There were a lot of things that Mob didn't know how to do, but that was alright.

That was what friends were for. Friends knew the things that you didn't and then between the three of you, according to Tome anyway, you knew everything. Mob wasn't sure if they knew everything but they did know a lot. The things that Mob didn't know about, like cooking.

Mob had no idea how cooking worked.

She was as lost in her own kitchen as she would have been if she had been dropped in the middle of some foreign country where they didn't speak Japanese. She could sort of make food but she didn't know how to do the kind of cooking that other people could, the kind of cooking that they needed to do right now.

If making sauce counted as cooking.

"Ok, first we need something purple." Said Tome, looking right at Mob. She nodded. She agreed, purple sauce needed purple foods, that was what made it purple. Or they could have just used food coloring but that was what had gotten them into this. The purple sauce that Rei had bought had just been weird ranch and purple food coloring. It hadn't been right at all. Not even not good just…not right.

It was ok for food to be bad but it at least had to be right.

"Well?" said Tome, a little more loudly than Mob would have wanted. It was still early, they had left Rei's house before her mom had gotten up to make breakfast. Mob liked plain white rice but not as a meal, especially not with cottage cheese and blanched vegetables. Well, she didn't know what blanching a vegetable meant but Rei assured her that it was something bad and she trusted Rei. She trusted both of her friends.

She wasn't sure, though, why they trusted her sometimes. With things like this.

"Eggplant is purple, and ube, and grapes, and…um…I'm not sure what else is purple." Said Mob, scratching her head. None of those things sounded like they went together but then again what did she knew about food. Master Reigen might have known more, she was always getting food. She didn't know if Master Reigen could cook, though, but she probably could. She was an adult and that was what adults did.

Mob felt her phone in her pocket. It was too early to be calling Master Reigen, or anyone for that matter.

"Do you have any of that?" asked Tome

"I don't think that we have anything purple." Said Mob, shaking her head. She had never paid much attention to the color of the groceries her parents bought but she knew that they never bought things like that. They mostly only got green grapes and she had never even seen a raw eggplant before. They got ube rolls sometimes but you couldn't make sauce out of a dessert…right?

Ube roll milkshake?

"I never really thought about it before but there aren't a lot of foods that are purple." Said Rei as she started opening the cabinets. Mostly just rice, canned food, and everyone's cereal. She wanted to warn Rei not to touch Ritsu's cereal, he really didn't like to share, but she decided not to bring him up. She knew how Rei got when it came to Ritsu and she didn't really want to think about things like that right now.

She loved her friend, she loved her brother, but she didn't want to think about her friend being in love with her brother.

"Yeah, when you think about it barely anything is purple…or any other nice color. Nature sucks." Said Tome

"There's always food coloring, I know that we have that. We just made cookies last week." Said Mob

"You made cookies and I wasn't informed?" said Tome

"It was really more of a Sho thing. He wanted to see if he could make food into art but then he wound up feeding most of them to his hamsters and then his hamsters got free and now he isn't allowed to bring his hamsters over ever again." Said Mob

"Sho's here?" asked Rei. Mob shook her head.

"No, I don't sense him. Ritsu either! I mean, um, I mean that they're probably at Sho's mom's house or something. Somewhere. Somewhere far and hard to get to." Said Mob quickly. She knew how Rei got when she was around Ritsu and Sho and Mob kind of got it. Ritsu was the best little brother in the world so of course someone like Rei, someone who was a good friend and creative and smart like her, would fall in love with him. But he was in love with Sho and that was just the way that things were and, anyway, she didn't want to think about her friends being in love with her little brother.

She had barely gotten used to the idea of her little brother being in love with anyone.

"Ok that's fine…cool. That's cool. I'm cool." Said Rei. Tome laughed and Rei glared at her. Mob didn't want to get any deeper into this than they already were.

"Ok, so we don't have any purple food but we do have food coloring. We could go to the store and get purple things, though. There has to be a store opened somewhere." Said Mob

"Too much work. Let's just dye some mayonnaise purple." Said Tome, pulling out her phone.

"But you said that we couldn't use food coloring." Said Mob

"No, I said that we couldn't dye RANCH purple. That's derivative. That's like how Minecraft got big and now everything wants to be a blocky, crafting game even when it doesn't work in the least bit but-" said Tome, her voice getting dangerously loud once again. If she woke mom and dad up on their day off Mob knew that they'd be really mad and if they got mad then they might tell her that she had to stay home and do things around the house or study or something like that. Then she'd be all alone…

Well, she'd be with her family, but it was different than being with her friends.

