These beds were not big enough for two.

There was an elbow digging into their side, a leg wrapped around theirs, and a head on their shoulder. They were no stranger to sharing a single bed with someone…but that didn't mean that they liked it. They had a perfectly good bed waiting for them at home. Big enough for them and one more, warm, not in a room surrounded by Awakened, and especially not Awakened with night terrors.

A lot of them had night terrors.

"For the love of…." Muttered Minegishi as the bed shook. The Awakened above them was having what sounded like either the worst or the best dream ever. They honestly couldn't tell and they didn't want to. The last thing they wanted to do was wake one of these morons up and start getting up close and personal with them.

Because, really, they had their own problems to deal with.

They turned onto their side. At least they had a little more room this way. They were going to have to talk to Mob about doing something about the Awakened barracks. Maybe futons or something would have been better. Normally they wouldn't have given a damn if the Awakened had comfortable sleeping spaces or not but since they were going to be staying here for the foreseeable future a part of them did.

They were not going to live like this anymore.

"Shut the fuck up." muttered Minegishi as they pulled the blanket up over their head. Scratchy, thin cotton blankets, cardboard mattresses, a room that never truly got dark or quiet…if they had been a more sentimental person they would have been getting nostalgic right about now. Not for their old room, no, their old room had been leagues better than this…when they had been allowed to sleep in it, that is. They had spent more nights out of their room than in it. Punishment had come swiftly and easily back then.

They had been too young to do anything about it.

They had been a child, a kid, too young to have been able to access anything close to their full powers. They had still been at the mercy of their parents, may their souls be torn into confetti and rained down onto a parade of murderers and people who listened to music in public on their phones without headphones, and their parents had thought that they'd been showing mercy…that they'd been going easy on them when they'd kicked their only child out of the house. They had done their best to get the crazy out of Minegishi. Sometimes that meant vicious beatings, sometimes that meant starving it out of them, and sometimes that meant locking all the doors and windows and making them sleep out in the cold. They weren't sure what the logic of that was. They had already wanted to get back into the house, Osaka was brutal in the winter, and they would have had no choice but to use their powers to keep warm. To ask the plants to shelter them, to feed them, to let them use their leaves as blankets…to let them pull the branches off of their tree to burn for warmth. Of course it had been wet wood, no good for burning, and they hadn't had more than a lighter they'd managed to steal…

Things had gotten easier.

At some point their parents' so called 'mercy' had been bad enough that the people in power had noticed and done something about it. From one hell to another they'd been dragged. Of course the new hell at least had four walls and a roof, beds that not even a narcoleptic could sleep in, and a room full of people all dealing with their own problems. The sorts of problems that came out at night. The sorts of problems that people yelled about and cried about.

The sorts of problems that they'd been able to keep to themselves.

"…can't move…can't move…" muttered the Awakened above them. He was shaking the bunk bed, why the guy with the night terrors felt the need to take the top bunk they would never know, so obviously he could in fact move. If Minegishi had been sleeping alone they would have kicked the mattress above them. They would have put some actual strength into it, too, enough to flip that moron out of bed so they could get some sleep. They had never been above waking people up, dragging them out of bed, when they got to be too much. They needed their sleep. They had…well not a big day…but they had a day ahead of them.

They needed their medicine.

They'd had to leave it all behind before they temporarily moved in here. If the Awakened got into their things, any of their things, then it would have been disastrous. They were pretty much overgrown children and if Minegishi knew anything about kids, which they did at this point, they knew that kids didn't know how to stay out of their things. The last thing they needed was one of those morons getting into their pill tin and falling asleep forever. It was easy to overdo it when you didn't know what you were doing. Even their exalted leader knew that…

That had been a terrifying night.

Little Mob falling asleep…so completely out of it…she was fine now. She would have been fine then, too, maybe. Even without Fukuda's help they had seen her shrug off all kinds of damage, the sort of thing that would have killed them ten times over. She had been at the epicenter of the Seventh Division collapse after all, and there were rumors that she was the one who had destroyed the Eighth Division too, not to mention all the little things they'd seen her shrug off over the years. She had gone as far as to match Ryou once…or so he said. He wasn't exactly the best when it came to accounts of the past but they were prepared to believe that Mob had gone bump for bump and line for line with him. She had been hitting the coke since she had been only ten years old after all…

Minegishi couldn't be everywhere at once.

They could only be in one place at one time, unless they spontaneously learned how to duplicate their ethereal form or whatever that shoulder pad guy could do, and that place that they were was the barracks at Tokyo HQ surrounded by Awakened and curled up with their boyfriend. Their only boyfriend. Despite what Ryou thought Matsuo was their only boyfriend and they…they enjoyed spending time with him. It was just so easy to spend time with him. He hardly asked anything of them and what they did ask was so simple, like handing him a glass of water or helping him brush his hair out in the back, that it all hardly even registered. He never asked them to hold him through a night terror…not that Ryou asked, he just needed it. He needed so much. He needed someone to make sure that the kitchen was labeled, that his laundry was at least in the right box, that his phone was on the charger, that he felt loved, that he felt seen, that he felt like he took up every single ounce of their mental space until-

-despite what Ryou thought he was and always would be a very needy man.

