The tiny space was filled with young children, filtering between the aisles, examining this and that. The shop's owner only rested an elbow against the counter top from where he watched them, his keen, well-trained eyes jumping around at expert speed as he observed them all. Every single one. To be certain there was no theft going on.

And, while at the moment there was not, there were a pair of thieves in the toy and candy shop.

"Ravan," the younger of the two complained as his brother only continued to fill a big baggie full of candy. "Can't I get a bag? And get my own candy?"

"Do you have your own jewels?"

"No."

"Then what are you asking me for? Go get your own jewels and you can do whatever the heck you want with them."

"Ravan-"

"Shuddup." And the older of the two shoved his brother, rather hard with an accompanying glare. From his mouth, he only spewed, "Go away."

So he did, stomping a bit. By a bit, literally only a few steps before, with his eyes filled with tears, he ran smack into someone else.

"Watch it, you stupid- Kai?" The latter part of this was said with even more of a growl than the first half. As the little boy blinked up into the blue eyes of Haven Dreyar, however, he only grinned. If she was there that meant-

"Marin," he cheered as he spotted her, across the shop, standing beside her father the guild master. Laxus was busy examining the price of a baby doll that Marin was excitedly hoping to take home and become just the best mother anyone could ever to, but both looked over at the sound of the boy's scream.

"Kai!" She was equally excited to see him for some unknown reason that only made Laxus sigh and shake his head.

It wasn't that he hated Ravan and Kai.

It's that he hated his daughters being friends with them.

The youngest though wasn't too bad. And Marin did need friends her own age, so she wasn't constantly being bullied by the older children. Kai was probably the best thing in
Marin's life, currently, and Laxus couldn't hate that.

Too much.

"Hi, Master," the young boy giggled as he looked up at the man. Laxus only grunted though which got a giggle out of the boy.

"I'm gettin' a new baby doll," Marin explained to her friend with her own giggle. Then a thought came to her and, with eyes that looked far too much like her Aunt Lisanna's, she asked her father, "Aren't I? Daddy?"

It's not like he'd drag them both to the toy store without buying them something after all.

"Of course, Mar," he sighed as he handed over the box to her. "Let me go see what your sister wants, huh? You stay with K- You know what? You two come with me."

They had no problem with this as, both examining the cute little baby's face then, they followed her father without a complaint. Laxus, never one to care much for children in the first place (other than his own), tried hard not to make too many faces at the children that filter around the shop. It wasn't easy.

Haven had found herself, of course, very busy arguing with Ravan over by the candy where he'd abandoned his own task of filling a baggie to the brim just to argue back. This usually would make Laxus bark at them some, but at the moment, he was so out of his element that all he wanted to do was get back to it as fast as possible.

"Is that your dad, Haven?" Ravan asked though, considering the man was his guild master, this was beyond obvious. "Ha! You can't even go anywhere by yoruself, can you?"

"Yes, I can! Yes, I can! He's just here because-"

"You can both do this back at the hall," Laxus grumbled to them. "Haven, go pick out a toy. One toy. Then we gotta leave, huh? Before your sister rips this doll out of its box. Marin, I haven't paid for it yet, so don't- Did I tell you two to stop arguing, Haven? Marin, stop-"

"Oh, wow, Master!" he heard then from somewhere else. Great, he'd misplaced Kai….who he wasn't even in charge of to begin with. Sigh. "Come look at this! Ravan, can you buy me this?"

So they all had to go then, across the shop to where Kai had gotten off to. He was standing by the big wall that was lined with different toys ranging from action figures to plastic swords. None of those were his interest though. Oh, no.

Rather, it was a colorful cube that hung on a low shelf, not even in a package. Just resting there with a price tag beside it.

"What is it?" Marin asked as Haven, after seeing, only went off in search of something for herself. Something mature. Sophisticated. Something that would make Ravan jealous because he could never buy because he didn't have a dad that was guild master.

Actually, he didn't have a dad at all.

Haven would have felt sad for him, had she not known how much having a dad truly sucked.

Except when you were being spoiled for no good reason.

Then it was pretty okay.

Still annoying though.

"It's a puzzle cube," Laxus informed the children who were still standing there. "And it's hardly a toy at all."

Ravan sneered then, at his younger brother, before saying, "Then I'm definitely not buying it. Not that I was to begin with."

"But Ravan," Kai complained at this. "That's not fair!"

"It's my money, loser, so it is fair." And, with that Ravna turned to walk off. "Brat."

So Kai only stood there, eyes filling with tears, blurring his sight of the precious cube thing that he'd only just learned about and had no idea what did, but needed then. Desperately.

Though he and his brother had grown up in a poverty stricken coastal town where their main source of fun was hunting or fishing, they'd long since learned the ways of city children. The desires of childhood. The longing of meaningless items. It was a right of passage, almost, to be a big baby as you were drug through the bazaar by a parent, kicking and screaming for this or that. But only because it led to the biggest right of passage of all; eventually not doing that.

Kai had yet to hit the second passage though.