"I think that we have mayonnaise." Said Mob as she checked the fridge and…yes! They had a jar of mayonnaise….with a note on the lid.

"Dear family, I owe you one jar of mayonnaise, love dad…weird. Your dad calls himself dad?" said Tome as she leaned over Mob's shoulder. Rei leaned over the other side. Mob didn't know what was so weird about this. When you finished something you put it back with a note so mom knew that she needed to get more from the store.

"Yours doesn't?" asked Mob

"Mine does." Said Rei

"Mine calls himself by his name like pretty much everyone else's." said Tome

"You never noticed that my parents call each other mom and dad?" asked Mob

"I don't pay attention to adults unless I have to." Said Tome

"Wait, so yours call each other by their names? All the time?" asked Rei

"Yeah, yours don't?" asked Tome

"No. I didn't even know that my parents had actual names until I was five. My teacher was all 'tell Maya-san the school parade is on Monday' and I was all 'who's maya-san?'." Said Rei

"That is so weird…or maybe mine are just weird. Maybe they've been replaced and I've been living with imposters this whole time." Said Tome, getting that same expression she got every time she thought really hard about something. Mob wondered if they were going to drop their business idea and instead go looking for 'the truth' again. She kind of hoped that they stuck with making purple sauce, last time they had gone looking for the truth they had wound up spending the whole day on Tome's roof.

"There's a zero percent chance that your parents have been replaced with imposters…of course if they had been replaced then I never would have met them so they wouldn't be imposters to me." said Rei

"I think that they're the same parents you've always had. I mean you would have noticed if they had been replaced, I know I would have noticed if mine had been replaced. Actually that would be a little sad…not having my parents anymore. Even if my dad did use up all the mayonnaise again." Said Mob. Tome sighed.

"How do you even run out of mayonnaise? It's a staple food like miso or soy sauce or rice or oatmeal raison cookies." Said Tome

"My mom hasn't been to the store for a while." Said Mob

"Well then we need to think of something else. I mean it's not like we can make our own mayonnaise." Said Tome. Rei gasped and got out her phone. Tome leaned over her shoulder. Mob didn't, Master Reigen had been very clear about personal space. Back when Mob had been little she used to get way too close to people but Master Reigen told her not to, she knew a lot about these things. She wondered if Master Reigen knew what to do in this situation…or maybe she just wanted Master Reigen around because everything was more fun when she was around.

They used to spend a lot more time together…but it wasn't like they never saw each other anymore. She went to the office at least three times a week, sometimes less, but she was busier these days. Everyone was.

"I found a recipe! Ok, all we need is eggs, oil, acid, and salt. It says that we can use cooking oil for the oil and vinegar for the acid." Said Rei

"Or we could always break into the science room-" said Tome

"We have all of that here." Said Mob. Tome's idea of fun wasn't always her idea of fun. Cooking was fun, breaking into places wasn't, and getting in trouble was the least fun part of all.

"For the purple food coloring we can just use red and blue, and edible glitter too if you have it." Said Rei

"We have normal glitter." Said Mob

"Just use that, glitter pieces are tiny. How badly can they possibly mess you up?" asked Tome. Mob wanted to say that germs were tiny and they could mess you up very badly but she didn't want to ruin it. Friends didn't fight with friends, not for real, and not over something as dumb as glitter. The only time she could have seen herself fighting with her friends was if something horrible had happened like if someone betrayed someone…no, she could forgive betrayal…if someone killed someone. Yes, if her friends went around killing people then she would have probably been a little mad at them.

Or maybe mostly freaked out.

She didn't really want to go down that road. It didn't matter, nothing like that was going to happen. They weren't going to be killing anyone, no, they were just going to be cooking. She didn't say anything about the noise or the mess, no, that would have ruined it too. They were having fun and nothing was more important than having fun with your friends.

Her phone vibrated.

Almost nothing was as important as having fun with your friends. Somethings were more…were just as important as having fun with your friends. Like your boyfriend. Boyfriends were incredibly important. She wiped her hands and opened her messages…oh. Teru was telling her 'good morning'. This was a late start for him. Normally he'd just have been finishing up his morning bike ride by now. Was everything alright? She was just going to ask…

One little text couldn't hurt.

"…a little bit of fire could totally work. Hey Mob, what do you think? Mob?" Mob looked up from her phone. Tome and Rei were at the stove now even though the recipe hadn't said anything about fire. She used her powers to move all the knobs into the off position. Tome and Rei weren't allowed to use the stove anymore, not since the time they tried to make caramel.

