Something everything could go wrong while you least suspected it.

Suzuki Touichirou preferred to have some idea of when everything would go wrong, that way he could plan accordingly. Usually there was some sort of buildup to everything going wrong. There were whispers of dissent within the ranks, problems within one of the many markets his livelihood depended on, or even just Hatori handing him a phone and telling him he had to see something.

Suzuki wished that he hadn't been seeing this.

He also wished that so many other people hadn't been seeing this. Of course a sight like this would have drawn a crowd. Normal people, mostly, it felt like. That was what this building had housed, or was going to house. An apartment complex of four buildings and a central courtyard. The only thing he had truly designed here was the landscaping in the courtyard. From above the trees, paths, bushes, and sitting areas all would have looked like the Claw insignia. This building was going, was planned to be used for, housing new Claw recruits once the day came. Now…now he had no idea. It had also been a source of income, one that they desperately needed with all of the expansion that he had been working on.

Now it was nothing.

A mass of twisted rubble for the world to gawk at and take photos of. A large crowd…too many people. He stood close to Hatori. Not out of any sense of fear, he feared very little, just…comfort. It was human to seek out the comfort of others, other humans. He hated it, being reduced to his baser instincts like this, but…but this was his existence. Like Shiori had told him time and time again, he was only human, and there was nothing wrong with seeking another person out for comfort.

She had most likely meant herself, though, but Hatori would have to do for now.

"It's happening again!" shouted someone from the crowd. Hatori leaned in close to him. He put an arm around him like he used to have to do for Shigeko when she became frightened. It had made more sense to offer this sort of comfort to Shigeko, she was female after all, and Hatori was also nine years and some days older than her…but this was alright. Hatori was also a very fearful person who was prone to overreactions.

Suzuki couldn't really blame him for being frightened in this moment.

The wind picked up again. That was what had done it, the wind. The building had been so unstable that a stuff wind had managed to shake it as if it there had been an earthquake. Suzuki shuddered to think about what would have happened if there had been an actual earthquake. If this had been Japan then the results…if this had occurred in Japan then none of this would have happened in the first place! The only time a building had ever collapsed in Japan was when he had been the one to order it…or Shigeko had lost control of herself…and then there were always the earthquakes of course…

But never the wind.

"We're all going to die! We're all going to fucking-" said Hatori

"No we aren't." said Suzuki as he put a barrier around the entire disaster area. The pieces of building which still stood had began to shake and shed what looked like, but obviously wasn't, concrete. The last thing he needed was for more damage to be done to the surrounding area. This was going to cost enough to rebuild as it was…and the litigation. He was going to have to get whoever was unoccupied in Claw legal on this.

There went Shigeko's birthday gift.

"Hey, you were right." Said Hatori before reaching into his pocket and pulling his phone out.

"Of all the things…." Muttered Suzuki. If he had been Shigeko or Sho he would have rolled his eyes. Young people. What could have been more captivating than this? He nearly shook right in place as he took in the sight before him. The wind stopped and he let his barrier down. There were some sighs and murmurings from the crowd, as well as exclamations of disappointment. He was not at all sorry to disappoint. This structure had been a thing of beauty…well part of it, anyway. From high above it had looked like a series of dominos had been knocked over. From the ground it looked like nothing more than a waste of money…a lot of money. Billions of RMB….he did some mental math…an astronomical amount of yen. All of it gone. Tipped over. One building after another after another.

Just like dominos.

"Tofu dreg." Said Hatori, not looking up from his phone. Suzuki shook his head. He wasn't in the mood to deal with whatever it was that had captured Hatori's attention now. If whatever he was staring at was truly that captivating, more captivating than the sight of four buildings tipping over and landing on one another, then he truly did not wish to be informed.