It just wasn't fair. At all. Ravan only had jewels because he went on jobs with the older kids. He could go on jobs too! Honestly, he could. But he had to stay behind at the guild to help Marin. What? Was she going to sit around and sip juice alone? Huh? Is that what the universe wanted?

Or did it just not want him to have his toy?

It felt like the latter.

As she watched her friend tear up, Marin felt that sharp ping of empathy she possessed too much of, balanced by the lack of it in her older sister. And, turning to her father, she said, "Daddy, can we get the toy? I'll put my baby back."

And Laxus groaned because he hated kids, gosh did he hate kids, but he loved his little baby and how could he ever tell her no?

Plus the damn cube was only twenty jewel. A steal, really.

Ravan waited outside the shop for his brother, sucking on some hard candy, watching people pass by. He figured he'd leave with the Dreyar girls and, if not, he'd have to go in after him. But his assumption was proven right, as Ravna felt he typically was anyways, when his brother came bouncing out holding his prized cube in one hand and Marin's in the other. Laxus was busy trying to pull Marin's stupid baby doll out of it's box (they made it so complicated) while Haven only pranced right over to Ravan.

"Shake my hand," she demanded, holding it out, and it caught him off guard a bit as he was too busy focusing on the fact that, apparently, Master had bought his brother his toy. Without any thought, he stuck his hand out and shook hers, only realizing what had happened when he felt a sharp, pronounced shock travel up and down his body.

She'd tricked him! That freaking jerk!

"Ow!" he yelled as he jerked away from her and Haven howled with laughter. If it was that fun shocking stinking Ravan, she couldn't wait to do it with others.

As Haven ran off though, yelling at her father over her shoulder that she was racing him back to the guild (Laxus hardly heard over his own grumbling about the box) and Ravan vowed his revenge after her, he remembered that he had something else on his mind as well.

"Why did you bother Master about buying you that?" he grumbled to his brother as he ran over to gripe at him. "You brat. I was gonna share my candy."

"I didn't want candy," he told his brother though, honestly, later he would be whining for some. "I wanted this!"

And he held his cube, in all it's solved glory, above his head in victory.

"What do you even do with it though?" Ravan asked him with a frown.

"I don't… What?"

"What," he repeated as Marin, still holding faithfully to Kai's hand, looked over quizzically as well, "does it do?"

"Um… Master?" Kai raised his head and lowered his hand then as he addressed the man. "What do I do with this?"

"Huh?" Frowning down at the kids, Laxus said, "You solve it."

"How?"

"You match up all the colors in rows."

"But...but it already is."

"That's 'cause it ain't been mixed up yet," Laxus explained and, before he could do anything about it, Ravan snatched the previous cube away from it's rightful owner and took to doing just that. Kai's complaints, however, did nothing to put an end to it.

And, once the cube was completely and utterly disarrayed, Ravan handed it back to the little boy.

"There," he said with a vicious smile. "Solve it."

But Ravan knew he never would and it was such a low down, dirty, mean thing to do, honestly, to ruin someone else's perfectly pre-solved cube like that! Kai was too sad about it to cry.

So instead, with a look of determination he typically only possessed in regards to his flower bed, the younger boy remarked, "I will."

Back at the guildhall, with her doll finally freed, Marin took to dutifully caring for it as Kai spent a good ten minutes giving his all into rotating and twisting his puzzle cube in hopes of solving it.

These hopes, of course, were misplaced.

"I'll never figure it out!" he cried out in frustration as Marin, with a frown, held her baby doll closer. Seeing this, he only sighed and whispered, "Sorry."

"It's okay," the other child said with a bit of a grin, looking down at her plastic baby then. "You didn't wake her."

"I just wanna figure this out," he told her as, defeated, he set the cube down on the table. "I wanna prove Ravan wrong! But...but I'm no good at nothin'."

"That's not true," she insisted with a frown. "You're gonna be a good papa to the baby, right?"

"Y-"

"Uncle."

And they both tilted their heads back to stare up at Laxus who only looked down at them disapprovingly.

"He can be an uncle to the baby," the slayer insisted and, well, that sounded as good as anything to Kai.

Uncles seemed like a lot of fun. Marin's were, at least.

"But why, Daddy?" Marin asked with a frown. "If I'm the mama then the baby needs-"

"He's," Laxus grumbled with a frown, "the uncle."

Which meant that it was final.

As Laxus went off to take care of guild business (get drunk and bemoan his life), Kai decided to give his cube another go. He was very busy doing that when Mirajane descended upon them with a plate for each of them, with a sandwiches cut into triangles and chips.

"Mommy, look at my baby!" Marin held it proudly up at her mother who only smiled back, reaching down to pat her child on the head. "And Kai's got...a toy, I think."

"It's a great toy," the boy defended with a frown. To Mrs. Master though, he only said, "I'm just not too good at it yet, is all."

"Ooh, a puzzle cube, huh?" Mira beamed at the sight. "That's quite the challenge."

"Did you have one, Mommy?" Marin asked to which the woman shook her head.

"Your Uncle Elf did though, when we were kids, I think, maybe," she said with a shrug. "Maybe ask him?"