"My mom said that we aren't allowed to use the stove. Not after the time with the caramel." Said Mob

"See? We have to try again by letting the eggs get to room temperature normally. No fire." Said Rei

"Ok, how about the microwave then?" asked Tome. Mob shook her head. She had tried that once when she had been little. The kitchen had smelled like burnt eggs for weeks afterwards.

"They'll just explode." Said Mob

"Yeah, I've had that happen to me too. Microwave cookery is a lie." Said Rei

"Not if we put them in water." Said Tome

"We should just wait or…hang on, there should be a hack for this. There are hacks for everything." Said Rei as she took her phone out and put the code in.

"Mob, I forgot to charge my phone last night, see if there's a way to microwave eggs without having them explode." Said Tome. Mob nodded.

"I will…but in a minute." Said Mob as she looked back down at her phone. She woke the screen up and hit the reply button….and then got stuck. She had no idea what she was supposed to do now. She could have said 'good morning' too but that was too boring. She could have asked him why he was up so late but maybe that was nosy. She could have told him that she missed him but maybe that was clingy. She could have said nothing but then maybe he would have thought that she was ignoring him…why did this have to be so complicated?

Master Reigen would have known what to do.

She had gone out with plenty of boys before, she knew how they worked. If she had been in Mob's place she would have had the perfect thing to say to Teru, or her own boyfriend since Teru was Mob's boyfriend and Master Reigen wasn't a boyfriend thief. She didn't have to be. She could just go out and get a boyfriend. Like with Serizawa, all she'd had to do was tell him that she liked him and now they were together and they probably kissed and all of that other stuff. Mob had barely even kissed Teru and as for the other stuff…she didn't even know how to tell him 'good morning' so there was no way she could have asked him to do…anything else!

Maybe an emoji?

"Heart and then bone." Said Tome. Mob jumped. The bowl on the counter nearly tipped over. Rei caught it just in time. Mob sometimes wished that she could have been the clairvoyant one. Then at least it would have been impossible to surprise her.

"What?" asked Mob

"Send the heart and then the bone emoji. That's the same Teru you're going out with, right?" asked Tome

"Of course, that's why there's a heart next to his name." said Mob

"Then send him the heart and the bone, or the pointing finger and then the taco and the water droplets." Said Tome

"What are we doing?" asked Rei as she leaned over Mob's other shoulder.

"Trying to tell Teru that Mob wants him." Said Tome. Mob heard something hit the floor. She had done that. She hadn't meant to, it was just-just, it was just too much!

"Tome! You can't just say that! How could you have just come out and said that!?" gasped Mob as she held her phone to her chest. Tome reached over and took it out of her hands. Mob had been holding onto it as tightly as she could have, it was just hard when she was so sweaty. She always got sweaty when she was embarrassed and her friends, her best friends, talking about how she wanted to-to-to with Teru…nobody could know about that! She didn't even like knowing that she felt like that!

"Guys? I think we may need to start again…" said Rei as she turned around. Mob looked where she was looking…yeah, that was a mess…mom was going to kill her. That is if the embarrassment didn't kill her first.

"Yeah, there's no saving that…anyway! Mob, you've got to just come out and tell him what you want. Trust me, if you just sit around waiting for him then you'll be a virgin until the day you die!" said Tome

"Tome! Not so loud, my parents like to sleep in on their days off." whispered Mob as she felt her face heating up. The only thing worse than her friends talking about this was her parents hearing her talking about this with her friends. Nobody needed to know that she felt this way or thought about this kind of stuff or had even heard of this kind of stuff before!

"Don't worry Mob." Said Rei as she put her hand on Mob's shoulder. Her aura was glowing like she was using her powers. Mob felt a little better.

"They're not going to wake up?" asked Mob

"No, there's a good chance that they will. I just meant that you don't have to worry about dying a virgin, there's a nearly one hundred percent chance that you won't." said Rei

"I-I won't?" asked Mob. She wanted to ask Rei what she knew. When would it happen? Where would it happen? How would it happen? Well, she knew how it would happen, she had been through health class and mom had gotten her all of those changing body/you're becoming a woman books. She didn't need to ask who it would happen with, either, since she planned on spending the rest of her life as Teru's girlfriend. She wanted to ask so many other things, though, but she didn't. She didn't know if she could have lived through the embarrassment.

"No, not that I can see." Said Rei

"You will if you don't grow some balls and tell Teru what you want. Trust me, if I had waited for Inukawa to tell me what he wanted we wouldn't have gotten anywhere." Said Tome. Mob nodded. That made sense…but also no sense. Everyone had told her, for her entire life, that boys only wanted one thing and that they would do anything to trick you into giving it to them. Well, Teru had never tried to trick her, and she didn't even need tricking anyway. All he had to do was ask.