And he could be needy all on his own. They weren't his partner anymore. They didn't give a damn about him anymore. They didn't have to waste their time and their mental energy on him anymore. He had taken what they had and ruined it and they no longer had any obligation towards him. They didn't care if he was in his own bed right now or waiting up for them in theirs. They didn't care if he was laying there listening to the house waiting for the door to creak open…thinking that every sound was them coming back to him…they didn't care what he wanted or how he felt or anything like that. He had given all of that up when he'd slept with Mob. He'd taken everything they'd had and thrown it away and…and they didn't give two fucks what he did or how he felt. The only thing they cared about was themselves and getting some sleep.

Oh. And Matsuo too, of course. They couldn't forget about him.

"Toshiki?" yawned Matsup as he rolled onto his side. They rolled over too, until they faced each other. The glow in the dark ghosts on his t-shirt shone brightly in the dark. They felt their eyes start to sting. How long had they been laying down in the dark for? Long enough for their eyes to have adjusted, it seemed.

"Matsuo?" asked Minegishi

"You're up? What time is it?" asked Matsuo

"It's late." Said Minegishi. They didn't feel like looking for their phone and waking themselves up even more than they already were. There weren't any windows here but they assumed that it was still dark out. Unless they had truly lost track of the time, of course.

"Are you up?" asked Matsuo

"Go back to sleep." Said Minegishi. They were being nice, there, if he had been Ryou they would have said something like 'what do you think?'. Matsuo wasn't Ryou, he didn't need that, and they didn't even know if he could handle that. He seemed so…so small, there, laying next to them. They were about the same height, there was no reason for Minegishi to feel that way, that is aside from the fact that they were used to sharing their bed with someone who was a lot bigger than them.

They had shared their bed with a lot of people. It didn't matter.

"What time's it?" yawned Matsuo. He started to sit up. Minegishi reached out and pushed his head back down before he bumped it.

"No clue." Said Minegishi

"Thanks, for that I mean, it sucks bumping your head on these beds…trust me, I know." said Matsuo. Minegishi knew, too. Towards the end of their stay in the group home another home in the area had been closed. So what had been a hall with rows of twin beds because a hall with rows of bunk beds stacked three high. It had been a learning curve, figuring out how to get out without bumping their head, a skill that they had never truly lost. A skill that they had never had to gain if they had only been smarter…but being smart had never been their strong suit.

They were book smart, yes, but they had made more mistakes over the course of their thirty years and some months of life than they could even count.

"Be careful, unless you want me to wake Fukuda up that is." Said Minegishi

"Don't want to bother him…heard he's an asshole…" muttered Matsuo as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

"Yeah, from me, now go back to sleep. I have no idea what time it is but I know it's really late. Most of these idiots are asleep. Let's join them." said Minegishi

"But then we're be idiots too…" said Matsuo

"And?" asked Minegishi. Matsuo laughed a little at that, or maybe that had just been a weird yawn. He was still so out of it…of course he was. It was late and they needed to sleep and…and as much as they loved talking to him they needed to get to sleep.

"I've got to get up early…supposed to be out seeing where the host sleeps right now…" muttered Matsuo. Minegishi grabbed his hand before he could finish rubbing his eyes. The last thing that they needed was him awake right now. They needed their sleep…for once in their live they were wide awake…they needed sleep and there was no way in hell that they were going to be able to get any sleep if he woke up. If he fully woke up then the next thing that he would want to do was spend time with them and they just…they were not up to it right now.

They needed to get some fucking sleep.

"You can chase spirits in the morning." Said Minegishi

"…have to…Suzuki's going to kill me…" muttered Matsuo

"He'd probably just maim or seriously injure you before he killed you." said Minegishi

"I don't want to risk it…like having all my limbs." Yawned Matsuo loudly…a little too loudly. One of the Awakened said something about 'shutting him up'. Minegishi would have liked to have seen him try…but not now. Now they needed sleep. They had to mentally prepare for whatever Mob planned on throwing at them tomorrow. It was always something with her. Maybe she was going to go off on one of her 'do you hate me now' tangents or maybe she was going to spend the day worrying about whether or not her pathetic excuse for a father was ever coming back, even though he obviously wasn't, or it could be one of those days where he brother disappeared and she turned herself inside out with worry…or maybe her sister would be trying to set up a real life squid game again…someone had to start monitoring what that kid watched on TV…or maybe it would just be one of those days where Mob kept them hidden away in the bathroom for reasons even she didn't feel like telling them about.

