. He tried his best to take any feelings, any scruples, that he might have had and lock them in the deep recesses of his mind until they died of neglect. This was work. This was the job. You did what you had to do to complete the mission. You did what you had to do to keep cover. You did what you had to do to endear yourself to the target. You didn't get to change your mind, to back out, not unless you felt like spending the rest of your life in a cell…or unless you felt like being the latest body fished out of the river.
Joseph had come too far to die, to fail, to lose everything he'd worked for over the years.
"Hey Joseph? So um…do you want to? With me? Right now? I mean not all of the things but some of them?" asked Mob. She didn't know how she felt right now. She was…excited? It had been a long time and that stuff was fun. Well, it had been fun with Shimazaki but the weirdness of it all had kind of cut through the fun. Sort of like how the sweet, creamy, goodness of strawberry milk could always be cut through with vodka…only not in a good way. She wanted this but…but what if she ended up messing up? What if she made things weird now, like they had been with Shimazaki.
But Joseph wasn't Shimazaki.
She didn't know how as well as she had known Shimazaki. He wasn't that good of a friend. She remembered that Minori had said that it was best to find a guy you didn't like that much and practice with him before you found a serious boyfriend. Mob hadn't gotten it before, how people could be for practice, but now…well she kind of did. Sometimes you liked a person enough to do things with them but not enough to marry them and have their babies. Sometimes you just wanted to feel good with a boy, not love him, but to feel good with him. Minori would have told her to just do it already, that of course she was right and now the time had come for Mob to stop acting like a first grader and get on with it. Minori was a good friend, even with the meanness, and Mob…well she kind of regretted what had happened.
But she could fix that later, much later, once she was done with….with all of this.
"Yeah, sure, whatever you want." Said Joseph. This was…happening. He could handle this. This was just another mission, another job, just a series of actions he had to perform. He had to go through the motions and then report…he couldn't even remember what he had to report…
He had to get his head in the game.
This was the posting that was going to buy him his freedom. This was the posting that was going to get him sent back home. No more bouncing from handler to handler, cell to cell, country to country. No more being at the beck and call of whoever had bought his contract. After this job he was going to be done. He had killed people, sold people, done things that he never would have thought that he was capable of. He could sleep with, or at least fool around with, one person. What was one more sin added to the pile? This wasn't going to be the thing that tipped the scales, the one line that he couldn't cross, this was just another job. Just another…this was worse than another job…no, it wasn't. Joseph knew that he was going to burn in hell when he died…but he had known that for a while now. He had sold his soul years ago, after all, and it wasn't like he'd ever had a way of getting it back.
He didn't even know if he wanted it back at this point.