"I'm an uncle now too, you know," Kai informed the woman. "To this baby, here."

"Really?"

"He was gonna be the papa," Marin said with a shrug, "but then Daddy said he coudln't be and had to be the uncle. I dunno why-"

"Laxus!" And Mira was off then, to go chew out her husband a bit. "Were you bothering the kids? You let them play how they want to play."

"I'm not having this conversation here, Mira," he complained from his table where Freed dutifully sat at his side, going over different papers with him. "And they can play how they want. So long as it doesn't involve him being the father of her pretend baby."

"You're terrible, you know that?"

"I'm well aware."

But Marin and Kai were back in their own world then which, for the latter of the two, meant throwing his entire attention into the lunch he'd been presented with and giving little regard to anything else. They were in the middle of that when the guildhall doors open and loud commotion began to float around the hall. Nothing bad though. No way. Rather, it was the arrival of Team Natsu.

The most important member of that team, however, was Kai's main concern.

"Erza!" he yelled as she came over to the pair the second she saw them, sporting a wry grin as she approached. "You're back!"

"I said I would be, after all," she remarked as she stood before their table. "Should I presume that you bought and paid for this lunch that you are eating all on your own, Kai?"

"No," he giggled with a grin. "Mrs. Master gave it to me. But I didn't beg for it or nothing! She just wanted to, I think, because she likes me so much."

Erza's disapproving look wasn't enough to make Kai even think about ever paying for thing she could get for free though.

"Where's your brother then?" she asked. "Off on a job, I hope?"

"Haven shocked him with a secret trick hand buzzer thing and now they're fighting out behind the guildhall," Kai explained to which Marin nodded. Frowning, Erza turned then, off to go see about this.

And mainly scold them for not taking jobs nearly as frequently as she did as a child.

How did these children ever hope of purchasing a home if they never saved? She didn't wish to see Ravan and his younger brother out of her home, of course, but in the future, it was only natural that they would choose their own path. Find their own destiny.

How was she, then, to brag about their accomplishments when they didn't have the drive to accomplish them?

It was infuriating.

After Erza left though, Navi came over, having just returned from being on the job with her father and his friends. Before she had a chance to ask Marin where her older sister was, Kai asked a question of his own.

"Do you know how to solve one of these?" he asked, holding out his cube to the older girl. As she slide into the seat at the table across from the two of them, Navi only frowned.

Examining the cube closer, she asked, "Where'd you get it?"

"Toy shop," Kai explained.

"What are you supposed to do?" Navi sent on.

"Match up all the colors."

For a moment, the pink haired child considered all the different ways to accomplish this. She even picked up the cube and gave it a few twists and turns herself. Still, in the end, she only set it down with a shrug.

"Nope," she told the other two, "I dunno how to solve it either. Looks like a pretty boring toy too."

"Yeah," Kai sighed as, cradling her baby in one arm, Marin reached over with the other to pat at his back. "I know."

That night, back at home, Kai was very busy in his room, flipping throat comic books and getting ready for bed when Ravan came in. He was off to shower and was coming to get a change of clothes, but paused then, just to sneer over at where his brother laid on the bottom bunk.

"What are you doing, loser?" he asked as Kai only glared. "Still having solved it yet, have you?"

"I… I'm taking a break!"

"Whatever. You're never going to do it."

"Yes, I am!"

"Bet."

There was a glare going on then and Kai knew what would happen if he spoke his next words, but he did them anyways. Because in the terrible caste system that was brotherhood, you never didn't say them.

Even when you knew that they would be your demise.

"Bet."

And it was on then as Ravan, smiling in victory already, only remarked, "I bet you that before I get back from my next job, you won't have it finished."

"I bet I will."

"Bet you won't."

"And when I do?"

"You won't," Ravan insisted. "And when you don't, you have to… You have to be my arrow boy for an entire month!"

"No!" Kai griped. The title sounded cool enough. Arrow boy. Like a sidekick in a comic book. But it was actually terrible. It meant that, when Ravan was practicing his bow (which Erza insisted he do alongside his sword training), Kai had to go around and collect any arrows that missed their mark. If that wasn't bad enough, sometimes Ravan would purposely attempt to shoot at him while this was happening and it was all just so traumatic.

"Yes," Ravan insisted with a glare.

"Fine! But when I do it-"

"You won't."

"-you have to… You have to take me on a job!"

"Gross."

"One that I can do," the younger boy kept up. "And...and we split the profits."

"You can't do anything."

"I can do lots of stuff!"

"Fine," Ravan said with a shake of his head. "It's not like you're going to ever solve it anyways."

"Yes, I will," Kai insisted. Then, with the determination he usually reserved for eating, he added, "Just you wait."

I was asked for some Remember Me stuff, so what's better than a short little story, huh? Five chapters this time. For those who didn't find it obvious, Kai's playing with a Rubik's cube of sorts, but considering that's named after the man who invited it back in the 70s, calling it that wouldn't make much sense in this context, so puzzle cube it is, huh? This one's gonna be heavy on Bixanna, I think, but most everyone will be touched on from this serious. Now let's fucking finish something again, huh?