Mob didn't really like dalgona candy that much.

But Mukai did and that was why she was here trying to help her free the picture from her candy. Mob had picked the star, Mukai had picked the umbrella. Mob didn't know why she had picked the umbrella. She was licking it, now, licking it and then getting bored and trying to chip away at it. She had probably picked the umbrella because it had been in the show.

Mob really didn't get the show…but Mukai liked it and that was what mattered.

"I'll never get it!" said Mukai as she threw her dalgona candy down onto the table. It shattered into a bunch of little pieces. Mob picked them up with her powers and put the pieces back together as best as she could. She did her best to make it warm enough that the sugar melted back together but not so warm that she set it on fire. Making fire had never been one of those powers that she practiced a lot. It just seemed too dangerous, really, to have any kind of practical use.

Also she didn't want Sho, or either of her siblings really, to imitate her.

"I'm going to lose and then get shot…and I don't want to!" muttered Mukai as she kicked Mob under the table. Mob looked around. It was still just her and Mukai. Sho and Shimazaki were still off on their adventure and Tsuchiya was still in the cafeteria helping Shibata make the candy. A lot of people were going back for seconds. Mob was happy that Shibata had found something that he loved, after all the alternative was him and Tsuchiya being added to Shiori's guard roster and there was no way Mob was ever going to let that happen, but right now she kind of needed some help.

At some point she had forgotten how to take care of a little kid.

"Mukai, um, you aren't going to get shot because you've been the one doing the shooting. If you get shot then you'd have to shoot yourself and I don't think that you'd ever want to do something like that." Said Mob

"I don't want to shoot myself, the bullets hurt." Said Mukai

"You mean the darts." Said Mob, pointing to the gun on the table.

"No, I mean the bullets. We're going to use real guns!" said Mukai. Some of the Awakened around them jumped up and stared before looking back down at their candy and really starting to chip away at it. Mob hoped that Sho and Mukai found a new show to watch soon. This one was kind of mean. There were so many other shows that they could have watched to improve Mukai's Korean, like the one about the people in love who lived in a house, or the one about the people in love who lived on a boat, or the one about the people in love who kept on cheating on each other…ok, maybe not that one. Most things, not all things, would have been better than the sad tracksuit show about the people playing the games and getting shot.

Hopefully the next show would be something harder for Mukai to imitate.

"Work faster! The timer's running down!" whisper-shouted an Awakened. Mob looked behind her. There was a timer on the wall but she could always reset it. It wasn't like anyone was going to actually get hurt here. Of course she wasn't going to let Mukai have a real gun, even Shimazaki thought that it was a bad idea to give her a gun and he was crazy, and the Awakened should have known that…though they were pretty much like a bunch of little kids as it was and little kids weren't the best listeners.

"You keep working, at least then you won't lose." Said Mukai pushing her candy towards her. Mob could have broken it out easily with her powers, she just didn't want to cheat. She was the only one here with telekinesis precise enough to do that. Sho probably could have, too, but Shimazaki needed help with something so they were off on an adventure. They hadn't asked Mob to come, and that was for the best, though…well she would have liked to have been invited.

She didn't always make sense, even to herself.

"I really don't care if I win or lose. Here, you can have mine." Said Mob, pushing her candy towards Mukai. Mukai just crossed her arms and stuck out her tongue.

"That's not the same as winning." Said Mukai

"Yes it is. I'm giving you a second chance, you know, like round two." Said Mob

"No, everyone gets one. I saw the show, Shigeko, I know what the show is. I watched the show and you didn't, Shigeko, I know better." Grumbled Mukai

"That's just on TV, though, this is real life. It's like how, um, how you get a second life in a videogame." Said Mob. There, that would have made sense to Mukai. She liked videogames…well she sort of did. She liked it when Serizawa gave her a controller that wasn't plugged in and he played for her. She was still too little for most videogames. She was still too little for most things. She had to sit on a book so she could reach the cafeteria table, for one thing, and her sweater sleeves were so long that they went over her hands. She didn't fully seem to understand the show, either, but that show was way too old for her. If Sho had been there then Mo would have had something to say about the stuff he let Mukai watch.

Something nice to say, of course, because even as mad as she was about all of this she wasn't going to be mean to her little brother.

"Videogames aren't real life, Shigeko. Come on, get a clue." Said Mukai

"Mukai, that wasn't a nice thing to say." Said Mob. She had spent so long wishing that Mukai would learn to talk. Now part of her kind of wished that Mukai would learn how to stop talking, or at least stop saying these mean sorts of things.

"I know." said Mukai

"Mukai…Little Sister, come on. We were having fun, right? So why don't you just keep on having fun? Here, just break the picture out of mine and then you can be the winner." Said Mob

"I'm already the loser, Shigeko, use your eyes! Use them or I'll poke them out and then you won't have eyes and then you'll have to wait for them to grow back!" said Mukai

"But Mukai, eyes don't…ok, ok, one thing at a time. How about this? We don't break the candy out, we just eat it and then we can play a different game? Like…um…we can play red light and green light again, you had a lot of fun with that…um…or I can find where the Awakened hid all of the rolling chairs and then we can have a chair race-" said Mob

"I hid the rolling chairs and there's no way in hell I'm letting those morons have them back." Said Minegishi as they set their tray down onto the table. Mob hadn't even felt them coming, probably because she was completely surrounded by the Awakened. Minegishi was a green dot in a sea of reds. She hadn't been looking for them but she was glad that they were here.