"How can you think of food at a time like this? And tofu of all things." Said Suzuki

"No, not tofu, tofu dreg." Said Hatori

"You want to eat the…the leftover products which come from the making of tofu?" asked Suzuki. He wondered if this was one of those 'like father, like son' sorts of things. Suzuki had been told time and time again that his eating habits were downright bizarre. He didn't see how, though, since eggs were a good source of protein and good cholesterol while ketchup was a good source, or a source, of whatever vitamins and minerals could be found in tomatoes. It would have made more sense for Sho…well Hatori was somehow more of a son than Sho had ever been…though how the boy could think of food at a time like this he would never know.

"No, no, that's what people are calling this. They're saying it's a tofu dreg project….at least I think that's what this means. My Chinese isn't that good." said Hatori as he held his phone out so Suzuki could see.

"Well if you actually practiced instead of relying on translator programs then maybe it would improve." Said Suzuki as he took the phone from Hatori.

"I could but that's a lot of work and I already have a lot to do." Said Hatori

"You don't think that you would be able to work more efficiently if you actually spoke Mandarin? And Cantonese is good to know too…and it never hurts to learn, or at least have some understanding of-" said Suzuki

"No, not really." Said Hatori

"Don't interrupt me ever again." Said Suzuki, not at all in the mood for Hatori's childishness right now. Shigeko would have been more on top of things if she had been there. She would have-well he had no idea what she would have done since they had never been in this scenario together and they never would be. She was in Tokyo where she belonged and he was here. It would have been nice to have her around…but a younger version of her. Not the current version of her. Not the one who drank and smoked and did…all sorts of things…with men who she knew were far beneath her. She'd had to grow up, that was nature's way, but did she have to grow up to be the person that she was now?

Somehow the massive building collapse was preferable than Shigeko becoming…Shigeko. Easier to deal with, at least.

"Ok, ok, I won't, but you have to see this." Said Hatori. He reached over and tapped the screen in front of him. The screen was filled with the image of the building complex as it was. Music came pouring from the speakers, some high pitched annoying tune, and then a series of words began to flash across the screen. It took Suzuki a moment to register it as Mandarin Chinese.

Maybe his Mandarin needed work as well.

"There's an actual word for this?" muttered Suzuki. There, tofu dreg. Another tofu dreg project, this one Japanese…and then footage of the building tipping over. First the building shook, then the siding came down, and then it tipped over…into the one beside it…and then that one tipped over into the one beside it and then so on and so forth.

Truly like a game of dominos…a terrible game of dominos.

"Yeah, apparently it happens a lot around here. See, here's another-" said Hatori

"Is it one of ours?" asked Suzuki

"No, this one's from-" said Hatori

"I want any and all footage of what happened here scrubbed from the internet. Do you understand me Nozomu?" asked Suzuki

"I was just about to do that-" said Hatori

"Good, now get to it." Said Suzuki. The crowd was starting to disperse now. The police and emergency services had finally decided to show up. He hoped that anyone inside the rubble was dead, less litigation to deal with. The last thing that he needed were lengthy, foreign, court battles. Well…the second to last thing, anyway.

Right now the last thing he wanted to deal with, needed to deal with, was the crowd.

He could feel people pushing in on him from all sides…very unpleasant. He pulled Hatori close and made his way back to the car. Hatori's head was buried in his phone, his aura as well. Good, he was doing what he was told. If only everyone who worked for him could have done that well. If only all of his children could have been so obedient. If only the rest of the world was made up of nothing but Hatori Nozomu's. Sure, everyone would be about a thousand times more anxious and he didn't think that the energy drink industry could sustain such a demand, plus productivity would go down across the board, but at least the world would be a lot easier to deal with. The people inside of it.

At least, with as short as Hatori was, crowds would be easier to deal with.

Part of him wished that Tadashi had been there. He had always been bigger than Suzuki, even when they had been children, and in crowds Suzuki had taken to clinging to him like a life preserver in the middle of the ocean. The first time they had ever been in a big crowd, Comiket back in 1986 if his memory served, he had spent the entire time pressed right to Tadashi's side, even clinging to his arm at times. He had felt so…so safe…despite the fact that he didn't need to be made safe. Even at that age he had been a powerful esper. He had just…looking back from all that he knew about himself now he had just wanted to be near Tadashi…

That time was over.