Either way, no matter what Mob was worried about, it was going to be one hell of a day tomorrow just like yesterday had been and the one before it and the one before that one.

"Then go to sleep. What, do I have to call Tsuchiya in here and have her sing you a lullaby?" asked Minegishi. Maybe they should have gone one step farther and ordered a crib for him if he was going to be like this. Even Ryou knew when he needed to get some actual rest and he had no circadian rhythm! No, no, they were being unfair. This kind of…this kind of them-ness was what had made Ryou-

They hadn't 'made' Ryou do anything. He had acted on his own stupid impulses as usual. It had nothing to do with them.

"Me? What about-about you? You're wide awake…we're both wide awake." Said Matsuo

"I think that's just wishful thinking on your part." Said Minegishi

"Toshiki." Said Matsuo

"Fine, alright, I can't sleep but that doesn't mean that you need to stay up. We both have bullshit to deal with tomorrow and yours involved a much higher potential for, you know, pain than mine does. So how about you get some sleep and you let me stare up into the void until either sleep or madness comes for me?" asked Minegishi

"I can be awake if you want to be awake." Said Matsuo

"Who said that I wanted to be awake?" asked Minegishi. Their tone was harsher than they had wanted it to be…but maybe that was a good thing. Maybe that would be the thing to shut him up…not the way to think about their boyfriend. They needed to be nicer but then again being nice had never been their strong suit. He should have listened, anyway, instead of being all….all pushy like this. That was a good word for it, pushy, not leaving them alone. Falling over himself trying to figure out what they wanted. He was a lot like Ryou in that way, or maybe that was just the way that boyfriends were. Partners.

Maybe they just sucked as a partner…maybe they weren't cut out for this.

"I don't want to be awake!" shouted an Awakened. Minegishi rolled their eyes. They wondered if he could see it in the dark. Even with the glow in the dark ghosts on his shirt it was still so dark in there, dark enough that they could barely see him. Barely make out the scar on his face. Their eyes had adjusted. If only it was so easy for the rest of them to adjust.

"You obviously don't want to be awake either so just…just go back to sleep already, alright? Don't stay up all night on my account. I really don't want that, Matsuo, and it's not like I'm going to get any sleep anyway. Honestly I'm amazed that you can." Said Minegishi

"I've slept on worst." Said Matsuo with a shrug. Minegishi didn't say anything. So had they, of course, which was why they never wanted to go back there…to that kind of life.

"You don't have to stay, you know. These beds weren't made for two." Said Matsuo after a while, after they'd had the time to begin hoping that the silence would engulf the two of them.

"You can't come to my bed, you know why." Said Minegishi

"I know, and I don't want to…well I do but I know why that would be a bad idea…but that's not even what I meant. You can go and sleep in your own bed, Toshiki." Said Matsuo

"You're kicking me out?" asked Minegishi. It wouldn't have been the first time they'd been kicked out of bed. The first time in a while, yes, but they could deal with rejection. It didn't even hurt, him kicking them out, and…and maybe it should have. Maybe this was one of those things that they should have been concerned about. Maybe they had permanently damaged their ability to love or bond or whatever…or maybe it was just too late at night or early in the morning or whatever to deal with all of this.

"No, not exactly. I just want you to be happy, Toshiki, that's all. Besides, your day is going to be a lot worse than mine. I just have to worry about evil spirits, possessions, and the President. You have to worry about a teenager." Said Matsuo. He said it like…like that was what he meant. Like he said what he meant and he meant what he said…of course he did. He didn't have a disingenuous bone in his body. That was one of the things that had drawn them to him, and one of the things that kept them there too. He may not have taken the same complete and total transparency route as Ryou but that didn't mean that he was lying or that he was keeping things from them or…or whatever their sleep deprived mind was going to conjure up next.

They needed sleep.

So that was what they did. They said their goodbyes and left, making their way through Tokyo HQ and out the door to their own home. Their own bed. Their own room. They weren't alone, lonely, no. They were just cold. They had been curled up next to another person for hours after all, sharing body heat, of course they would have been cold all on their own. The fact that it was March in Tokyo didn't help matters. It was worse than Osaka and that was saying something. Ryou had told them, once, that when he had been a child his piss bucket had frozen over one winter and his mother hadn't thought to check on him once that day…

He didn't need checking on anymore.

They were shivering but only because it was cold. They had to wait some time for a car to be made available. They may have worked for Mob but they weren't Mob, or any Suzuki for that matter. They liked it that way even if people didn't trip over themselves to get them to where they needed to be. The waiting wasn't so bad, and it was better to wait outside than inside, and better to wait at all than to do…something stupid. Ryou didn't have a circadian rhythm. Day and night meant very little to him. There was a good chance that he was awake right now listening to music or reading or getting stoned or some other Ryou-like waste of time. He could have come and gotten them in less than a second, they were well within his maximum range, and seeing him again…they could have at least made sure that he was alright…

He didn't need anymore to check on him, especially not them.