Even if they had one of these annoying candies, too.

"Minegishi! You came!" said Mukai

"Well, yes, where else was I supposed to eat lunch?" asked Minegishi as they sat down. Mukai put her hand on her chin and thought really hard.

"Panda has good food." Said Mukai

"Yes they-" said Minegishi

"KFC has all the chicken." Said Mukai

"Yes, and plenty of grease-" said Minegishi

"At Freshness they make giant burgers, but there's no kids meal." Said Mukai

"Which is good because I'm thirty." Said Minegishi

"I'm four, I like kid's meals. They give you a toy." Said Mukai

"Do they now?" asked Minegishi, picking at their lunch. If Mob had known that they would have been eating in the cafeteria today she would have made lunch something other than beef bowls. Everyone was just getting sick of the omelets and the beef bowls won the pole. Minegishi didn't like a lot of meat at once, though, they liked vegetables and also dark chocolate…so maybe chocolate covered vegetables?

No, wait, that was a bad idea…but she had been just full of bad ideas lately.

"Yes, they do. Lots of places don't, though, like Tenya will give you only rice on one plate and only tempura on the other. They can put lots of things in tempura for you, like shrimp, but not chicken because the chicken tempura is better when Shibata makes it. It's important." Said Mukai

"Thank you, Mukai, for your culinary tour of Japan. I look forward to your next lecture." Said Minegishi rolling their eyes. They picked at their meat with their chopsticks but didn't pick it up…they hated it, of course they hated it. They hated it and they thought that Mob was a bad friend for not being considerate of them and now they wanted to stop being friends with her, she just knew it!

"We can take a tour later, Mine, right now you have to play the game. The timer is going to run out and then you'll get shot and they'll put you in a big present." Said Mukai

"Will they also take my tracksuit away?" asked Minegishi

"But you're not wearing a tracksuit." Said Mob before she could think. They were just in normal clothes…of course they knew that. They were the one who had dressed themselves this morning. Mob had just been so…she had no idea how one person could have possibly been as clueless as her.

"That's true, you're wearing a normal shirt and pants. Get a clue, Minegishi." Said Mukai

"Mukai, that wasn't nice. We talked about this." Said Mob

"I know I'm not being nice, Shigeko, I have a clue." Said Mukai. Minegishi laughed. They laughed really quietly but Mob could tell by their aura…it wasn't funny, not really, and the laughing would just encourage Mukai to keep on saying mean things…but it was nice to see Minegishi laughing again. They hadn't been happy in a long time. They probably weren't going to be happy again for a while after they found out what Mob had done…even though the stuff Mob did with boys really wasn't any of their business…and also it wasn't like anything had really happened since Joseph had been terrible at everything…

Mob got back to her candy. She should not have been thinking about this now.

"Don't tell me you're into this too." Said Minegishi as they leaned over the table. Mob kept on working.

"Mukai wants to play this and I like…I like whatever Mukai likes." Said Mob as she used her paperclip to break the star out of the candy. She could have used her powers…it would have been easy. Doing it by hand wasn't as easy as it looked. She could have broken it. She didn't care if she was going to win or lose, it wasn't like there was a real prize, she just didn't want to upset Mukai or anything. That was who's feelings were important here, her sister's, not hers. She was…she was perfectly fine.

Really, she was.

"It's a fun game, Mine, you've got to play too. If you play then maybe you can be the winner and being the winner is the most important thing ever. Ask Sho if you don't believe me, go on, ask him." Said Mukai

"Uh-huh, and what happens if you lose? Ryou was saying something about you asking him for real guns or something?" asked Minegishi

"Ryou's a jerk! He won't get me the guns!" said Mukai

"That's for the best, right Mob?" asked Minegishi

"You and Shimazaki are talking again?" asked Mob, looking up from her candy. Minegishi had been happy, as happy as they could let show, but now they were frowning again. Their aura was all closed in around them. They picked up a piece of meat from their bowl and ate it, looking away from Mob the whole time. Either they were hungry or they were doing that thing that Mob did when she didn't want to talk to someone, when she needed time to think up what to say, and…and if they didn't want to talk to her then they could have just left. She would have understood. It would have hurt but she would have understood.