He was seeking safety from Hatori, that was all, and it was stupid as well. He took Hatori by the sleeve and led him, forcefully, until they made it to their destination. Suzuki hated it when he got ridiculous like that. He was Suzuki Touichirou, crowds of normal people did not frighten him, and also there was no part of him that sought out Tadashi for anything anymore. He would have been useful in this situation. He would have contacted legal, and the construction people…however many they still had here, and he would have made all the thousand and one other decisions that would have needed to be made to keep this little incident as under wraps as possible. The last thing he needed was for the government, any government, to be looking into him right now. There were also the prying, judging, eyes of the rest of the world. The rest of the world, the esper world, was just waiting for him to make a mistake, to reveal some sort of weakness, and then they would all pounce on him at once. Tadashi would have made sure that never happened and he wouldn't have had to be told.

If he had been by Suzuki's side.

He pulled out his phone. There was nothing stopping him from contacting Tadashi and telling him that he had real work to do now. Nothing but Suzuki's own emotions…emotions which he would exorcise. He'd had lovers before, he'd had relationships before, and all but one had ended. He was no stranger to the death of a relationship, he was even divorced, and this was…this was just that, the end of a particular aspect of their relationship. They'd had intercourse, now they could never do it again, and somewhere along those lines Suzuki had realized that for the past three decades and some years he'd harbored romantic feelings for Fukuda Tadashi. That was over and now…now he had work to do.

So that was what he did.

"Tell Fukuda to fix this." Said Suzuki as he opened the car door for Hatori and slid in beside him. He handed him his phone. He wasn't frightened or nervous to speak to Tadashi, even over text, he was just…a very busy man. He had things to think about, important things, like where he could go from here and there was also Shigeko's birthday, it didn't look like he'd be buying her that theme park after all, and there was her disappointment too that he would have to deal with...he still loved her so even after she had nearly ruined her life…the life he'd made for her…

It had nearly all come crashing down and she hadn't even shown any remorse…

He needed to bring his mind to something more pleasant. He felt his powers reaching into his pocket for his phone….which Hatori now had. For the love of…he was somehow regressing. He didn't need his phone. He just…he needed to put his mind to something else. Shiori was something else…but of course he would have needed his phone to speak to her. Thinking of her wasn't enough. He had to know that she was safe, he didn't fully trust the reports the guards sent him, and he just…he had to hear her voice. Being near her would have been best but right now that wasn't going to happen. He needed to work, to create a world worthy of her, her and their child…if she was even with child…

They could always try again. That was always something to look forward to.

"Uh….Touichirou?" asked Hatori, his aura turned inwards apprehensively.

"What, what? I'm busy thinking…I'm busy. How dare you disrupt my train of thought." Said Suzuki

"Sorry, sorry, it's just kind of…kind of important." Said Hatori. His aura somehow managed to turn further inwards. He was turning much paler, and he was sweating profusely despite the March whether. His eyes were darting around, too, in that way that they did when he was looking for a place to hide…

Great. More bad news.

"Well? Come on, whatever it is can't be worse than what just happened." Said Suzuki

"It's not…um…it's three things." Said Hatori

"The first of which being….?" Asked Suzuki

"Mukai wants to know if you know how to play marbles." Said Hatori. Suzuki wanted to take him and shake some sense into him. Marbles were in no way important…though Mukai was, so he would let this one go.

"Vaguely. Tell her that I'm sure it will come back to me eventually." Said Suzuki with a wave of his hand. Hatori nodded. His aura went down to Suzuki's phone and the sound of the keyboard clicking could be heard.

"Was that it or is there something else that has you on the edge of a mental breakdown?" asked Suzuki

"Uh…Fukuda said 'sure' and that he's on it…" said Hatori

"And that is…all that he said?" asked Suzuki. He didn't know what else he expected from Tadashi. He didn't know what else he wanted from Tadashi. He didn't know why he would have wanted something more or expected something more from Tadashi in the first place. This was what they were and these emotions…they were proving very difficult to exorcise.