They waited in the cold for a car. It didn't take long. Getting ahold of Ryou at this hour would have taken longer. He partied, too, at night. Sometimes he either forgot or lost his phone. Even if he picked it up they didn't want to interrupt anything that he might have been doing. It would have been so easy to, not and before, to just call him at the wrong time. To have him answer while he was in the middle of…and he would, of course, because he was a being without any sense of shame. It would have been so easy to have discovered…to have figured out….well of course it would have. Even without disturbing Ryou right in the middle of it all they should have known. Mob had pretty much spelled it out for them.

That was in the past.

They had all moved on. Mob had all but ordered them all to move on…actually, no, she had explicitly ordered them all to move on. She had begged, too, so of course they had no choice. It had happened, it was over, and there was no way in hell it was ever going to happen again. Everyone had learned their lesson. Ryou had learned not to do that thing that had ruined his life once already, Mob learned to make better choices when it came to men…not that she should have had to learn that lesson at this point in her life, and Minegishi had learned not to trust Ryou ever about anything. Not that he had even been keeping anything from them, no, that had been Mob. She had assumed that Minegishi knew. That was why she had been acting so cagey up until everything came out into the open.

Mob wasn't good at keeping secrets.

Not that they assumed she was up to…not that there had ever been anything for her to be up to. The city rushed by as Minegishi stared out the window. Their mind must have gotten left behind at some point. Mob didn't know what she had been getting into. She was bad at saying 'no' to people and, anyway, she had more hormones than braincells right now. Ryou had offered himself to her and she hadn't seen any way she could have said no and then…all of that…happened. It wasn't going to happen again with Ryou or anyone and Minegishi…they were getting paranoid, that was all. Mob knew better. Mob was…she was smarter than that.

This was Mob they were talking about.

They pressed their head to the window. Mob was smart about a few things. She had a good head for things like names, birthdays, and favorite colors. She knew way too much about Disney Princess lore and could go on for hours just about their loosely connected bloodlines. She was a walking encyclopedia of milk recipes, too, and had some very strong opinions on alternative milk products…apparently they were milking peas now…somehow. Mob would have known. She knew about very few things but life, love, sex, and the like were not on the list.

Despite Minegishi's best efforts.

They had thought that they would have taught her something over the years about love, people, sex…but apparently anything that they had told her had gone in one ear and out the other. It had started with that thing with the blond kid and ended with…they didn't even know if it was over. There was someone else now, someone hovering around her, someone with nothing good on his mind and they had warned Mob but of course she hadn't listened. She hadn't listened when they told her that there was a difference between love and sex, that she didn't have to fall in love with everyone she wanted to sleep with, and that she didn't have to sleep with anyone who would have had her….that she didn't have to go to bed with anyone that caught her eye. They had tried to teach her so many things over the years but none of it had stuck.

Nothing that they had said, anyway.

She had learned from watching them, seeing the way they lived her life. She ran from her problems, numbed herself to the world, in the same way that they did. She drank like they did, smoked like they did, and had even dipped her toes in something much harder and more dangerous. She was hellbent on making every single mistake that they had ever made, a remake of the very short and sad life of Minegishi Toshiki, even though she had seen where their choices had gotten them. They were a high ranking member of a world domination cult, a person with so many failed relationships under their belt that they couldn't even count them all, someone who couldn't keep their own life together let alone someone else's…Mob had better not have still be after having a baby. She better not have been after…a lot of things…things that Minegishi had told her were bad ideas…things that if she had been left to her own devices would…

The car came to a stop.

They got out. They had a choice to make. They could have gone to their room, into their house, and waited for sleep to come or they could have gone next door and seen what Mob was up to. It was in the middle of the night and she had better have been asleep. She probably was and Minegishi was just being paranoid. Of course Mob wasn't making any mistakes right now. This was the kind of thing that could have waited until tomorrow. They could prepare a whole lecture and it would be delivered flawlessly, the acoustics in the bathroom Mob kept on hiding them in were amazing, and they would have had a whole night to get it right…but they wanted to sleep tonight. They needed to sleep tonight, real sleep, not Xanax sleep. Not drunk sleep. Not a stoned, dreamless, sleep. They needed to actually sleep and it didn't look like their mind was going to let them unless they had confirmation that Mob was alright.

Whatever. They hadn't had a sleepover in a while.

Not since before everything had happened. Not since Mob had been a kid…she was still a kid. She was just a kid who had slept with their boyfriend. Whatever. Minegishi had been the same age when they had started up with all of this. Mob was, of course, going to make their mistakes. She was making it her business to make their mistakes so it wasn't like they could be mad…madder than they were now…bothered. They couldn't be any more bothered than they were now. Mob see, Mob do. This was why they were never having kids. They didn't need this kind of aggravation in their life. Ryou was just going to have to find someone else…not that he factored into their life anymore. Hell, if they'd had it there way Mob wouldn't have factored into their life either!

