Yumi- because Changing Autumn wasn't depressing and useless enough, I continued it.

Bob-...instead of all your other stories

Yumi- yes.

Bob- (she doesn't even deny it anymore...)

Jinx

You always treated me informally.

All the other colonies, even your brother, treated me with wavering, feigned respect, cussing me out the second my back was turned or like a bomb with no timer; no idea when it would blow, shattering their people's slim chances, and their hopes and dreams of better lives and morals that would never happen in their, nor their great great-grandchildren's lifetime.

I should have called you insolent, disrespectful, hyperactive and every word under the sun and punished you appropriately, but I didn't. I didn't keep you in line like the others. I didn't want to.I never wanted to discipline a child that needed it, instead, focusing on traumatizing the ones who were meek and obedient already.

I didn't want you to be good for me. Anything I wanted you to do was for your sake, not mine.

I shouldn't have expected you to know that, though. I never did tell you.

"No! I don't want you to leave!"

I should have stayed, like I wanted to. But if I did so, would I still be able to logically say that I didn't care any more about this child than another.

"If you go, I-I'll hate you!"

Who was I to call a child's bluff?

"I'll be back to visit you soon, okay? Grow up big and strong, alright?"

I guess that's when I must have jinxed it.

When I arrived back, you'd changed. A lot.

You were no longer a little boy, desperate for my attention. You were almost a grown man, doing everything in your power to get me irritated, to make me crack.

And I'd never got to see the change; I was just left with the product.

"America, I made dinner."

"I'm not hungry."

Please.

"Look, it's a sunny day! Don't you want to eat outside?"

"No, it's to hot. Didn't I say I wasn't hungry?"

Please Please please.

"W-well, what are you writing there; do you need help?"

"God sake! Would you just leave me alone!"

But I still sat by and watched everything fall apart.

I remember that night easily, although, whereas your opinion of the night was a heroic, revolutionary one, my impression was much different.

I had felt the bed weigh down with your mass as you sat beside me. It just showed how tall you were getting; even though it wasn't that long a time ago that you could jump on said mattress and still not dip it with your weightlessness.

I sensed your hand hovering above my head for a few seconds, and I, in reflex, squeezed my eyes tightly shut in hope that you wouldn't realize that I was conscious.

It was late; I had sent you to bed two hours before hand, but, even though I had gone not long after, I was still awake, worrying as usual.

As suddenly as you had waltzed into my room, you stood, abruptly, and I heard you turn on your heel and leave me by myself. A few seconds later I heard the door slam and I allowed my eyes to flutter open.

I was your big brother, was I not? I wasn't to let you wander around in the dark by yourself when God knows what could happen. Because that was my only excuse those days.

So I pulled on something to make myself at least somewhat decent, took my coat of the hook and went out into the night.

Because I couldn't have possibly ruined everything, could I have?

"Okay people, take that box next!"

"Heave hoe!"

Spalsh. Spalshsplashsplashsplash

"Come on! The reds could be here at anytime!"

"Ah, sure they'll think we're natives anyway."

"Yeah, that doesn't mean we won't be charge, moron!"

So I turned on my heel, and left you there.

In the morning, when news of the incident reached the ever eager ears of the newspaper and it landed in all glory on our doorstep, I would feign ignorance and confront you with the paper in my hand, demanding to know if what I had seen with my own eyes was true, as if I hadn't been there at all, crying silently on the docks.

And I knew you wouldn't even bother to deny it.

Why should you?

You knew you weren't my only little brother.

What you didn't know was that you were the only one who was treated as such.

Like family.

And that's why it hurt all the more.

"Hey England. Leaves fall of trees because they don't want to stay the same"

How long did it take you to come up with that philosophy?

"They want to change colour and fall and fly."

You could have been so much worse off, you could have had everything to put up with that all the rest did as well. Cant you see I was just trying to protect you?

"Leaves want to be free."

But then again, things could have been so much better.