Jealousy is an ugly thing

Clare: nodded. "Aww no wonder she loves them. I think so, I mean you have been spending as much time as you can with Emi. No one can be with someone around the clock. It's good for her to have a normal routine and be around kids her own age. I'm sorry about your dad. I can't know what that's like. I've lost grandparents and other family members but it isn't anything like losing a parent. Do you have pictures and videos? So you can least see what he looked like and maybe get to hear his voice? I don't know if that would help or not." Clare winced as Dakota described what Emi's life had been like. It was easy for her to forget how easy she had it with everything that had been going on with her family recently but Clare really was lucky. Both of her parents loved her and had always been there while she was growing up. To the point where Clare used to take it for granted they always would be. Clare gasped and covered her mouth when Dakota got to the part where Emi was left alone for days with very little food. "Why didn't her mom take her to your house or somewhere else safe?" She hardly needed to point out how many horrible things could've happened to Emi. Had Emi's mom just assumed her relatives would find out she was there by herself and take her in? Was this woman even really coming back? Clare would never voice those kind of questions outloud, it wasn't her place. But she couldn't help thinking them. Clare sighed sadly. "Oh. That makes it even worse." Emi had been through a lot for a five year old. No wonder Dakota was so worried about her. If her mom came back, it would be good for Emi in one way but that little girl's world would be turned upside down again. She needed stability. Hopefully Emi's mom could figure out how to give it to her. Clare didn't understand how anyone expected Dakota to be able to do what a grown woman had failed to do. But he was doing a good job against all odds and she assumed his mom was helping him. Clare finally looked at him when Dakota mentioned spending fifth period out in the hallway instead of the library. She smiled. "Okay. Wherever Emi's comfortable works for me. Do you need to do anything else to reduce her fever? Drinking lots of liquids is supposed to be important. The school nurse might keep some Pedialyte on hand or sprite would probably work if she can have it."

Kota: smiled at Clare. "Thank you and no I don't. He was always working, like I said. The only one who knows what he looks like is our mom. She has pictures and always asked us if we'd like to know what our father looks like, but we've always said that if he wanted us to know him, he'd spend time with us on his days off of work. He never really made it a habit to be around us. I don't have any memories of him at all and he died when I was ten. My mom was around all the time so I know it's not just me, my older sister thought my mom kept telling us we have a dad so we didn't feel like he abandoned us or we're from six different guys. I mean that's how we knew we had a dad like mom would tell us she's pregnant, but we still never saw him. He went to the appointments because she'd tell us he's meeting her there and we'll get calls at home from his work, other than that it was like he never existed so why should he exist now when we've completely lost him? It's like saying 'This man is your father, but you'll never meet him since he was too busy working to get to know you' so it's kind of pointless when there's nothing nostalgic about them and even so there's no pictures of him with us or videos of him with us so he's just a stranger that shares the same DNA." he shrugged. "Mom goes to visit him, but we don't. We don't even know what to say to him other than 'We know you're our dad, mom told us, but we don't know what you look like and our only connection is our DNA. We have no memories of you so it's like nothing changed.' he was never in our lives from the beginning so why should he be in our lives at the end?" he asked looking at her. "He died during work and since then we've been getting his pay checks, my older sister is getting a job since I can't and she's giving me half of her pay for Emi. I have to budget it, she's giving me a notebook and I basically have to go to her for the money so she knows I'm not spending it on me. Plus she also wants to know what I'm buying her." he shrugged. Hearing Clare ask about his aunt caused him to sigh a little. "For starters my sister can't have kids and wants them. Imagine knowing you're not going to be pregnant and have your own kids and left with that burden. Then have someone saying 'I no longer want my kid.' how would you feel?" he asked curiously. "And second, no one knew my aunt was even in Canada. Emi was born and raised in Japan. The last time I saw my aunt was when I was five. The last time I talked to her was over the phone five years ago. My aunt was sure that Emi would come to us because the police looked at the emergency contact in the daycare center which was us." he added and looked back at Emi as she slept contently. "She's more comfortable on the floor. She's slowly teaching us the way she lived over in Japan. She makes all of us take off our shoes once we get in the door and put slippers on. My bed is now a bamboo sheet with a very thin mattress over it and I mean the mattress is a few centimeters wide like 4, we have pillows and a heavy blanket. My actual bed is in the guestroom because it's what she's used to. We just didn't change anything else, but we learned how to make dim-sum yesterday and we each have our own dim-sum pots too. Emi loved making hers, she and her mom would make it together since you put the dim-sum in the pot first, put the lids on depending on how many layers your pot is which we used five, the bottom was water so they would all get done at the same time. Emi was the best one since she was the teacher." he smiled at Clare. "I also knew how to cook in a wok, for such a large skillet it's fun to cook in." he chuckled a bit. "We seem to be going to the international market a lot. I bought a thing called bok choy." he chuckled. "As for her needing liquids, she's not used to it. Her body isn't used to our foods yet, our cuisine is more completely different and when we gave Emi McDonalds her first night here since she said it was her favourite, she got a really bad stomach ache so we've been introducing it little by little such as giving her some of our juices that aren't in Japan little by little to where she can drink a cup of fruit punch." he said honestly. "But Emi is taken care of for a cold. She asked for ginger water so I have some for her." he assured and felt his phone vibrate. After checking it he sighed. "We might have to go to a hotel." he stated and looked at Clare. "My sister decided to buy a fruit called durian when Emi told her not to. Needless to say, my sister bought it since someone said it was sweet and juicy. Emi tried to put it back multiple times with no success. The guy picked it out for us and said it was ripe, both were ripe, but when she cut it open, it was the worst think I smelled in my life. Emi, my mom, my sister, my brother Ash, and Ash's girlfriend all barfed from the smell I just covered my mouth and ran outside. Well the second fruit was forgotten and left in a cabinet, it broke when she dropped it and both her and my mom are getting sick from the smell so they're dumping bleach on it to hope it helps. They said if the smell doesn't go away in a few hours, they're dumping more bleach on it along with plugging in a few air fresheners and we're leaving for the night." he sighed. "They should've listened to Emi. She grew up around that stuff.