~Emil

Song: Count on me... watch?v=yJYXItns2ik

I rolled the die to see where I would land. I got a three and a four, so I moved my piece seven spaces on the game board. I landed on the 'Go to Jail' space for the third time tonight. Tino laughed uncontrollably as I moved my piece to the proper position of the Monopoly game board. Mathias playfully nudged me and cackled with his rich, dorky laugh. Even my older brother, Lukas, giggled a bit, which was a rare sight. My boyfriend, Leon hugged me and chuckled at my failures, while Lukas, being the over-protective big brother he is, stared daggers at him. Leon's first reaction was to stick his tongue out at him, which only agitated him more. He stared at Leon for almost a minute, until Mathias pulled him aside to calm him down. Mathias had been dating my brother for almost a full year, and I thought that they balanced each other out perfectly, like yin-yang, or something like that.

Berwald rolled the die and moved his piece. Of course, he got the best spot on the board. Berwald was particularly good at Monopoly, but not as good as he is at Jenga. Every time we all have game night, we have to hide Jenga from him, he will take a long time trying to get the 'perfect move', and he usually does, so he wins every time. The others and I can hardly handle the stress of playing with him.

Tino was next, he rolled a four and a five and ended up in jail with me. Berwald chuckled and Tino began to throw gameboard pieces at him. Berwald and Tino were engaged and were going to be wed next month. Since that incident made all of us lose our places, we decided the game was over and to move on to the next one. While everyone was trying to decide what game to play, Mathias pulled me aside into his room.

"Mathias, what are you-" He stopped me mid-sentence.

"Shhh! I don't want them to hear us!" he said, pulling two flower crowns, a red one and an electric blue one, and a small, black case out from one of his drawers.

"I'm thinking of proposing to Lukas tomorrow, I just wanted to make sure it was okay with you first, you are his brother after all." Mathias showed me the ring, it was really nice, and it must have cost him a fortune. He really wanted the best for all of us, though.

"Yes" I said "It's just fine with me" Mathias gave me a huge bear hug.

"Really? Thank you so much, Emil! You do think he'll say yes, right?" He looked at me for a while, his eyes sparkled with hope.

"How could he say no." I said, showing a small smile.

His already big eyes grew to the size of dinner plates, he skipped happily back into the living room.

After a few rounds of Just Dance, Tino, Berwald, and Leon went home. It was only nine o'clock, but we were all pretty tired, plus Mathias wanted to get lots of sleep for tomorrow.

Just as soon as I got nestled into bed, Lukas came in. He shut the door and turned out the lights. It was pitch black for a few moments. A dim light appeared around my brother's face. He was doing his magic, I hadn't seen him do it since I was little. He threw his arms up into the air and, soon, a starry night was on my ceiling. Ever since I was a child, I had been interested in space and the universe. When I got older, I wanted to go to school for astronomy.

"It's so...beautiful" I told him, awestruck.

"It is, isn't it?"

"You know, when I get out of school and head off to college, I want to study to become an astronomer, study stars and stuff"

"I will support you all of the way, as long as you name one of your big discoveries after me."

"I am not naming anything after you"

"Why not? Don't you love me, little brother?"

"Oh, God, no." He looked at me, shocked. "Oh, oh, Lukas, I- I didn't-"

"Heh, I see…" He looked so sad, so hurt.

"Lukas, I-"

"I-I think I should go to bed." With that, he lifted his hand up and took his stars back from the ceiling and left.

I hated seeing him upset like that, I had to make things right tomorrow. I just had to.