They had never been good at being disingenuous like this, at lying to themselves.

Mob did and would always factor into their life. They hadn't asked for this but this was what their life was. Their bracelet was caught on their sleeve. It was always getting caught. So maybe of their jackets and shirts had frayed sleeves from that damn pendant. Well, it wasn't like they could take it off at this point. It wasn't even like they wanted to, not in any serious way, not in any sort of permanent way. This was…this was theirs. There was a certain responsibility that came with the bracelet and there was no way they could give it up. Even if their sleeves got frayed. Even if they always had a weird tan line and series of indents on their wrist. Even if it hit every single doorknob they ever needed to use. Even if they wound up waking the whole house up.

They were never taking this bracelet off.

Their shoes, however, were coming off. Their feet glowed in the dark. Matsuo had gotten them these socks. They had never seen the show or read the manga these little ghost things went to but he assured them that it was something that they'd like. They didn't have the time to be reading anything new, not when they had houses to creep through, not when Mob gave them every reason to worry. They slid their shoes off as quietly as they could and crept through the house. Their footsteps were masked by the sound of squeaking. The entire living room was still taken up by those damn hamsters. Sho was going to grow up to end up on one of those reality shows, Minegishi could just see it, if this whole world domination thing didn't work out. Some people collected cats and dogs but this kid…this kid collected hamsters…

And yet Mob was the one that they were worried about.

They wished that she had taken up collecting living things. She liked cats, why couldn't she have turned into some kind of crazy cat lady in that case? Minegishi would gladly have helped her take care of a few hundred cats if it meant avoiding everything that had happened over the past year or so. But no, Mob had to go off and…and she was probably just sleeping. It wasn't like Minegishi was good at giving people the benefit of the doubt. They wouldn't have been surprised if she had been laying in her bed fast asleep and they had been worried about absolutely nothing.

She wasn't in her bed.

Sho was in his bed, apparently they still shared a room at their age, but Mob was nowhere to be found. Her bed didn't even look slept in, at least not by her. Her bed, apparently, served as a stuffed animal hotel. There wouldn't have been any room for her to sit down let alone lay down and sleep…that wasn't good. Minegishi had no aural sense, not of their own anyway. They could reach out and see through plants. There weren't any in Mob's house. In their house…not that they thought that she was there. Not that they thought that she would have been stupid enough to repeat her mistakes. She was sick and tired of everyone talking about, worrying about, and recovering from what had happened. She knew better than to start this shit up again.

This house had two bedrooms.

They closed the door quietly. The last thing that they needed to deal with was a sleep deprived Sho on top of everything else. That was almost as bad as dealing with a sleep deprived Suzuki. That man needed his, apparently only four to six, hours or he was even more difficult to live with than he usually was. Thankfully they didn't have to deal with him anymore, no, he was Hatori's problem now. He had left behind a bedroom, one that Mob was probably making use of right now. She was thirteen going on fourteen, of course she didn't want to share a room with her little brother anymore. Who would have? Minegishi had always been amazed, even back when Mob had been a little kid, that she had been so ok with sharing a room with that little monster.

Of course she wanted to sleep alone.

Minegishi would leave her alone. After they checked on her they would go back to their own bed in their own home and wait for tomorrow to happen. It wasn't as though they'd been looking forward to a sleepover with her, it wasn't like they were aching to get back to old times. It had just been…it had been good times, back then, even if she had been kind of annoying. Minegishi didn't much like being used for makeup practice, and if they had to watch Frozen one more time they were going to put a plant through the TV, but it had been…it had been nice. But those times were over now. Mob was older and they were thirty. They were both long past things like sleepovers.

That was just how it worked.

Time passed and kids grew up into taller, dumber, kids. They grew up and gave you more to worry about than you ever would have thought possible. They didn't mean to, at least Minegishi hoped Mob didn't mean to otherwise they would have had a lot to discuss, but they did. That didn't mean that Minegishi got to sit around thinking about the good old days when Mob's biggest problem had been a bratty younger brother and a father who insisted on smothering her in what could only have been described as half assed over parenting mixed with full assed neglect. That also didn't mean that Minegishi got to let their worry get the best of them. They didn't have anything to worry about. Mob was fine.

Mob was anything but fine.

Minegishi had never had a heart attack before and they didn't plan on having them now. It had just been a shock, that was all, when they opened the door to the master bedroom and found Mob laying down curled up into Serizawa. That had been a lot but Minegishi had still managed to close the door. They hadn't been quiet about it, that would have been beyond them right now, but they didn't pass out and die. They had just had a shock and now…and now they just…

They had to get the fuck out of there.