"There's also this big spirit thing, the one that eats espers? This Matsuo guy traced it to some school in a rich neighborhood and he thinks that it's possessing a kid and he's worried that it's going to eat him next and that it's too big of a job for one person." Said Hatori. Suzuki had never been the best at reading people but Hatori wasn't exactly a complicated man. Something was bothering him, something was making him shake, and it wasn't the destruction that they had just witnessed.

"What else? And I know that there is something else. I know you, Nozomu." Said Suzuki

"I-I don't know how to tell you this….I mean you already had one heart attack and we're in a moving car…" said Hatori

"That doesn't sound like the preamble to good news." Said Suzuki. If another building had fallen down then he was going to…well he didn't have a concrete plan but he knew that there would be blood. A lot of it. None of it his.

"Uh…Minegishi texted you…." said Hatori. Suzuki sat up. That was…unheard of. He hadn't even been aware that they had his personal phone number in their possession…and even if they did they were still a notorious asocial person…

Something had happened.

"What happened? Where is Shigeko?" asked Suzuki, his mind reeling through all of the scenarios that Shigeko could have found herself in. She could have been captured or…or she could have lost control again or…or she could have been laying dead on the floor-

"There's a guy." Said Hatori

-or she could have been up to her old mistakes.

"What 'guy'?" asked Suzuki, the car swerving dangerously. That had been him. He was going to stay in control…he was not going to kill them all. He was…he was going to take this well. As Hatori had said, he'd already had one heart attack, and Tadashi was all the way back in Tokyo. He couldn't afford to die right now and not over something so…he wanted to call it trivial. He wanted this to be nothing at all. Shigeko was, biologically speaking, a grown woman. Her body could bear a child so that was what it told her to do and…and if he had been her age and there had been a woman willing to sleep with him, literally any woman on the planet aside from his own mother, he would have taken that opportunity….so he couldn't fault her…and it wasn't as though she hadn't already…

He looked out the window. He owned some of these buildings. None were in the process of falling down. A pity.

"Some guy named Joseph, the one who's been bothering her. Minegishi says that Mob had or has or…or something. She had a thing for him, that's the point, and…and Minegishi is worried." Said Hatori

"I suppose they would be." Said Suzuki, not looking at Hatori. If he looked at Hatori then Hatori would expect him to say something…and he had nothing to say. What could he say? He wanted that man dead. He wanted him dead and his body strung up and desecrated as a warning to the other men who would dare even to think about putting their hands or any other body parts on his daughter…but that would further alienate Shigeko…

She already thought that he hated her for some reason. He didn't want to make it worse.

"Touichirou? What, uh, what do you want me to tell them?" said Hatori

"I have no idea." Said Suzuki

"What the fuck do you mean-" said Hatori

"I mean what I just said, I have no idea. What, does your Japanese need work too?" asked Suzuki

"It-It doesn't but this guy tried to fuck Mob and-" said Hatori

"I know that! You think that I can't infer…there is nothing that I can do. I want this man dead, probably more so than you do, and I have the means to kill him…I could kill him myself in an instant if I wanted to, but I can't. Shigeko already thinks that I hate her and I don't want to alienate her further. I do still care for her even though she has proven herself to be a massive disappointment to me in so many ways-" said Suzuki

"That's not her fault." Said Hatori

"She made her choices." Said Suzuki

"She's thirteen-" said Hatori, looking like he was about to rise up out of his seat. Suzuki pushed him back down. That was dangerous. The last thing he needed was another child being reckless with their life. Hatori struggled for a moment but allowed himself to be sat down. Good. At least one of his children had the capacity for rational thought.

"Wouldn't you have made the same choices had you been her age?" asked Suzuki as he let go of Hatori. He looked away.