So he must not have wanted to do anything with her.

"But I thought that boys always wanted to…um…." Said Mob

"Boys always want to 'um' but they don't say anything about it because they're emotionally immature." Said Tome

"They really are." Said Rei

"See? Rei gets it and she's the youngest." Said Tome

"But I can't just ask him. He might not…he might not want to and then it would be really…awkward." Said Mob. That was a word, not the word for it, but a word. It would have been awkward. Also heartbreaking. She didn't know if she ever could have recovered from something like that. She would have had to spend the rest of her life in her room like Serizawa had….or maybe not for that long…but she definitely wouldn't have been able to face the world for a very long time!

"He's a guy, Mob, why wouldn't he want to? You just have to come out and ask him. So try maybe just the pointing finger emoji and then the ok hand one." asked Tome

"Emojis really work?" asked Rei

"Of course they do. You have to try and keep it short and simple, guys can't handle a lot of complexities like we can." Said Tome

"Oh. I didn't know that. I'll…well, I won't do anything since I don't know any guys. I mean I know Takeshi and Go and the twins but I don't really like any of them. I mean Go's the cutest and all but it's hard to want to do that with a guy who you once saw stick two chopsticks in his noise and make seal noises." Said Rei wrinkling her nose. Mob did the same. She was so happy that Teru wasn't gross like that. He was a very complicated person but at least he wasn't gross.

"Just turn the lights off and have him be on the bottom. Put a pillow over his face for good measure and pretend he's someone else." Said Tome

"Wait…people do that?" asked Mob. Well now she had something new to worry about. What if she did that with Teru and it turned out that he had spent the entire time imagining that she was someone else? Her heart wouldn't just break, it would explode, and it would take the rest of her with it and then she would take the rest of the world with her.

"Yeah, you can do it with the lights on, the lights off, the lights dimmed-" said Tome. Mob wanted to tell her that she hadn't meant the part about the lights, that she was worried about the other part, but she didn't get the chance to talk about any of her fears. Not with one of them coming true. In all the embarrassment she hadn't heard mom and dad's door opening, or mom coming down the stairs, or the kitchen door opening.

But she heard mom shouting at her clear as a bell.

"Shigeko? What are you doing home so early? Why are your friends here and-and-and WHAT have you girls done to my kitchen?!" shouted Mom. Mob immediately looked down. Rei bowed. Tome kowtowed.

"Mom, we were just-" said Mob

"We're worry mom-Mob's mom! I mean-" said Rei

"We throw ourselves at your mercy! Please!" shouted Tome. Mob looked up. Mom was doing that thing where she pinched the bridge of her nose and breathed out really slowly. She was mad…but not the kind of mad where she grounded people, so that was good…Mob looked over at the floor.

She hoped that purple dye came out easily.

"Shigeko…girls…clean this up. Clean this up and then get back to your slumber party, somewhere that isn't here, and then everything will be alright." Said Mom slowly. Mob nodded.

"Yes mom, we'll clean it up and then-" said Mob

"And then I don't want to see you back here until Sunday night." Said mom. Mob nodded. Mom wasn't grounding her but…btu now she was kicked out of the house? But why? Why would mom stop loving her enough to-

"Hana, are we being robbed?" shouted Dad, his voice echoing through the house. Mom rolled her eyes.

"Obviously not, Ichimaro. It's just Shigeko and her friends but I'm getting rid of them." said Mom

"Oh, good. Bring up the wine, the one we got from Costco the other day!" shouted Dad before his voice was replaced with music. The pina colada song…Tome and Rei were laughing…

Oh.

Gross.

"Fine, Ichimaro, fine…girls, I'll clean this up. You just go…I don't know. To one of your houses or have Reigen watch you. Just get out of here." Said Mom before she went into the forbidden cabinet where the alcohol and Christmas candy were. Mob didn't need to be told twice. Her parents were being all…in love. She didn't want to be there for that. She didn't even like thinking about her parents holding hands let alone drinking wine and all the things that happened after you drank wine.

It was wrong. So wrong.

As soon as mom left she cleaned the floor with her powers and almost ran right out the door. She had top clean the floor first, of course, since she knew her mom and she knew how mom hated it when things were messy. She was probably going to be mad about the purple stains but Mob didn't have time to scrub the floor. She had to get out of there, far away, to parts unknown. Preferably while running.

Mob may not have always known what to do but she did know this. Sometimes you had to run away.