Getting Dell to cry is like drawing water out of stone.
He's the kind of guy who who reads the newspaper, curious red hits informative monochrome as he uses his smoking hand to hide Calvin's neverending joyous face while he grips the paper.
Dell never liked comics anyways. Too funny. Dell can't swallow funny. Especially not the corny funny that bends it's back to find every pun and punchline that you cringe at in the Sunday comics.
No, what Dell is looking at is to the right of the trite drawings (though he does feel bad for the artists, Dell hates more than anyone else seeing hard work go to waste) to find something less jolly.
Those comics remind him of stale Christmas cookies.
Which reminds him of Christmas.
Dell hates Christmas, it pisses him off.
(Though most things do.)
And his older half-sister sits across from him at the table that morning, only half-listening to her younger half-brother's half-mad ramblings about the article he's reading while she half-drifts away.
Haku presses her spoon down on the last cheerio, centered in the middle of the bowl. The cheerio bounes on the milk in response, assinging silky white ripples to spread out in all directions.
The article's about a suicide and like fog Haku gently drifts back to bay and for some reason the word "suicide' attaches to her hard-to-attain attention.
Dell lifts himself up, he can't stay in one place for long, he never can, and Haku wonders if it's his own smoke choking him. She'd offer to open a window to encourage new life into their little dying apartment. But Haku hates opening her windows.
By the time his cigarette is lit and he's leaning against the counter, the question falls out before Haku can shut up. She needs to learn to shut up.
"Dell, would you cry if I died?"
He looks at her, and the only comfort he can offer her is an unreadable expression off his ghostly white face and the words, "Don't ask stupid questions like that Haku."
There's a small piano in the corner of their living room and on some fading nights Dell sits on the solitary stool in front of the instrument. But he never plays.
Dell just keeps his sore overworked eyes down-cast on the black and white keys.
Haku wonders if that's all Dell can ever see is black and white. There's no gray in his mechanic world.
She's learned asking questions takes courage and that's like a bank. Safety is a debt she pays.
Nonetheless after some useless figeting at the edge of her sweater and inaudable mumbling she's able to speak.
He can hear her from her little protective bubble rocking back and forth gently in the nook of the place. Her voice is like a feather tickling his ear, so soft but he can't ignore it.
"Dell...p-play the piano for me..."
A heavy sigh is heard and Dell doesn't face her. She can't tell if he's irritated or if he's just not able to bring himself to see the dissapointment consuming his sister's now-long (always-long?) expression.
"Not tonight Haku...I'm tired."
On one of her drunken evenings, she's in her room with her face hidden in a pillow covered with stained tears and unanswered prayers.
Haku begins thinking, and she always looks at her thoughts like an obscure artist does his paintings. Perhaps they're weird and disconnected to a foreign eye, but to her they make sense.
She thinks she is the smoke in Dell's life, and he could move and stay wherever he'd like if she weren't always there suffocating him.
Haku lifts herself off the bed-this place smells like weed and whiskey, it always does-and bare feet land on aged carpet as she manuevers herself across the room.
Haku opens her window.
The breezes rushes in and Haku sets herself on the edge of her window pane. The smell is gone, and when she looks up all she can see is a single white star sinking into the black. She wonders if she can reach for it she can make it bounce sending out vibrations as if the sky were a dark liquid.
Haku takes in a deep breath and closes her eyes. What will happen? Will she hit the ground and feel her bones crush, maybe everything will turn black for her in time.
Maybe she'll finally reach the stars, something could never do in her life-time.
Haku doesn't get the chance as a pair of arms lunge fowards circling her waist and pulling her back in.
Dell and Haku fall on the floor and she can hear his panicked voice forcing her back into reality. "Haku, what the hell are you doing!"
He must've heard her open her window. Which is odd because, Haku never opens her windows.
And now the arms aren't in a position to save one's life but to comfort instead as he rocks her back and forth. Haku doesn't cry because Dell is doing it for her.
Stones are gray after all.
"I'm sorry Dell, I'm sorry sorry Dell, I'm so sorry..." soon her faint apologies are easily demolished by his cursing.
But he forgives her for this mistake, he always does. White can't make gray without black after all. And the next day things go back to normal with one small change. "Dell... p-play the piano for me."
"...Ok,Haku, just this once."
Notes:
I know this may seem a little angsty, but uh don't worry it gets better. And Neru shows up too in the next chapter.
I'm thinking of writing a lemon with her and Dell so I might change the rating to M later. Oooh-la-la~