"Yeah, I guess so…but I'm a guy! It's different when you're a guy!" said Hatori

"Women have the same desires that men do. If they didn't then they wouldn't want to put themselves through the agony and danger of childbirth." Said Suzuki. He didn't like to think about it, Shigeko getting older, and where she would eventually find herself, but time did not stop. He had thought of her growing up and having children in purely abstract terms for most of her life. When he had acquired her at first he had thought to keep her separate so that when she and Sho met he could continue his family line in the best way possible. Masami, of course, had wanted to keep her and then he had amended his plans. He simply wanted to get more powerful espers from her…and then as she got older he put more and more thought, and more and more worry, into the sort of man she would find herself with. At first he didn't care what that hypothetical man would have been like so long as he had been an esper but now…now that the time had come…now he wanted better for her. Of course no man would ever be good enough for her but she could have done better than Shimazaki Ryou and whoever this new man was….

Why did she keep on wasting herself like this?

"Yeah, ok, fine, but when you're a guy it's not like you're ever going to have the chance to-to-it's not like girls, women, are going to want to do that with you and anyway back when I was her age I was an idiot…" muttered Hatori

"As was everyone else on the planet. Thirteen year old boys are not known for their sound judgement. Now where are you going with this?" asked Suzuki

"I'm just…I'm worried about Mob and it's weird that you don't want to do anything about this." Said Hatori

"I do want to do something about this, I told you what I want to do, I want this man dead. I can't. I am…I am stuck, here, between what needs to be done and what will further alienate Shigeko from me. That's what it is to be someone's father, you know, to constantly be trapped between two equally difficult choices…at least when you are a father to a daughter. You'll understand once you have children of your own." Said Suzuki

"…never having kids…not if I have to deal with this." Said Hatori. Suzuki couldn't blame him, no, not one iota. If somehow his future self had managed to send him a message telling him just what kind of grief his children would end up giving him he would have taken a vow of celibacy sometime in his adolescence. Sometimes he wished that he hadn't been Suzuki Touichirou, that his bloodline would have meant nothing like everyone else's, that he could have had a life of peace away from his children…but for as much grief as they brought him they, or at least Shigeko, had still brought him so much joy over the years…

He just wished that he could have gone back to that time, somehow.

"I know how you feel. If I had known then what I know now…I don't know. You're lucky, you know, in so many ways. You don't share my blood. If you choose not to have children it won't be as great of a loss. You're a gifted esper but you're not me…but I do wish to have some grandchildren from you." said Suzuki

"They won't have your blood, though, they won't be your grandkids." Said Hatori in a tone that Suzuki could not place.

"Neither is…never mind. Grandchildren are grandchildren and espers are espers. I am in need of both and…and Shigeko…I hope to God that she hasn't made an even bigger mistake than she has now…she's still so young…" said Suzuki

"Then why don't you get rid of this guy before he ruins Mob's life?" asked Hatori

"I told you once, twice, and thrice now Nozomu-" said Suzuki

"You don't have to kill him yourself." Said Hatori. There was a different tone in his voice and a different look on his face, too. There was also a glint in his eyes that Suzuki had never seen before, though that may have just been the way the light got caught on his glasses.

"Shigeko will know that it was me even if I use the removal squad." Said Suzuki. The glint in Hatori's eyes didn't disappear even as they drove through a tunnel. If anything it got worse. So did the look on his face, or maybe it had just become more pronounced as Hatori pushed his glasses up higher on his face.

"But what if you didn't have anything to do with it at all? What if he died on the job or something? I mean Claw can be kind of dangerous. People get killed all the time…buildings fall over…dangerous spirits eat espers…there was that one guy who didn't know he was allergic to eggs…" said Hatori. Suzuki nodded. So that was what that look was, the wheels in his head were turning, apparently there was a first time for everything…apparently the son could be like the father even if they didn't share a drop of blood between them….

Suzuki would have to look into that last part. Hatori was more of a son to him than Sho had ever been, after all, especially in this moment.

"Yes…you have a point. Accidents happen all the time." Said Suzuki. There was nothing stopping him from assigning this man to the most dangerous work available. You couldn't fight fate, not really. Not when it came to your children growing up or people dying in the line of duty or even when it came to disasters such as buildings falling down…accidents…

Yes. Accidents happened every day…sometimes things could go wrong when you least suspected it…that was just the way that it worked out sometimes.