"Ryou and I…live in the same house. Obviously we're going to be exchanging words every so often." Said Minegishi

"Oh…but does that mean that you like him again?" asked Mob

"Eat your candy." Said Minegishi

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to know if things were good again…I mean if things between you were good again. I really am sorry about what I did and-" said Mob

"Mob, enough. It's been about a year now since you started…what you started. It happened, it's over, and now we're going to move on…and weren't you the one begging all of us to let it go? To mind our own damn business?" asked Minegishi

"I know what I said." Said Mob. She didn't think that this was the same. She wasn't asking if they were still doing things together, she didn't want to know about the things that other people did just as much as she didn't want them to know about the things that she did, she just wanted to know if they had gotten back together with Shimazaki like she wanted them to. They were in love, they were soul mates, they were the loves of each other's lives. Even when she had been with Shimazaki he had still loved Minegishi more than her. That was why Minegishi was the one that he'd wanted to marry and be with for the rest of his life, and have babies with too. That was real love. It went beyond just liking someone.

Mob knew the difference between being in love with someone and just liking them. She had finally figured it out.

"Then stop asking me about this, alright? It's none of your business what Ryou and I are to each other just like it was none of my business what you and Ryou were to each other…or at least you think it was none of my business." Said Minegishi

"I…I don't mean that. I just was worried about you and him because he loves you and…and love is important, I guess." said Mob

"There are more important things in this world than having a boyfriend." Said Minegishi with a tone in their voice that Mob couldn't read.

"Boyfriend? Gross!" said Mukai, sticking her tongue out. Mob kind of wished that she could go back to when she thought that boys were gross…if she had ever thought that boys were gross. She couldn't really remember. She had been in love with a boy back when she had been in the first grade but she had been seven then, a whole two years older than Mukai was now. it wasn't fair how little kids couldn't remember it when they were little, how lucky they were…how lucky Mob had been back then.

Boys were so much trouble she almost wished that she didn't like them…or maybe only some boys were trouble. She couldn't imagine Serizawa ever being trouble.

"I know that there are things that are more important than boys. I just…I just want you to be happy, that's all, and I feel bad about what happened and…and I know that I shouldn't talk about this so…so let's talk about something else?" said Mob

"Something besides this stupid squid whatever?" asked Minegishi

"Game, it's a game." Said Mukai

"Um…I think we can find something else to talk about. My friend Minori replied to me replying to one of her posts and I think that we might be able to be friends again. I mean she says, said, before that when someone betrayed her they were dead to her and she used to think that I betrayed her but she might not anymore so we can be friends again…um…maybe." Said Mob. She had freed half of her star by now. She just needed to free the other half and then she could get out of here….she shouldn't have wanted to leave her best friend but this conversation was getting away from her and also she was kind of out in the open here in the lunchroom…at least this wasn't Joseph's usual lunch time…

She had no idea what she would have talked about if she ran into him again.

"Who's Minori" asked Mukai

"A tiny pink haired little demon who I thought we'd seen the last of. Seriously. Mob, why are you still trying to make friends with this girl?" asked Minegishi. Mob shrugged and kept working. She focused on what she was doing, she focused on focusing, and she focused on figuring out a good answer that had nothing to do with 'Minori knows as much about boys and liking them and sex stuff as you do but I can't talk to you anymore because you make a big deal out of everything and I really need someone to tell me that I'm supposed to do because I really like doing stuff and I want someone to like me but the boys who like me I either don't like back or I can't like back and I think I like someone else and I think he likes me but also I don't want to make things weird with him and I know that if I ask you to help me you'll just beat him up so I'm very lost here' or something like that.

Something with probably a lot fewer words.

"Um…because she's been kind of sad lately, or at least her posts have been, and kind of weird and…um…we both like this show?" asked Mob. Minegishi raised the space where an eyebrow would have been if they'd had any. When she had been little she used to like to draw eyebrows on for them and do the rest of their makeup, too. That had been a long time ago, though, back when she had been eight and nine and ten and eleven and twelve and…and not thirteen or fourteen…not that she was fourteen yet…

She wasn't a little kid anymore, that was the point.

She was older now, pretty much an adult, and she was long past the time when she could just spend all day having fun. Now she had other things to worry about. Love, friendship, work, taking over the world, her little brother and sister…even candy was something that she had to worry about…she kept on focusing on what she was doing. Minegishi was eating now, she could hear their chopsticks hitting their bowl, and she ignored it. Mukai was tugging on her hair, now, and telling her that she was doing the best ever…and also telling her that she sucked and she couldn't beat her…but Mob was going to beat her. She didn't want to beat her little sister, she just wanted to have something to do…something to end the conversation before it got away from her…before it turned into something that she didn't want to talk about right now.

She freed her star. Mukai ate it.

"Youi did it, Shigeko! You did it all by yourself! You did…fuck you for winning!" said Mukai as she tugged on Mob's shirt and hair. Mob made herself smile. Minegishi gave her a look. They weren't buying it.

"I did win…um…let's go and get some real food, now, before it's all gone. I'll even let you have nothing but meat, ok?" asked Mob. She didn't wait for Mukai to say anything she just picked her up and started walking towards the cafeteria. People jumped to get out of her way, they even knocked into one another, even though they didn't have to. It wasn't like she was going to push them. It wasn't like she was going to try and get back in the candy line.

She didn't really like this candy that much, anyway.