"Ne, onii-chan," Tachibana An suddenly spoke up as they were walking home one day. "Doesn't it strike you that Fuji-san is so….feminine looking?"

Tachibana Kippei gave his sister a Look. "What?"

"Mou, but it must bother you," An said persistently. "It bothers me! He's so pretty…I'm almost jealous."

Tachibana wanted to laugh, had the nature of the conversation hadn't been so weird. Instead, he kept a straight face. "It's not nice to talk about him like that, An. He's been a really good guy," he admonished her, with extra emphasis on the word 'guy'.

"But doesn't it bother you?" An insisted.

Tachibana sighed. "No, it doesn't. And it's not as if he purposely tries to be effeminate. Don't you dare open up such a discussion with anyone on this."

An sulked, a little. "Hai, hai."

Tachibana was half-afraid that she would persist, but luckily, she dropped the subject. Because his sister knew him well, and Tachibana could not lie to An without her getting suspicious.

It did bother him. Much more than he could ever admit to himself.

He had been struck by how pretty the auburn-haired boy when they had first met – at the district preliminaries. Of course, it had only been a passing glance, since his intention stopping by the Seigaku group was only to give his greetings to Tezuka, and Tachibana didn't even think about it a second time.

It wasn't until much, much later when Fuji's …femininity….stuck in his mind like a pop song overplayed on the radio.

He had been greatly surprised when the tensai had shown up in his hospital room that rainy rainy day, when he had been expecting no visitors except for his own family. He was also greatly touched.

He had no idea what made him give his favourite grip tape so easily to the tensai. It could be his generous nature. Or it might not be, given that he rarely could bear to part with the things he loved most.

Or it could be that Fuji just looked like a girl so much that he felt that it would be most ungentlemanly to refuse. Even more so, since Fuji was just so….pretty.

And since then, he couldn't get the sweet smile out of his head.

"Maybe he's not really a guy," An suddenly said.

Tachibana frowned at his sister, who grinned weakly. "We're home…."

xxxxxxx

Fuji smiled happily.

After all, nothing was more enjoyable than having dinner with his sister AND his brother.

Even if said brother was scowling.

But at least, Fuji reasoned, he wasn't scowling because of him, for once.

"It'll be rather difficult for you to get a girlfriend, no?" Yumiko questioned him persistently. "I mean, being at an all-boys school. You won't get to meet anyone!"

Fuji chuckled.

Yuuta glared at him, and looked uncomfortably at his sister. "Nee-san, I'm only thirteen! Shouldn't you be more worried about Aniki?"

Fuji Yumiko turned to her chuckling brother. "Well….why should I?"

Fuji stopped chuckling. "Ara?"

"Sou desu ne," Yumiko said in an all-knowing tone. "Fuji receives love letters and gifts every day, even Sunday, and mountains on special days."

Yuuta wrinkled his brow in thought. "True. Hey Aniki, stop using my room as storage space, will you? I actually want to use it when I come back home some times."

"Well, the space in the store room ran out…."

"But stuffed into my pillow cases? That's a bit over it, isn't it?"

"Shuusuke, you know so many girls!" Yumiko said excitedly. "Couldn't you introduce some to Yuuta?"

Fuji tilted his head in thought. "Well, there are these twins…"

"Sugoi! One for each of you!"

"They play tennis…."

"You already have something in common!"

"They're really pretty…"

"Of course, it's you two we're talking about…"

"They're from elementary school still."

Yuuta twitched.

"Ara…" Yumiko trailed off.

Fuji chuckled again. "They were really cute. I went out with one of them once. She was a nice girl."

"She was a young girl," Yuuta said through gritted teeth. "Aniki, you paedophile."

Fuji merely laughed. "She wasn't that young. And don't worry. She was the one who asked me. How could I turn her down?"

"Don't you know anybody from school, Shuusuke?"

"Sa…" Fuji gave it a thought. "The really cute ones are already taken."

"Maa…." Yumiko said, albeit disappointedly. "Shikatanai na."

"Demo!" Fuji suddenly interjected. "I know someone really cute, who's just your age Yuuta! She's not from Seigaku so you don't have to worry about anything."

