“—And I would like to be included from the beginning, in a way where I’m useful and participating and I’m not watching from the sidelines. I would like to do the team thing from the beginning. I don’t mind if it’s small or slow but I want to do something with progress. Or if not that, then tell me upfront so I can have my feelings hurt now right away instead of over a long time.”

“This is really important to you,” I said.

“There have only ever been three times in my life where people acted like they wanted me around. Not counting the adults who get paid to look after me, sorry Mrs. Yamada. The first one, it led to my trigger, so you can imagine how well that went. The second one was the couple of months I spent with the Baltimore Wards, and they don’t want anything to do with me anymore. The third is here. These guys.”

“Well gee whiz, Kenzie,” Tristan said.

She smiled, “Sorry.”

“I like to win my arguments, but you can’t bring that kind of weaponry to bear. It’s just not fair on those guys.”

Kenzie smiled again.

“I’m glad you like us,” Sveta said. “I do want to include you, and I hope this thing works out the way you want it to.”

“We’ll figure something out,” I said.

“We?” Ashley asked.

“I was going to say,” Chris said.

“I’m not trying to step on your toes or insinuate myself into things,” I said. “But if you’ll have me, maybe I could take on a role as coach or something. If you really want to do this—”

I could see the looks on their faces. Yeah, they wanted to do this.

“—then maybe we avoid having you guys go from a mediated discussion in a controlled environment like this to… something more loosely supervised and managed, for the mediation part of things, and we look for a shallower pool to dive into instead, where you can get started in some capacity sooner, we ensure everyone has something to do, but we keep it manageable and small.”

“You’re volunteering?” Tristan asked.

“If Mrs. Yamada is okay with this idea. I don’t see you guys changing your minds, so…”

“It would bring me some peace of mind,” Mrs. Yamada said.

“Mediated,” Rain said. “You’d be babysitting us?”

“Coaching, giving direction if it’s lacking, give you someone to turn to if you need someone to help resolve a dispute. I can’t promise you full time hours, it’d be a secondary or minor thing for me, but… I’m trying to think of a good way to tackle this and this is the best idea I’ve got.”

“Yes,” Kenzie said. “I want to hear more about the heroing stuff.”

“I wouldn’t object,” Ashley said.

“And the shallow end?” Tristan asked.