The television should not have been on at four thirty in the morning.

But it was. The noise of it, the station sign off music, could be heard travelling down the hall from the baby's room. He had a television in his room now, it only made sense. He liked to watch television so why not just put one in his room? It wasn't as though their family was hurting for money. Between what his parents had left him, his salary, and the perks of his job his family got along more than alright.

So Suzuki Yoshio could rest easy.

More easily than his son, anyway. This was too early in the morning for television. The baby didn't know that, though. The baby was only seven months old. He didn't know much of anything besides sitting up, crying, and running his mother ragged. He had no idea what Abi was always complaining about. He was only one baby and he wasn't even mobile yet. When he cried it was either because he wanted to eat, his dummy, or the television. Sometimes he wanted a change, too, but Yoshio would let Abi deal with that.

He had enough to deal with as it was.

Such as the television waking him up fifteen minutes before his alarm. The station sigh off music was playing, and loudly, very loudly. Too loudly. It was annoying. He didn't know how the baby could stand it…or Abi for that matter. She had good taste in music…well she had good taste in everything. Americans had good taste, in his opinion, and his wife had the best taste of all. She could be a bit odd, though, at times but that was just her foreign upbringing. They did things differently in her country. They argued with babies, cried over every little thing, and also left the television blaring at four thirty in the morning while they, presumably, fed the baby or whatever else he needed at this time.

He always needed something.

But that was just how he was, he was a baby after all, and he'd become more tolerable as he got older. He was just a baby and…and well he didn't much want to listen to the television blaring even though the baby liked it. Abi had said, before, that the baby didn't need to think that he was running the show…and he wasn't. His needs didn't come first. He was just a baby and sometimes it was easier to just let the baby have what he wanted…and sometimes it wasn't.

Like now.

If he got up, walked down the hall, turned the television off, and then went back to bed he could get at least twenty more minutes before he had to get up and get ready for work. Forty minutes if he skipped his shower…and maybe he should. He had taken one two days ago and he hadn't gone out drinking with his subordinates or superiors…so he could maybe use those other forty minutes….yes.

He opened his eyes.

The other side of the bed was empty just as he had predicted. Abi was up with the baby. She should have known that he needed his sleep…no matter, no matter. He could never stay angry with her. She was his wife and one did not get angry with their wives…even though they could sometimes be the most…bizarre…and strange person that he had ever met. She argued with him and the baby and sometimes it felt like there was no end to what she needed….but she was his wife and he providing for her as he was supposed to. If his father could keep his mother fed and clothed throughout the entire war and the rationing that came afterwards then he could tolerate his wife's blaring the television or whatever else she wanted to do.

He was a good husband.

And a good father. He was a very good father. He provided his son with whatever he needed. Like this room. His room was right down the hall and it was the same size as what the realtor had called the master bedroom. He had no idea how many tatami mats wide and long this room was, this was a western build and that wasn't how they measured their homes, but Abi had said that the room was perfect for their son. Not too far from their room and plenty of room for his toys and to grow.

And he had been growing so quickly since the day he had been born.

He was trying to stand. The first thing that Yoshio noticed was that his son was doing that thing where he pulled himself up and tried to stand. He didn't have it down yet. Not balance or walking. He could crawl…well he could scoot…and Abi was very worried about that. He had come home twice this week to his wife either shouting at or pleading with the baby to just crawl properly already. To stand on his own. To walk. Yoshio had no idea if Touichirou was meant to do these things yet, babies weren't his department, but if Abi said that their son needed to be walking by now then their son needed to be walking by now. He would always trust her judgement when it came to the baby. She was his mother after all. This was her department. If she had tried to design a computer for him then he wouldn't have listened just like if he told her how to parent she wouldn't have listened. They stuck to their own departments.

Which was why he said nothing as he came into the room.

Touichirou was standing up in his crib, his little hands gripping the bars for dear life, as the television played the station sign off song. He was staring at the blank picture on the television, the test screen, like it was some sort of riveting drama. Abi, by contrast, was sitting there in the rocking chair with her eyes closed and her knees drawn up to her chest. As Yoshio crossed the room he grabbed one of the baby's extra quilts and draped it over his wife. She seemed cold. She always wore such short nightgowns…not that he was complaining. Not about that, anyway, though he would have preferred her to have been awake…and how she could sleep through this he would never know….

But no matter, no matter at all.

"Touichirou. Good morning." Said Yoshio. His son was reaching through the bars towards him. As soon as his little hands let go of the bars he fell and hit his mattress with a bump and a gasp. He kicked his little foot but the crib bumper did it's job and stopped him from hurting himself. Touichirou seemed put out. He picked up his little pillow and threw it. Thankfully it hit the bars of his crib.

Yoshio could see why Abi was always calling him a little eczema ridden potato.

"Don't be that way. You'll get it eventually, don't worry. Just keep on practicing….but maybe not where your mother can see you. You know how she gets sometimes. You really shouldn't let people see you fail like that…what am I saying? You're just a baby. You don't understand me, do you?" asked Yoshio as he got down to the baby's eye level. The baby was staring at him now…and it seemed as though he knew what he was being said. There was an awareness in his eyes that he wasn't sure a baby his age could have…but he didn't know anything about babies. He was the youngest in his family and he and his sister's didn't speak anyway. Babies were not his department, even his own. Abi knew what to do…and she was asleep…but he wasn't going to wake her. She was always going on about how tired she was.

