Fukuda honestly had no idea how to play marbles.
He hadn't really played this much as a kid, being a two player game and all, and he hadn't had many friends until meeting Suzuki. Sure he'd had kids he'd played with but none had stuck with him for very long. That was just how it went when you were young, you were always eager to move onto the next new thing. The next new toy, the next new show, and the next new friend. The other kids he'd known hadn't been good friends anyway, the kind of friends that stuck with you, the kind that wanted to spend time with you…no, the other kids had been happy to leave him to play alone…
But that was then and this was….well he was older, now, and there was no point in ruminating on the past.
"What do I do now?" asked Mukai as she finished drawing the chalk circle on Fukuda's kitchen floor. Outside would have been better for this but it was late and cold, very cold. March was still coming in like a lion it seemed. It would probably clear up by Suzuki's birthday, maybe. He wasn't sure. It didn't matter.
Nothing about Suzuki's birthday mattered. Especially not the fact that it didn't look like he'd be spending it with Fukuda.
"Ok, so now you hold the marble like this…no, no, like this." Said Fukuda as he did the placed the marble over his thumb. He sort of remembered it going like this. He hadn't done this since elementary school, though, very early elementary school. Back when he'd been younger than Mukai was now. He'd had more motor skills than she did, though.
This was shaping up to be more difficult than he'd imagined.
"It's too hard." Said Mukai as the marble slipped off of her thumb and started to roll away. Fukuda picked it up for her and put it back.
"It's not that hard, you just have to try." Said Fukuda
"I am trying! The marble is too-too-too…it's too round! It's shaped like a ball and that's not fair!" said Mukai
"Well, what other shape would it be?" chuckled Fukuda. That seemed to have been the wrong thing to do. Mukai's face turned red and her eyebrows began to scrunch together. Her aura was starting to show, too. Fukuda hadn't seen any pictures of Touichirou as a child but he had seen him frustrated plenty of times…this really was his child.
In looks, if anything, only in looks.
"I don't know! I think…square! That way they wouldn't move." Said Mukai as the marble rolled off of her thumb again. Fukuda caught it for her before it could hit the floor and roll away. He heard Sho turn the page of his sketchbook, a pause formed in the constant sound of his pencil scraping the paper….but then it started right up again.
He didn't want to play.
"Cube shaped, you mean?" asked Fukuda as he put the marble back and positioned Mukai's hand to what he assumed was the right way to have it. He could feel his phone in his pocket…and he left it there. He wasn't clueless, he knew that it would have been downright odd to call Suzuki right now, and about this…well even Touichirou wouldn't be able to rationalize it and that man could rationalize anything from his teenage daughter sleeping around to his son wanting nothing to do with him to…well, to all of the other bizarre things that seemed to follow the life of Suzuki Touichirou. Bizarre sorts of things that he wasn't going to go into now, not even with himself, not with his two children sitting right there beside him.
Touichirou's two children. Not his. Not by blood, anyway.
"It's not a Rubik's cube, Fukuda, it's a marble. We can't play with the Rubik's cube anymore because it makes people fight and Mama says 'no fighting'." Said Mukai, nodding to herself. She seemed to need to confirm to herself that she was right. Touichirou never did that, she must have gotten it from her mother, her actual mother. He wondered if her temper came from her birth mother too. Touichirou had one, Fukuda knew very well that he had one, but it never came out quite so suddenly and there was never such whiplash between periods of calm and periods of anger…at least not that he showed.
Fukuda had seen him stormy, though, so many times…and he should have been grateful that he didn't have to see it again.
"Here, come on, just try it again. See how it goes." Said Fukuda
"But it won't work!" said Mukai
"Come on, Mukai, you're the one who wanted to play this game. Don't you want to win the squid game? Don't you want the giant piggybank?" asked Sho, the constant scraping of his pencil finally stopping. Even in whatever mood he was in Fukuda knew that he could always count on Sho to smooth things over, to make them better. He got it from Masami like he got every single good thing about himself. She would have been so proud if she could have seen her son today…but of course that was never going to happen now was it? She had found herself somewhere in the world where she didn't want him…him and Sho, or where she couldn't have them.