Yuuta merely twitched and decided his dinner would make a better companion than his siblings. How they got around to discussing his love life, he had no idea.

"Hontou?" The eldest Fuji asked excitedly. "Dare dare?"

"Ne…" Yuuta interrupted, "shouldn't we be more worried about Nee-san, aniki? She's way older. Marriage isn't so far, you know. And you're still not serious about anybody yet."

The other two siblings exchanged a look, and laughed out loud.

Yuuta blinked. "Huh?"

"Nee-san must have forgotten to tell you," Fuji said when he was done laughing.

"Tell me what? …Masaka…you're already going steady with someone?" Yuuta's eyes widened, and he dropped his knife onto his plate.

"Iiya.." Yumiko blushed, and giggled. "Somewhat."

And she exchanged a look with Fuji again, and both started to laugh.

Yuuta felt a twitch coming, but his curiosity overwhelmed it. "Well? Aren't you going to tell me about it?"

"Umm…okay," Yumiko said albeit with difficulty. "But you have to promise me something."

Yuuta frowned. "What? Why?"

"Datte," the eldest Fuji sibling answered, "you might get shocked or something. You have to promise me that you will tell me what you think, and what you are going to do."

Yuuta felt a Bad Feeling surface somewhere in his stomach region. But again, curiosity overwhelmed him, and besides, it couldn't be that bad. It was probably some old ex she had renounced years ago.

"Mou" the Fuji daughter said, and turned to Fuji. "I don't know if I can say it. You say it."

"Yada," the second Fuji refused rather uncharacteristically.

"Nee-san, if you don't tell me right now, I'll put up your elementary school pictures on eBay-"

"Hai hai!" Yumiko acquiesced. "He's actually a friend of yours, Yuuta…"

Yuuta's eyebrows shot up. "Huh? What do you-"

"It's Hajime-kun!"

xxxxxxxxx

"Who was that?" Tachibana asked as he passed his sister who had just slammed the phone down.

An snarled. "Atobe-sama."

Tachibana wished he could sympathize, but he really found his sister's predicament amusing. Wooed with amazing regularity by at least one boy from almost every school in the region – Kamio, his own vice-captain, Atobe from the diva school, Kirihara all the way from Rikkaidai, and Momoshiro from Seigaku – it was just a matter of time before some candidates would spring up from the rest of the other schools.

"Mou!" An complained. "I changed my mobile number but he still calls the house – nii-chan, can we change the house number?"

Tachibana shrugged. "Ask our parents."

"Why won't he give up!" An, still fuming, followed her brother into the kitchen.

Tachibana opened the fridge and dug out a canned drink. "He's Atobe-sama."

"But I haven't paid the slightest bit of attention to him! What am I supposed to do?"

"Hmm," Tachibana opened his can and took a swig. "Maybe if you let him know that you're not available, he'll lay off," he commented jokingly. "Atobe-sama won't take leftovers."

He half-expected his little sister to retort that she loved being single.

"….Sugoi, onii-chan! You're a genius?"

Tachibana froze. "I … am?"

"You're right!" An said cheerfully. "There's no way Atobe will carry on if he thinks I'm attached. He'll see me as a cast-off and forget it. Although," she frowned, "I'm not too sure that I want to be seen that way…."

"Umm…" Tachibana edged out from the kitchen as casually as possible. "Well, uh, good luck to you."

When he was in the safety of his room, Tachibana sighed. Has he just done the unbelievable and put a potentially disastrous idea into his sister's head? Oh well. He wasn't going to interfere. Never. He had a lot of things to do, a tennis team to manage, high school entrance exams to worr-

"Ne, onii-chan, who do you think should pose as my boyfriend?"

Tachibana sighed again.

tsuzuku

A/N: gasp My first attempt to do something which actually isn't a one-shot, has a plot, and has chapters related to each other!

Well, actually this started out as a chapter for my Unrequited series, but for some weird reason, it morphed into this, and suddenly this plot thing just hit me on the head. Oh well, couldn't hurt to try eh?