He read. A weaker student may have given up by now, glazed over the same few sentences too many times, not knowing what came next. A weaker student may have stood and stretched and forgotten, may have closed the book and given up and left. He did not. That would require him being weak. Require him to be like his peers.

He, in fact, had already read this book before. Twice.

He remembered what his father had said: that, as a boy, he too had finished school early, he too had studied to the point of memorization, he too had adored the ruthlessness of court. And often now, seeing his son near pubescence, he added in more secretive, meaningful tones: "Josef, law is no place for romance. Women do not belong in the courtroom - they would be swept away in its merciless rapids. One must learn to separate romance from profession or sacrifice it altogether." Then, realizing he was a bit flustered, he would continue on with little more than a nod at his son's work. The boy was always shockingly absorbed. Once, realizing the book under his son's nose was foreign law from process to language, he touched Josef's steely hair. Fleetingly. Smiling in the slightest when the boy jumped, sputtering polite German surprise, polite German apologies for not having noticed his father's presence; giving a short pat on the shoulder for encouragement. Once, a visitor commented that though he was nearly always studying, "he will make a fine man."

It was true, and Josef flaunted it. Even young as he was, he made for a sight, a slight, intelligent, beautiful boy. His sister fawned over him like a plaything when she visited. He didn't mind that she combed his hair and cooed over his pale skin as he worked. She filled the mostly empty house with a sense of missing life. She spoke in simpler, more colorful words than their father and lazed gracefully, wasting time in ways Josef and his father could never. She was a minor distraction for which Josef was grateful; though he made noises of arrogant impatience, she could see his smiles.

She was there while he read, though pleasantly quiet. She was stretched out along a decorative couch, looking beautiful and coolly bored and doing nothing more. Humming, maybe. Slight lilts of a voice kept catching his ear. It mingled nicely with his reading, and extended study of evidence law; his father was endlessly preaching the importance of evidence law and had given him this book for his birthday the year previous. She was humming - she was singing his name to a wandering tune, enjoying the sound of it. Her eyes were closed in the warmth of the sunlight streaming through a window he rarely opened, bringing with it the cool smell of oncoming autumn. Stray breezes tugged at his pages.

Suddenly she swung upright, long tangles of her hair moving around her face and shoulders. "Josef, Josef," she said, "do you never take a break?"

"Never," he assured her, tone flat with irritation, but smirk and cocked brow saying otherwise. He pretended to keep reading, teasing her for her authority.

"I shall have to see proof of that, little brother," she replied, finger wagging rebelliously in front of the sweetest of smiles. "Come, close your book for just a moment, Josef."

"You will put me behind in my studying."

"I'm sure you don't need to know that the chapter on circumstantial evidence begins on page two hundred and ninety one."

"Two forty-three."

"Ah!" she yelped, throwing her hands up. "You've memorized it already! You're too far gone for me to rescue you!" She dropped bodily to the couch in a fit of drama. Josef, rolling his eyes in appreciation of her theatrics, closed his book with a purposeful noise. He crossed to the couch where his sister had already shimmied to one side to make room for him. Her fingers were deep in his hair before he had even settled in the thin cushions of the thing. She pulled the ribbon from the strands and combed them through with her hands.

"You keep this stuff so long," she said absently. Josef noted that her voice mewled like a cat lying in the sun. "It is so becoming of you."

"It is easier to keep long hair out of one's face." He spoke with the sort of dismissive grace he'd learned from his father, but something just by his lungs swelled. He searched it out and realized it was some sort of pride he'd tucked away long before. "You see how father does the same."

She made a noncommittal noise and smoothed his hair under her fingers. Her hair fell down her shoulders and dangled near his, so close in distance and color that he assumed if it touched it would be impossible to untangle the resulting mixture. He felt breath and touch from his neck to his scalp, and the joy of being admired frightened him in a way. His brain struggled to speak, to gain control.

So he said: "Though if it's nothing but temptation I may just cut it clean off."

His sister gave a soft and genuine gasp of disbelief and dropped his hair limply onto his back. He was just letting a lazy smirk of victory slide into place when he felt soft fingers pinch at the small dip of his waist.

"You little devil!" his sister cried. "Scaring me like that!" She twisted and squeezed his side again, forcing a sharp squeal from his throat and squirming giggles from his whole body. Josef jumped out of reach of her snaking fingers, stumbling onto his feet on the echoing wood of the floor. His sister laughed with a full, tonal sound, like he would expect from a fairytale. They shared a moment of the trusting distrust and happy shortness of breath that always follows tickling and other sibling rivalries. His sister let herself fall backwards in the old cushions of the couch, arms sliding behind her head, eyes closing against as clouds moved out of the sunlight.

Then she said:

"You will make a fine husband one day, Josef. You know?"