Their feet carried them down the hall, down the stairs, and as far as the living room before they gave up. It had taken everything within them not to wake Mob up right then and there and ask her what in the hell she was doing. She knew that sleeping with her friends was a bad idea. She knew that crossing that kind of line was stupid. She knew…Minegishi knew that Mob just kind of did that sometimes. With them, usually, but she was still…she was still young enough that it didn't mean anything…it better not have meant anything! Serizawa…that was….that was even stupider than sleeping with Ryou! At least Ryou could survive on his own! At least Ryou…well no, the whole thing had messed him up emotionally, but he had already been emotionally messed up to begin with…and…and…

And it was too late for this.

They leaned forward and rested their head in their hands. It didn't help. They could feel a headache coming on. The squeaking, too, didn't help. All of the hamsters were awake now and they all wanted to know what was going on. How did they even begin to explain it? From what they had seen? Or what they thought that they had seen? Or what they thought was going on? Or what there was a good chance might have been going on? Or the fact that when they were completely in the moment like this their mind liked to run away with them, to make them worry about anything and everything. She reached down and felt their pockets.

Empty.

They had more in their desk. More of what they weren't sure yet. Something to help them fall asleep, not a real sleep but at this pint they'd take anything. Something to help them forget. Something to help them make sense of everything. Something to just make this…make their brain shut up for five seconds. It was like they were holding a session of the diet in their mind and nobody could agree on anything. Just a bunch of smaller versions of them all shouting to be heard…sort of like that manga Matsuo had shown them about the little people existing inside of the human body...something simple, like that….they would have killed for simple right about now….

They would have killed for a lot of things right now.

Simplicity, peace, quiet, a moment of silence to figure out where in the hell they were supposed to go next with this. They were probably just overreacting because they were tired. Sure Mob had been acting weird lately but it had nothing to do with any of that. She and Serizawa had always been close. Besides, Serizawa was more of a kid than even Mob was. She was just…she was just trying to be close to someone, that was all. It wasn't like she hadn't hung out with him before. She was just being normal. Minegishi was the one freaking out here, the one being abnormal, the one trying to invent problems to get out of the ones they already had…not that they had that many problems, really.

Problems that weren't of their own making, anyway.

"Minegishi? I knew it was you!" said Mob. Minegishi heard her coming down the stairs, down the hall, and they said nothing. This was another problem that they had made. They were their own worst enemy. Now they were going to have to talk about things, to have one of their big heavy talks, either that or they could try and lie their way out of this….they had never been good at lying, especially not to Mob.

They didn't really want to lie to her, anyway.

"Minegishi? Are you sleeping?" asked Mob as she came to a stop in front of them. The hamsters were wide awake now. So were they. They opened their eyes. They could just about make out Mob's socks in the glow of their own. It looked like she was wearing the blue fuzzy ones. Good for her. At least one of them was having a nice night. A comfortable one. An ideal one.

"What do you think?" asked Minegishi, looking up.

"Um…I think that you're awake right now?" said Mob

"Well spotted." Said Minegishi. They wished that they could have taken it back as soon as they said it. Mob didn't deserve that from them even if she did seem hellbent on ruining her own life and making all of Minegishi's mistakes.

"Thank you…um…are you ok? It's in the middle of the night and I was sleeping and I thought that you were having a sleepover with Matsuo. I mean Shimazaki said that you were. I mean he wasn't talking to me, I think he was just talking and I heard." Said Mob

"You and Ryou…whatever. That's not important. I know you." said Minegishi, running a hand through their hair. They were going to end up bald at this rate. That is if they didn't have a heart attack first.

"I…know you too? Sorry, I just don't know what's going on." Said Mob

"What's going…I was just…I was worried about you, alright? I was worried about you." said Minegishi

"Why?" asked Mob

"What do you mean why? Where do I even start?" asked Minegishi

"From the beginning if you want, but you can really start from wherever…but from wherever you start can it be somewhere quiet? Sho and Serizawa are sleeping. Sho can go back to bed but Serizawa gets kind of upset easily so once he's awake he awake." Said Mob

"Serizawa…ok, I'll start with him. Are you…just…you know, I don't even know if I want the answer." Said Minegishi

"What's the question?" asked Mob

"The question…I don't know if you want me to ask the question. If I ask you what's going on with him then you'll probably ask me why and then I'll have to go into this whole thing about how weird you've been acting lately and how worried I am about you and then you'll either tell me that I have nothing to worry about or you'll drop something earth shattering on my head and then I'll have to confront the fact that I've failed you in every single way and that's not something I want to talk about this early in the morning." Said Minegishi

"It's still…still late at night and…and I'm not planning on dropping anything on you, that would be mean and I don't know why you think that I'd be mean to you, but you don't have anything to worry about. I mean I don't know what you're worried about but I'm alright. Mukai stopped asking me to make everyone play that death game with her and Sho's been…well he's been quiet but not mean and Dad hasn't said anything to me, which is kind of sad because it's almost his birthday, but it also means that he isn't mad at me about anything new. I mean he might be but he just hasn't told me yet. Dad can be kind of weird like that sometimes." Said Mob

