I
Coffee
Tatsuya/Miyuki
The coffee she made, as Tatsuya always insisted, was perfect. An infusion of a sister's wholehearted love was most divine.
Making coffee for Tatsuya has never been a chore. A routine, yes, but never a chore. She found that having to work the kettle in a circular motion helped to calm herself.
Circles, circles. She thought of all the circles they were caught in - the game Maya had them all play for an heir, the reciprocal reaction their limiting bond had, and the circle of life, even. And her own broken circle - love for Tatsuya that simply could not be returned.
Indeed, he was still able to process emotions when they concerned her, but it never surpassed the parameters of platonic sibling affection. Or so she was told.
"Love towards his sister, in other words you, and the desire to protect you."
Sister, sister, sister. It was almost as if the term was invented, just for her, just to put Tatsuya behind an unbreakable wall of glass, so far beyond reach, so far… away… Away from her.
Her control slipped, and the coffee cooled rapidly. She took no notice.
Drip, drip, drip.
It was stupid, really. Why couldn't he have been some other, normal boy who she could have loved without question? Or why couldn't she just suppress those feelings and move on to some other boy, just like those people who date-hopped and changed partners frequently.
Better yet, why couldn't she have ignored everything and fallen for Ichijou Masaki like every other girl? Hell, he'd even fallen for her!
By then, the kitchen and sitting room had cooled to beyond normal temperatures, which prompted Tatsuya to check on her.
She was shaking now, empty kettle thudding clumsily on the kitchen counter.
The coffee had frozen into a block of flavoured ice.
"Miyuki, is there anything wrong?" he asked, pulling her from the counter and onto a chair.
She refused to look at him.
She'd made him worry again, just because she lost control of her emotions and her selfish, selfish desires. And he always had to come in and make sure she was alright - she was wasting precious time of his that could be spent engineering the next magitech breakthrough.
And he was fine with wasting precious time. She was his precious little sister, after all.
"Look at me, Miyuki." Again, she did not, and got up to clear the ruined coffee. A quick look at the jar of roast indicated that she'd just wasted the last of their coffee.
"Miyuki-" he started, before getting cut off.
"I apologise for the mess and lack of coffee tonight, onii-sama. I shall take care of it immediately, please don't worry, onii-sama."
She did not meet his eyes. He frowned.
"Miyuki, it's not good to be overstressing yourself. Clearing the dishes is something I can do too. You should rest."
She ignored him, of course, making to empty the drip filter and frozen coffee into the trash.
"Miyuki." It wasn't often when she'd ignored him as such.
"Miyuki. Miyuki," he repeated, pulling her into his arms, smoothing her hair gently.
"Relax. The relic won't cause us any trouble at all," he told her, breath tickling her ear.
He'd missed the point, she realised. But it was good enough that he was holding her the way lovers did in movies and books.
Perhaps the frozen coffee had granted her a boon, of sorts.
A/N: Well, there we are, a first attempt at anything Mahouka. Of course, one ought to pay their first respects to the fandom by means of some Shibacest, half-arsed, in my case, unfortunately.