He just didn't know where.
This feeling would pass. He kept his eyes on Mukai. The feeling would pass faster if he didn't look at Sho. There was so much of Masami in him. The shape of his face, of his eyes, just in…in everything. He took after her as he should have. She was his mother. Even kilometers, maybe even a world, away she was still his mother…and she was still Fukuda's…he didn't even know what to call her. He had sworn up and down that they were just friends, the last thing he wanted was for Touichirou to murder him or for Hatori to have the satisfaction of being correct, but friends didn't cover it. Neither did lovers. They were more than friends, more than lovers, they were…less than a couple. Less than man and wife or even two people seeing each other. They were in some kind of grey space that even now, seven years after she had departed from his life, one that he knew that there was no hope of getting out of. Not this year, not next year, and not the year after it. Forty seven…forty either…forty nine…maybe he would have some clarity by fifty. Maybe these feelings would be over by fifty….
Or maybe he would just end up deeper and deeper into them as time went on.
There must have been some kind of math problem or formula or something that could explain it, why he missed her more and more as the years went by. Absence making the heart grow founder. Touichirou would have known the math behind it. Maybe Fukuda could even ask if he ever had a serous death wish, if he ever got tired of living. Not now, no, so far he was just tired. He had a lot of living to do and these two kids to do it for. Sho needed him and it looked more and more like Mukai would need him too. He had thought that Tsuchiya would have been the right person to raise her, on paper she had seemed perfect, but in practice…in practice she was letting the rest of them drag her down and she was taking Mukai with her.
What kind of mother, after all, would have let their four year old watch a show like this? No kind of mother. Certainly not Masami.
"You can do it, Mukai, just try." Said Sho, his pencil still not moving. Mukai nodded, scrunched her eyebrows together, and tried to shoot the marble.
It didn't work out.
"Mukai, here, you can try again-" said Fukuda as he grabbed the marble as it rolled away and put it back. It had been a good attempt….it had just gone sideways. That was better than before. It had managed to stay right on her thumb that time. She just needed to try and try and try again. That was how it worked with kids that age. It was like when he had taught Sho how to swing on his own. He had fallen off so many times, enough times that Sho had gotten a bad scrape on his knee, enough times that Fukuda had been called in to help him. He'd not only fixed his knee but also taught him how to swing and Touichirou…how he had told Fukuda not to overstep….
How the times had changed.
He took Mukai's hand and tried to help her. She didn't take it well. Her aura was bright, now, very bright. Fukuda braced himself. Could a child that young explode? Well…there was always Shigeko and the incident that had led her to where she was today. But Mukai wasn't Shigeko. He had no idea how Shigeko had come to be but he knew that Mukai was nowhere near her level. She'd been powerful, as powerful as some adults, when she had been that small….
But Mukai wasn't Shigeko. He had to remember that.
"I can't do it! I can't! It's not fair and now I'm going to be the old man!" cried Mukai as she threw her marble across the room. There was red, from her, and from Sho as well. The marble was soon suspended in mid air in front of Mukai…not her doing, no, she was still too young.
Sho's doing.
"Why don't you just play the game where you bet the marbles? It's easier." Said Sho, looking up from his sketchbook. He hadn't wanted to play, not even when Mukai begged him. That wasn't normal for him at all. Normally he at least tried to make his little sister happy…something was wrong…
Or maybe he just didn't want to play.
That was always an option. He'd been sitting there scribbling in his sketchbook since he'd came over. Fukuda didn't know what he was supposed to make of it. Sho had said that he was fine when asked but Fukuda knew him, Sho was never fine. The only problem was that he had no reason to not be fine right now. His father was all the way in China, Shigeko had been so absorbed in her work lately that she'd forgotten that she even had siblings, and Claw hadn't made any substantial gains anywhere lately. Asset acquisition had plateaued, there was some kind of trouble with the Chinese real estate market, and the quest to tame the most dangerous spirit discovered so far by man was proving to be fruitless. This should have been good for Sho, he should have been happy to see his father…well, not fail per say, but not succeeded.