"Not about your family. Just…ok. Is something going on between you and Serizawa and why in the hell have you been having us hide in the bathroom all day?" asked Minegishi

"Me and Serizawa? Today we made tempura for dinner and we took turns playing the new Zelda, I like it better than the old one because you don't have to hurt as many people, and then we watched a play through of this dungeon adventure game before we went to sleep. We didn't hide in the bathroom today at all." Said Mob

"Mob…are you avoiding the question or are you just being dense?" asked Minegishi

"I think the second part." Said Mob

"Of course you are. Ok, fine, I'm going to be as direct as possible." Said Minegishi as they exhaled. Mob nodded.

"Thank you." said Mob

"Are you just sleeping next to Serizawa or is something going on that I should worry about? Not necessarily sex but-" said Minegishi getting to the point, finally. They had never been this squeamish before…though they had never had to ask their thirteen year old best friend about her sex life and love life before. Lives that she shouldn't have even had….she had better not have been after having a baby…and she better have been careful…and she better not have been doing anything! She could have done so much better, first of all, and with someone her own age too.

"Minegishi!? Why would you say something like that!?" shouted Mob. The lights in the living room turned on. The hamster tunnels came apart. The room was filled with the sound of squeaking hamster voices and little claws scraping against the floor. There was the sound of thumping against the ceiling and words that Minegishi was pretty sure they didn't want directed at them. Mob, of course, seemed completely oblivious to the whole thing. She held her head in her hands. Her whole body was bright red. It matched the pink of her aura. Not very much blue in there at all.

"So you aren't sleeping with him? Good." said Minegishi. It felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off of their shoulders. Mob wasn't making every single mistake that they had…of course she wasn't. This was Serizawa. He was more of a kid than the actual kids!

"Not like-not like that! I don't even know if he likes me back and-and even if he did I don't know if he wants to do that with me and-and-and we shouldn't be talking about this!" said Mob

"Likes you…oh God. So he IS the reason we've been hiding in the bathroom, then?" groaned Minegishi. Well wasn't that just the cherry on top of the shit sundae that was their life? Mob had an actual THING for Serizawa…why couldn't she just find someone her own age? It wasn't like there was a shortage of teenage boys in Japan…well, they had been under the replacement rate for a while now…but there were still millions of boys out there for her to choose from! Ones her own age! She was at the age where espers usually started to present, too, so statistically she could have met someone…not that they wanted her to meet anyone. If she met someone then she'd have the chance to make so many bad choices…worse ones than she'd made already…

They could kind of see, now, why Suzuki had been as overprotective as he had been.

"No, that's Joseph. Serizawa doesn't make me feel weird like that. We never did anything and that's kind of why I haven't asked him to, I don't want to make things weird and…and please don't hurt Joseph or anything, ok? I didn't want to tell you because I know how you get when boys like me." said Mob

"When boys…you know that Joseph is a grown man, right? And so is…just…there is a LOT for me to unpack here, Mob." Said Minegishi

"Can you unpack it quietly? And without hurting anyone? Or being mean? Because….because I love you and I like being your friend and I wish that I could talk to you about stuff but I can't because you always freak out-" said Mob

"Of course I'm going to freak out! You slept with Joseph. He's got to be at least my age-" said Minegishi, their breathing coming out quick and shallow. Mob didn't notice. Her own aura wasn't anything close to calm. Her voice, of course, was as steady as ever. It wasn't calming. If anything it just served to get them more worked up.

"You're older than him and…and we never did that. His thing wouldn't do the thing it was supposed to do and even if it had I wouldn't have wanted to because of how bad all the other things were…I mean he tried his best but he didn't know what he was doing and…and…and now you're going to freak out, I know you are. Every time I like someone to they like me you just…you just freak out like this." Said Mob

"You want me to be calm? Fine, alright, this is me being calm." Said Minegishi. They took a deep breath and forced their aura into something close to stillness. She was right, their aura had been very visible and moving. Not normal for them. If there had been any plants around they would have turned into a jungle.

"But your aura doesn't look-" said Mob

"This is me being calm!" said Minegishi. There was another thump from the ceiling…that had been too loud. They took a deep breath. Their breathing needed to steady…they needed to be steady. Mob could not…she couldn't deal with them when they were like this. They were the adult here. Mob might have thought that she was the adult here but she wasn't.

"Ok, ok, that's you being calm and…and…please don't hurt Joseph, alright? I hate it when you hurt people." Said Mob

"You hate it when I….fine, fine, fine. I won't be the…I specifically will not lay a hand-" said Minegishi

"Or a plant." Said Mob quickly. Minegishi rolled their eyes.

"Or a plant on him. Alright? But you…you need to just…can't you just slow down for five seconds, Mob? Or at least find a boy your own age?" asked Minegishi with a sigh. Mob looked away.

