notes - I wanted to explore the realm of the relationship between Enma and his younger sister Mami. It's not much, nor can I say that I completely like the end result. Hn, anyway, practice makes perfect. This particular relationship is one in which Mami knows her brother is good for nothing and is trying to keep him ignorant from it.
Every day she would go to her brother and ask him to tie up her hair. The candy pink ribbon would hang limply in her tiny fist and she would give him a toothy smile.
Each time he would inform her (in that quiet voice of his) that he had no idea how to tie up hair, and would then direct her to their mother. The first time she had ever asked him, he laughed.
It was because of this first response that she asked every morning.
She hoped he would never bother to question why, in the end, she ran around with her hair blowing freely and untied in the breeze, the ribbon discarded until the next day.
Whenever they talked, she supplied most of the conversation. When silence fell between them, she never took the time to notice that he was comfortable with it, because she would immediately start chatting away about anything and everything she could think of.
It was because he barely spoke that she made sure she spoke enough for the both of them.
She hoped that he would never realize that she repeated the same stories over and over.
Whenever they played, they played together, she made sure of it. Even if he only held one end of the skipping rope and swung while she jumped, and old cherry tree tied to the other.
Even when he could never catch the ball when she threw it, or when he never threw it in the right direction, she would seize the ball first thing in the afternoon after lunch so they could play. She loved it when his throws were (finally) good and her rosy hands failed to retrieve them.
When she beat him at games, she frowned ever so slightly. When he won against her in a game, his small smile was nothing compared to the huge grin that would adorn her face.
He never decided to tell her to stop making him win. He didn't mind being the loser, really, he didn't. But he liked how she smiled for him, anyway.
Whenever the rain turned the world to ocean and the roads to rivers, and thin strips of lightning would illuminate the sky, she could find him curled up under the covers, trying to drown out the booming thunder.
She would crawl in with him, because enduring was never easy on your own. And even if the day had only just started, she would gladly give it up for him.
Soon, her eyes would be closed and she would be dreaming away, the rain lulling her to an easy sleep. She would never see his eyes rest on her sleepy face nor would she feel a bandage-covered hand slowly (awkwardly) pat her on the head.
They would be found snoring away when their mother came to tell them it was time for dinner.
She did not like seeing him come home from school each day with a new wound on his face or a new cut on his knee. Immediately, she would stop everything that she was doing and help him put on the bandages. Her voice would be motherly and she would dote and click her tongue and tell him to be careful next time (because there would be a next time). He would only look at her hands peeling away at another bandage (she's dealt with bandages too many times before) and give a small smile.
Sometimes he wondered if she attended to her own injuries, because the bandages were always done by the time she was finished with him.
The one time he ever asked her if he was a bad older brother, her eyes swelled with tears and she shook her head so vigorously he could only watch in worried confusion. She cried that he was the best brother ever, and that he should never ask a question like that again. What she didn't say was that she felt as if it was her fault, because she always tried her hardest to make him feel like the best brother on earth.
The next day he bought her a glassy cherry hair clip and asked her to never cry again. That same day she didn't notice that she had never smiled so much in her life, nor had she seen anything so pretty as the tiny gift resting in her little hand.
When he gave a tiny smile along with her, though, she forgot all about the clip and took the moment to stare at his young face.
The clip would have to try harder to be prettier against him.
Sometimes she wondered why he was always frowning, or always looked like he was about to cry. Maybe she wasn't being as good of a sister she thought she was, even if she was the younger one.
It only took one scratch of the head and the touch of the clip underneath her fingertips to remind her that she was doing okay for a little sister.
She ran outside to find him playing by himself, and wasted no time joining him so that he would not (never) be lonely.
Then one day, when she woke up, he was not there.
He was not anywhere.
All she could see and hear and taste was white, chalky and plain.
She figured all she would be able to feel would be white too, until she saw the tiny hole in her side, crusted with old blood, a wound that stung with ebbed pain. She touched the clip in her hair in confusion, her eyes brimming with tears as her body shook.
And then her head and her heart throbbed with a sudden sound she knew too well, and she could feel him crying on his side of the universe, her heart breaking with the realization that he was now alone.
She cried too, her tears falling mostly for him.
end.