Even though she didn't know the first thing about being tired.

She got up with the baby, too, but she also got to go back to sleep. She only had one baby to deal with. He had more than he could count. He had the people under him, the newbies, his subordinates who needed their hand held for every little thing and then he had his bosses who felt the need to throw a tantrum for every little bump in the road…and whenever he had something to say that they disagreed with. The money was in smaller computers, things that people could use in their homes, not mainframes…there were so many things you could do with them…and nobody listened because he didn't rank highly enough…so he had to sleep four hours a night if he was lucky and lick shoes all day to get another promotion and another and another until he ranked highly enough that he became one of those fools in power….

Hopefully Touichirou, when he got old enough, would end up becoming one of those fools in power.

But right now he was just a baby…a baby who was glaring at him. At least it seemed like he was. He was just a baby and he knew that babies couldn't…well he got the ideas that babies couldn't glare. He didn't know. He had never given much thought to them. They had always just been these tiny little people who had existed out in the world. He smiled at them and waved when he passed them and that had been it. He had never imagined himself with one of these…and now he had one. The whole thing had happened so fast he still expected to wake up in his old apartment all alone…but now he had a wife and a child and a home and mortgage and a job that gave him the money to provide his family for these things and everything else that they would need…

There were so many things that they would need.

School fees for Touichirou. There were kindergarten fees and elementary school fees and middle school fees and high school fees and university fees…and then there were the things that his wife needed. A car…well they would both need cars at some point…and she would need new clothes…she was forever buying clothes…and the baby would need clothes…and Abi would need more art supplies once she got back to it…and there was so much that his family needed….

And he needed to provide those things for them…but first he would need to get some more sleep.

"I don't know how your mother can sleep through that, I don't, but here. I'm turning this off so you can get some sleep. You can get some sleep and I can get some sleep and then we'll all be well rested. How does that sound?" asked Yoshio as he reached into the baby's crib and rubbed his head. There was some static electricity there, probably because his blankets were wool, and that might have been why his hair was standing up like that…or maybe the baby had just gotten his hair….he had always hated his hair.

And judging from the tiny glare he was getting Touichirou felt the same way.

He stopped patting him on the head and walked over to the TV. He turned the knob and the TV went off…and then it went on again. Somehow the knob turned by its self and the television was on…and that was just…odd. He turned the knob again…and this time it went back to the 'on' position immediately. There was a high pitched whine there as the television tried to figure out what it wanted. The little dot, the one that the picture hadn't even finished collapsing into, expanded back outwards and, once again, the station test screen…complete with that awful sign off music….

The baby didn't seem to mind though.

He was standing again. He had managed to stand up and hold himself up with one hand. The other was reached out…and he seemed happy. Well as happy as Touichirou could be at his age. He was reaching out and he wasn't glaring anymore….and Yoshio needed his sleep. Obviously there was either something wrong with this set or the wiring of the house….and he had no idea how their house could have anything wrong with it since it was just a year older than the baby…he'd have Abi call in an electrician or a television repairman or something. He didn't know.

He just knew that he needed his sleep.

"Fine, you win….but hang on. Let me turn this down at least…and let me find a station that's signed on. You can't just stare at the test screen. It can't be good for you." Said Yoshio. He could have sworn that he felt something tugging at his hair…but he must have been imagining it. Abi was asleep and Touichirou was in his crib. He could hear the baby rattling the bars of his crib. Yoshio turned the knob…and this one felt fine. He had to go through all seven channels until he found one. Well one in Japanese. It was going to be a clear day, they were picking up a signal from Korea, but Touichirou didn't need to learn Korean. He spoke Japanese and English…well he would when he learned to speak…and he had no need for Korean. It would only confuse the baby….and two languages was already confusing enough…but if he was going to grow up to do business in the modern world then he would need English.

Though he did wish that Abi made more of an effort to speak Japanese to him.

"Here you are, Touichirou, I hope you like the news because that's the only thing that's on at this hour. I'm going back to sleep. Try not to wake your mother." Said Yoshio. He reached over and patted his son on the head again…and the static shock feeling came back. He would have to see about asking Abi to get the by some cotton blankets maybe. That might have been what was keeping him up at this hour.

Either that or the volume of the television.

As he made his way back down the hall he could hear the volume picking up…and he would need to get a new television for the baby's room. Obviously it was broken. Well there was nothing that he could do about it now. Television repair wasn't his department. Abi could have it taken care of when she woke up…if it bothered her. It didn't seem to bother the baby at all…but he was a baby and who knew with him. He was an entity separate from both him and his wife even though he was half of them. A person that, even now at the age of seven months, Yoshio couldn't understand him…but he was just a baby. Maybe things would get better when he got older, when he became a child, or at least had some way of communicating besides reaching, glaring, and crying. He didn't know. He needed to get some sleep before work.

He'd worry about his son if he had time to spend with him this Sunday or maybe the next. Hopefully at some time other than four thirty in the morning.