They may not have been succeeding in their plot to take down Claw but at least Suzuki's goals were going unfulfilled. That must have counted for something.
"No, no, I want to play for real! I want to play but I can't…I'm never going to be able to play…" sniffled Mukai. The anger was gone from her face, now, and it had been replaced by what looked like a look of pure and utter sadness. One that he had never once seen on Touichirou. It was easier to be there for her, to be around her, when he didn't see how much of Touichirou was in her. Picking apart the little things…it was easier this way.
Easier than playing marbles, anyway.
"You've just got to keep on practicing, Mukai, that's all. It took me a while to learn how to do shit too, like draw, but I kept on practicing and practicing and then I got better." said Sho
"Don't lie. Mama says that lies are bad and she's going to put you in time out if you lie. She will, I'll tell on you." Said Mukai
"I wasn't lying. It really did take me a long time to learn how to draw like this." Said Sho
"That's not true. Caterpillars said that you were always the best artist in the whole world. He said so with his own words." Said Mukai. Sho closed his sketchbook and sighed. His eyebrows came together in that same, Touichirou-like, look of frustration.
"Dad says a lot of shit, that doesn't mean that he knows what he's talking about." Said Sho
"You always were a great artist, even when you were a small child. Your father may have his…problems…but he can be right about some things." Said Fukuda. Masami would have been able to fix this sooner, she would have known just what to say, but Masami wasn't here now was she. It was just him and Sho and Mukai. He was the adult here, he had to be the parent, and a good parent didn't let their son beat himself up over things that weren't true. Only Touichirou could turn what was a God given talent into something that Sho was ashamed of. Somehow Touichirou managed to ruin everything he touched.
Fukuda had no idea why he occupied so many of his thoughts when that was the sort of person he was.
"You're not helping, you know. I'm trying to get Mukai to see that practice makes perfect and you're telling her that you've got to be good at something right away or you'll never be good at it…or something." said Sho
"That's not what I-" said Fukuda
"And I don't like you telling her that Dad is a good person or whatever. Dad isn't ever right about anything and you shouldn't tell her to trust him." Said Sho. The look of frustration was gone and was now replaced by a look of barely contained rage. Fukuda nodded quickly.
"Alright Sho, alright, I was wrong. You're right. So how about I just…keep on trying to get this right? How about that?" asked Fukuda quickly. Sho nodded.
"Yeah, you do it. You know more about this kind of thing than we do." Said Sho
"Well that's because your generation grew up on TV and videogames." Laughed Fukuda, a laugh that he knew didn't reach his eyes. Sho just picked his sketchbook back up again.
"You guys had videogames back when you were my age. You're Dad old, not grandpa old." Said Sho, rolling his eyes.
"Yeah, you're not an old man." Said Mukai, rolling her eyes. At least she was calm. He couldn't fault her or Sho for the eyerolling. It was better than the yelling, anyway.
"Alright, well then let this not so old man show you a new trick. See? You just have to try and knock my marble out of the circle." Said Fukuda as he demonstrated what he hoped was the correct way to shoot a marble. Mukai watched him in what, for her, was rapt attention. Sho didn't look up from his sketchbook. Something was bothering him…and Fukuda got the feeling that it had nothing to do with marbles or Korean television.
"I can do that but you don't look at me, and Sho doesn't look either. I can do that." Said Mukai, more to herself than anything. Fukuda decided to leave her to it. When it came to Mukai his work was done. When it came to Sho, though, it looked like his work was just beginning. He was still hunched over his sketchbook, still scribbling away, and still looking just as frustrated as he was when he started. He'd been wearing that look for a while now. Fukuda didn't like it.