"I don't know any boys my own age." Said Mob quietly. There were really no espers her age…none in Claw, anyway. Espers presented at that age but they didn't usually do enough to attract Claw's attention…but Mob didn't truly need anyone. She just thought she did. She just thought that she needed love and she was going to go looking for it wherever she could in the only way she knew how. That was just…just how it went at that age…

Or at least that was how it had gone for Minegishi.

"So can you just slow down for five minutes? You don't need a boyfriend. Sure it's nice to have one but you don't NEED one, especially not chain smoking, nosy, can't be left on his own for ten seconds Joseph." Said Minegishi

"I didn't want him to be my boyfriend, I just wanted to do stuff with him…at least I thought I did. He was just so…so bad at it…and I don't know if he wants to again and I know that I don't want to again and it's just…it's complicated and I don't know what to do so I'm going to hide in the bathroom for the rest of my life." said Mob. If there had been a plant around…Mob was lucky that there hadn't been any plants around. Plenty of sunflower seeds, though, all over the ground from the hamsters…but those had been cooked. They were dead…Minegishi reached out into them. Yes, very dead…good. They had been about to lose control. They didn't get to lose control anymore. They were thirty years old. They weren't the kid here, Mob was, and right now she needed them.

"That…is not feasible. We're not sitting on the office floor for one more day, alright?" asked Minegishi

"I can bring some desks in." said Mob. Minegishi slapped themselves upside the head. Of course she could have. Mob reached up and took their head from their forehead. Of course Mob was fully prepared to move her office into the girl's room….well that wasn't going to happen. They could just see it now, sitting in that bathroom for days…hours…weeks…months….

No. That was not going to happen.

"I'm not working in the same place I piss, alright? We're sitting in the office and if Joseph wants to bother you then I'll tell him, nonviolently, to fuck off." Said Minegishi

"Do you have to be mean to him? Do you have to use the f-word?" asked Mob

"If you won't then I will. If you don't want to sleep with someone then you don't have to and…and you don't have to sleep with everyone you want to just because you feel like it." Said Minegishi

"I…I don't get it." Said Mob

"Mob…be smart, ok? This is why I worry about you. Just because you want to sleep with someone that doesn't mean you have to act on it just like just because you see a snack you like that doesn't mean that you have to eat it? Ok? And if you do sleep with someone…can you at least hold off until you're older and less likely to do anything stupid?" asked Minegishi

"Stupid?" asked Mob

"Stupid like have a baby, Mob. You had better not still want to-" said Minegishi

"I don't know what I want, ok?! I mean I know that I want Shoko or Shigeo to exist but I don't want to have them with someone I'm not in love with and…and even if I do have them I don't know if I'll be good at taking care of them or if they'll love me and…and it's just…I don't know what I want, ok? I don't know if I want a boyfriend or to get married because people leave and…and I don't even know if I really like him like that or if he likes me like that and…and there's just a lot that I don't know I and I don't know how to figure it out and it's like…it's like there isn't anyone who can help me…" said Mob

"I'm here. I'll help you." said Minegishi

"But you…you always get mad when someone likes me." said Mob

"I'm still here for you, alright? It's…the whole thing is very confusing and it never stops being confusing, believe me I know, but if you need someone to help you through this then that person can be me." said Minegishi

"Do you promise you won't hurt anyone?" asked Mob

"I guess I have to." Said Minegishi with a shrug. Whether they liked it or not Mob was the one in charge here….the inmate was running the asylum. How in the hell were they supposed to take care of her when she didn't let them…when she had the power to stop them? When she could tell them not to give men like Joseph, men who thought that being with Mob was…was anything….they deserved?

They were going to have to try their best…and maybe figure it out in the morning.

"You do." Said Mob

"Fine, I have to be nice…and you have to go to bed. Now come on, let's have a sleepover." Said Minegishi. This was something that they could do. Stop her from making another in a long list of stupid choices. She didn't know how she felt about him…well they weren't going to give her the chance to figure it out. This was…this was not something that they were going to encourage. Whatever the hell she wanted or thought she wanted from Serizawa. At least they knew what he wanted, a dark place to hide from the world in, and that included whatever Mob wanted. He was more of a kid than she was, after all. At least this wasn't going to be another Ryou situation….

They thanked God for the small victories.

"But we don't fit on the couch together." Said Mob

"No, but we can both fit in your bed." Said Minegishi. It would be a tight fit but they didn't mind. Anything to keep Mob from making a mistake, one of the many mistakes that they had made when they had been her age. They were going to be there for her no matter what, no matter how stupid her choices were, no matter what was going on in that head of hers. They loved her and this was what love was…and if squeezing into bed with her, into a space too small for both of their problems to exist at the same time, was what they had to do then…then that was just what was going to have to happen.

Twin beds were not made for two…but that didn't matter right now.