1. Kindness

Her big brother was kind.

He had one of the biggest hearts she knew and the warmest smile to go along with it. It was just like the one saying: "Kill them with kindness." Of course, her brother was no real killer, but he might as well have been a mass murderer if someone really could kill with kindness. Generous, compassionate, friendly… no matter what word she used to describe that trait of his, he always was in that glorious light.

It was one thing she treasured most about him and something she never wanted to change.

"Gou!" a voice suddenly said behind her.

Gou yelped in surprise and almost dropped the fragile pieces of pasta shells and the bottle of glue in her hands. She immediately turned around to see her older brother standing a few feet behind her.

"What're you making?" Rin asked with one of his bright smiles, "You've been cooped up in your room for hours!"

It was then that Gou realized she'd been extremely absorbed in her work… enough for her not to even hear the door to her room creak open. Indeed, she had been at it for hours from what she saw on the face of the clock. Five o'clock? She started around noon after lunch. Five hours was definitely a long time working on a pasta masterpiece for her school's Open House.

"Rin!" she gasped, clutching her chest. She let out a big sigh and frowned at him after regaining her composure, "Don't scare me like that. I-I'm really busy."

"Oh, come on," he said, laughing while he approached closer to where she sat on her desk, "You're only in third grade. You don't need to work so hard. What are you making?"

Gou glanced back down at her piece of art and realized how much of a mess it was. Five hours of grueling work trying to glue pasta shells on to construction paper was proving to be quite a challenge for her. No matter how many times she ripped off and reglued pieces, the masterpiece she'd created in her mind wasn't coming to life as well as she hoped.

"I-It's nothing," she said, "It's just something for Open House-"

"Really? Let me see!" Rin quickly reached forward around his sister's head and took the piece of construction paper in his hand.

"No!" she cried, reacting too late.

"Oooh," Rin said in awe. He raised it above his head as if he were trying to see if the piece looked better under a different light, but she assumed that it wasn't the case.

Gou instantly blushed a deep red and jumped up at him to retrieve her precious work. No, she knew it was ugly. She knew that even though she'd spent five hours trying again and again, pasting and ripping, cutting and crumpling, her pasta art was turning out far from marvelous. His little oohing and ahhing was just to spite her.

"Big brother, don't you dare-"

"It's beautiful," he said, looking down at her. He wasn't smiling and rather looked like he was genuinely mesmerized.

"Huh?" Gou froze in place and stopped trying to reach up at him. Did he just say it was beautiful?

"It's really nice, Gou," Rin said again, this time smiling and ruffling the top of her head, "It looks even better than what I made last year!"

"…."

She didn't know what to say.

"It doesn't look finished, though," Rin continued, lowering his arm down and pointing to a corner that was uncovered, "Were you gonna put something there or…?"

Gou stared up at her older brother still in a state of slight shock at his praise. He'd always been usually light with her when it came to criticism, putting negative comments in the nicest way he could. It was obvious even if he didn't think his little sister was aware of it. Gou didn't think this time would have been any different and having invested immense effort she didn't want to hear anyone making fun of her work even if it was gently said. However, no criticism or subtly snide comment had come out of his mouth about how randomly the pasta shells were placed or how messy the whole thing looked.

He had called it beautiful.

"Oh, um," she stammered, realizing that he had asked her a question, "Yeah, I was planning on making a flower out of more pasta shells, but I think it'll be too hard for me."

"Oh really? Well then," Rin said, grinning and grabbing the bottle of glue from her desk. He turned to her with determination and genuine excitement in his eyes, "I'll help you out until Mom calls us for dinner, alright? We'll finish this in no time!"

"B-but don't you have your own homework to do?"

"Nah, I can do it later."

Two more hours.

Even working together, it took two hours for the both of them to complete Gou's work of art. Even when called down for dinner, they got away with delaying it by showing their mother how determined they were to finish it. Don't take too long, she'd said at 5:15 and they ended up taking a hundred and twenty minutes. Well, at least they were now finished.

"Alright, it looks like it's finally done," Rin said, holding out the construction paper full of pasta shells and paint out in front of them.

They both admired it, discerning every last detail and assessing the results of their hard work. It was still as messy as a dump heap, as color clashing as a spilled box of crayons, and the flower ended up looking like rolls of bread. But oddly enough… Gou was more than satisfied with it. They'd done it together.

"Thank you… big brother," she said, smiling up at him.

"No problem, Gou," Rin said, grinning right back at her, "It's beautiful, don't you think?"

"Mhmm!"

"Come on, let's go get some dinner now. I'm starving!" he cheered, setting the paper down, grabbing Gou's wrist and dragging her out the room. She was startled by his sudden change of objectives, but softly smiled and let him guide her down the steps to the kitchen. After all, he'd put off dinner and his own homework to help her with her precious project.

If it were one thing about him she didn't want to ever change… it would have been his big heart.

Her big brother was kind.

FUUUU I love the Matsuoka siblings so much that it hurts. I don't ship them in that way but their relationship has so much room to develop and I can't help but love them together.

Anyway, I really hope I kept them in character even though there are only two episodes out haha. I was a little iffy about putting this up since I might be doing something wrong, but I couldn't help but want to put something up for Free! It's been taking over my life for the last few months sigh.

However, even with that said and like my other stories, the first chapter is always a pilot to see if what I plan on writing is something people would want to read. So, if you liked this, please don't hesitate to review/fav/alert! Any kind of feedback is always a good motivator to keep on updating. :)

Thanks for reading! Until next time~