Nothing good ever came from Sho looking like that.
"What?" asked Sho as Fukuda slid beside him on the floor. He didn't look up. He was either engrossed in his work or he didn't want Fukuda to see his face…either way he was going to have to proceed with caution.
"I just wanted to see what you were doing." Said Fukuda
"I'm drawing, isn't it obvious?" asked Sho
"What are you drawing?" asked Fukuda
"A picture." Said Sho, pulling his sketchbook close to his chest.
"A picture of what?" asked Fukuda
"A picture of something that's none of your business." Said Sho. Fukuda bit back his immediate retort. He wanted to tell Sho that he hadn't been very kind or polite in that moment but he knew better at this point. The last thing he wanted to do was make Sho defensive. Once he got into his shell there was no getting him out without a fight, and right now a fight was the last thing that they needed.
"Thank you for not cursing." Said Fukuda
"I just didn't want you to say 'language' or anything like that." Muttered Sho. Fukuda decided to stick with the diplomatic approach. Sho's anger was much closer to Touichirou's than Mukai's. Sho simmered all day and when he erupted it wasn't a one and done thing, no, it kept on going. Mukai at least burnt out quickly.
"Still, though, thank you for that and I'm sorry I pried. I was just curious. It's alright if you're drawing something private-" said Sho
"It's not private!" shouted Sho. The cat jumped down from it's perch on the kitchen table and ran away. Mukai turned to face Sho and put her finger to her lips. She made a loud shushing sound, one that he knew wouldn't help the situation, but one that was adorable nonetheless.
"No shouting in the house, Mama said so." Said Mukai
"What? You're going to tell on me?" asked Sho
"No, Meow-Meow will when he goes to the Cat Kingdom. Now you shut up, Sho, I'm trying to practice!" said Mukai
"Don't tell me to shut up…just because you're little…" muttered Sho as he looked back down at, but did not draw in, his sketchbook. Fukuda decided to keep on approaching with caution. Sho was in one of his moods and nothing good had ever come from Sho being in one of his moods.
"She's just a kid, she doesn't know what she's saying." Said Fukuda
"I know she's just a kid, she's four, I was there at her birthday party. She's four and sometimes she can be mean but that's ok and we still love her and shit like that, ok?" asked Sho
"Ok." Said Fukuda. He was just going to agree. Sho was getting worked up. He just had to let Sho get it out of his system and then they could go back to normal…as close to normal and they could be now. Things had been a lot better, and a lot more normal, when he had been little. Back when he'd been that same kid who said that he wished Fukuda had been his Dad…but that time was over and there was no getting it back. He had to make do with the Sho he had and not the Sho he wished he still had.
"And we're going to keep on loving her even when she gets older and starts fucking up." said Sho
"We will." Said Fukuda diplomatically.
"Even if the person she loves doesn't love her anymore then we'll still love her and it'll be ok no matter how fucked up she is or how much she fucks up or…or shit like that." Said Sho. Fukuda nodded. So that was what this was about. Sho, his love life, and another one of his many missteps. Fukuda held back the urge to tell Sho that it would all get better. He didn't want to be more of a liar than he already was. Things didn't get easier on this front, ever, the problems and worries you had just changed.
"Trouble with that boy you've been seeing-" asked Fukuda. His words were cut short by the hand that covered his mouth.
"Not so loud!" whispered Sho as he jerked his head over towards Mukai. She seemed hard at work trying to shoot her marble but Fukuda got what Sho meant. She was less of a mocking bird than she had been when she had been barely verbal, when she had been two or so, but she still repeated a lot of what she heard. Sho's boyfriend was an open secret. Everyone in the group knew, of course, and everyone knew not to tell Touichirou but only Fukuda knew the full extent of it. If people knew who this boy was, or if anyone ever got a good look at him, then questions were going to be asked…questions that he knew Touichirou would never have wanted answered.
There had to have been millions of boys in Seasoning City but somehow Sho had found the one who was related to Shigeko.
"Trouble with that boy you've been seeing?" whispered Fukuda as Sho took his hand off of his mouth. Sho shook his head.
"I don't want to talk about him and how I fucked up…and how I left…" said Sho
"Sho…" said Fukuda
"I just left him and…and he probably…he's probably so pissed at me. I mean I'd be pissed at me if I left." Said Sho
"He knew that it wasn't a permanent arrangement, living at the Seventh Division, and so did you." said Fukuda. He wished that it had been but Sho, for reasons Fukuda could no figure out, wanted to stay in Tokyo with Shigeko. His life would have been so much better away from her and her influence…though in a lot of ways it would have been more difficult, too. The more time Sho spent with that boy the more attention he brought to him and Shigeko's brother…her real brother. Fukuda knew that if the truth ever got out it would have been devastating but…but part of him wanted Sho to be happy, too.
This was what parenting was, wasn't it? A series of difficult choices that had to be made whether you wanted to be the man who made them or not?
"Yeah but…but I should have said something. I mean I should have at least waited but…but I didn't know if there was time to wait and Shiori could have died." Said Sho. Fukuda bit his tongue and nodded.
"That's true, she could have died. You did…you did a good thing by saving her." said Fukuda, tasting copper with every word. Sho had done a good thing, objectively, and he was a good kid. Shiori was…a woman who needed to be saved and Sho had helped organize the group that saved her. She had been the one to put herself in that danger by stealing Touichirou…but getting involved with Touichirou, but that was neither here nor there. Sho had done a good thing and Fukuda was not going to fault him for that.
Masami would not have wanted that.
"Yeah, I know I did. It would have been better if Dad hadn't been there or…or I mean he saved her and he loved her and stuff…I mean he loves her and it's gross and it's all just…he didn't have to do that. He didn't have to just take it from me and….just…fuck!" said Sho. He pulled his sketchbook over his face and cursed under his breath. Fukuda didn't want to know what could have been so bad that he didn't want Fukuda to hear but he did know that Touichirou deserved whatever words Sho was using to curse his name.
"Fuck! Fuck this and fuck that!" laughed Mukai. She was trying to get a reaction. Fukuda didn't give her one. Instead he put his hand on Sho's back and rested it there. Mukai was alright on her own. She didn't need his help anymore and she had no idea what was going on. Sho on the other hand…Sho needed him. Sho was always going to need him. There was a comfort to that thought, that no matter how many years went by Sho would always need him, that he would be there for Sho…
Somebody had to be.
"You're right, your Dad was wrong to take the mission from you, but you know how he is. He's always underestimated you-" said Fukuda
"He didn't underestimate me, though, he said that I did a good job…he said that I was competent and…and he just…he said that he was doing it for her. He said that and I don't know what to…to think and…and I feel bad about what happened, ok? I feel bad that I had to leave Ritsu and I feel bad about feeling bad that Shiori got saved because I wasn't the one to save her and…and I'm just…I suck, ok?!" said Sho. Fukuda patted him on the back and made shushing noises, the same ones he made when Sho had been little, the same ones that Masami had made so many years ago. Sho didn't stop him.
He needed comfort. At least he recognized that.
"It's ok, Sho, it's ok." Whispered Fukuda
"No it's not! I'm being a bastard and-" said Sho
"You're not, you're right to feel the way that you feel right now. You're right to be upset that your Dad took over your group, something that you left someone you care about a lot-" said Fukuda
"I don't care about him, that's Dad's word for it, I love him. I'm not Dad. I know how to love someone." Said Sho. Fukuda paused for a moment. That was…a lot for someone his age to feel. Sho had said before that he loved his boyfriend but never with that kind of intensity…the sort of intensity that a kid his age should not have been able to feel. He was thirteen. He should have been hanging out trying to kiss girls…or…boys. His thoughts shouldn't have gone past who was cute, who he wanted to make out with, who he had a chance with, and who was out of his league. He shouldn't have been thinking about things like that, he was too young, but Fukuda…he'd been around long enough to know that telling a thirteen year old boy that he was too young for something was pretty much the same as issuing him a personal challenge.
"You do….and it can be a lot, especially for someone your age-" said Fukuda
"What would you know?" asked Sho
"I know that you care about…that you love this person very much and I know that you feel bad because you think that you hurt him. I also think that you're beating yourself up too much over this. What you did…you did what you had to do. If you truly love this boy then he'll hear you out when you tell him that there were…extenuating circumstances." Said Fukuda, choosing his words carefully. He felt like he was on a glass bridge and any step would lead to him falling to his death.
"So…so I should go and see him and explain what happened?" asked Sho, finally making eye contact with Fukuda. He nodded slowly. He knew how Sho looked when he had an idea and he knew how Sho took it when someone burst his bubble…even when that bubble very much needed bursting.
"I think-" said Fukuda
"Yeah, if I tell him…Big Sis won't stop me from going. I mean she'll be upset that I'm going but if I tell her that I'm coming back, and if I take one of those super fast trains, and if I leave before the sun comes up, and if I leave on a Saturday or a Sunday since he goes to school like a normal kid, and if-" said Sho
"I think, Sho, that you should tell him the truth the next time you see him…and that I don't know when the next time WE can get to Seasoning City will be. Alright? I don't want you going on your own." Said Fukuda
"I can take care of myself." Scoffed Sho, rolling his eyes. That had to have been some kind of inborn teenage instinct. Fukuda couldn't remember ever teaching him that, or ever being taught that himself.
"I never said that you couldn't but, like I've said before, what about him? That boy isn't as strong as you, Sho, and if something were to happen to him…a lot of things happen in Claw. In the esper world. All kind things to all kinds of people like…like Shiori. She's nearly my age and very capable but even she got kidnapped. They kept her alive as bate or something but we don't know how long they were planning on keeping her around for and…and I would hate to see that happen again to someone you love." Said Fukuda. He tasted ashes that time, not copper. He didn't want that woman's name in his mouth and he didn't want her anywhere near Sho. She was up to something or maybe just stupid or…or…he didn't know, he hadn't spent enough time around her to formulate a real opinion but he knew that she was like as a person, just long enough to know that he didn't like her.
But Sho did.
Sho cared about her. He didn't know why but Sho did. Probably because he wanted, needed, a mother. Fukuda couldn't be both a father and mother substitute. Sho was just looking in the wrong place, he always looked in the wrong places. Towards his sister and now this woman…but that didn't matter. Whatever kept Sho from doing something stupid. Whatever saved him from himself. That was Fukuda's job, wasn't it? What Masami had asked of him all those years ago? To keep Sho safe.
So that was what he'd do.
"…then what the fuck am I supposed to do?" asked Sho
"You just have to…to wait. We'll get a chance to get down to Seasoning City again one of these days but for now…for now let's-" said Fukuda, his eyes darting around the room. Sho's sketchbook was opened. He had been drawing a picture of Shigeko's real brother…that wasn't something that needed to talk about anymore. They needed to talk about something else…to do something else….
A marble hit him over the head.
"I did it! I got you!" shouted Mukai. She was right, she had gotten him. That wasn't exactly how the game was played but she was happy…and Fukuda…he knew how the game was played, mostly, and what he didn't know he could make up as he went along.
Anything to keep Sho safe.
"Right now all we have to do is play with Mukai, now come on. She's finally got it, let's…let's put a real game of marbles together." Said Fukuda. He sort of lost steam by the end of it but Sho didn't seem to notice, or if he noticed he didn't care. He just closed his sketchbook and went back over to where Mukai was. His heart wasn't in it, that much was obvious, but at least he was trying. That was all that Fukuda could really ask for. Sho was trying and he had dropped it and…and he wasn't in better spirits but Fukuda could fix that.
He had no idea how he'd fix it but he would.