Author's Note: I love this anime soooo badly. If there was ever an anime to get me out of the 48 obsession, this was it. :P This is written to prove the point that 1) Ui is the greatest little sister EVER and I want her, and 2) it is challenging but not impossible to write a fic with lots of speech and not use the word 'said' or 'says'. ^^ Enjoy!
A RAINY DAY
"Uuuuiiiii~!"
Ui pokes her head out the kitchen at the familiar hybrid of a wail and a groan, to find her beloved sister slumped against the window. She smiles fondly.
"What's up, O-nee-chan?"
Yui tears her forehead away from the window pane, revealing a perfectly circular mark from where it's been plastered there for the past hour. She gives Ui a folorn look.
"It's raining," she announces, dejectedly.
"I can see that, O-nee-chan," Ui shuts the oven door on a tray of cakes she's been baking, knowing that she won't be left alone for a while now, and joins Yui at the window.
It is indeed raining.
It is raining as if it hasn't rained for a century.
It is raining as if the Gods up there haven't got anything better to do than make it pour down and laugh at the innocent civilians getting drenched.
It is raining so hard that the wisest option is to cower at home, and not even bother hoping that an umbrella might suffice, as Yui points out gloomily.
"And I was going to go to that new cake shop today," she pouts.
Ui's heart goes out to her disappointed sister. She hates seeing her upset.
"Well, we'll just have to find something else to do, O-nee-chan," she tries to cheer her up. "There's lots we can do here, at home."
"Like what?" Yui asks, mournfully.
"Like playing Mahjong!" Ui suggests brightly. "I found an old set in the attic the other day."
"Oooh!" Yui's eyes resemble the full moon, sparkling with newfound excitement. "That's so cool!"
A moment later, Ui watches in satisfaction as Yui sits with her legs buried under the blankets of the heated table, happily running her hand across the small bamboo tiles.
"Don't you just love that sound?" Yui smiles blissfully. "The clacking and the clinking as they bump together …"
Ui nods and lets her clack and clink the tiles a little longer.
"Shall we start actually playing with them, O-nee-chan?" she then suggests tentatively.
"Okay," Yui surrenders the tiles reluctantly.
Ui starts building the wall of tiles.
Suddenly, Yui frowns and displays a surprising amount of intuitiveness.
"Hey, Ui," she muses, "don't you need four players for Mahjong?"
Ui is delighted. "Yes, technically, but if we change a few rules we can play with just the two of us."
"Oh, that's okay, then," Yui relaxes, stretching her feet out and accidently brushing Ui's under the table.
There's a comfortable silence as Ui puts down the last few tiles, which gradually turns uncomfortable as Yui starts fidgeting worriedly.
"Um, Ui," she confesses at last, in her ditzy way. "How do you play Mahjong?"
"You mean, you don't know?" Ui cries in shock.
Yui laughs embarrassedly.
Ui sighs. Perhaps this wouldn't be as good an idea as she had originally thought.
"… and so then you say 'kan!' and put the four tiles together with your pons and take an extra tile from the other end of the wall, as you now can't make three runs of three tiles and a pair – because you've got the four – so you need the extra tile to make your final set still possible. Oh, but now you will have fourteen tiles, and you'll finish with fifteen in your ron, instead of having thirteen tiles and finishing with fourteen," Ui finishes her explanation and looks up from the tiles to her sister.
She frowns. "O-nee-chan, are you all right?"
Yui sways slightly, looking rather dizzy.
"Ui," she croaks, "I think my head is dying …"
Five minutes later, the Mahjong tiles abandoned, Ui and Yui are lying under the heated table and staring at the ceiling.
"Uuuiii?"
"Yes, O-nee-chan?"
Yui sighs. "I'm bored. And I'm hungry." She sniffs sadly. "I wish we could have gone to that cake shop."
Ui sits up and glances at the clock. She smiles.
"Well, O-nee-chan," she gets to her feet and disappears into the kitchen. "I know something just as good."
"Something just as good as the new cake shop?" Yui perks up hopefully.
Ui returns bearing the tray of cakes fresh from the oven.
"Would these do?" she asks shyly.
"Uuuuiii!" cries Yui happily, throwing her arms around her and nearly toppling the prized patisserie to the carpet. "I love you, Ui!"
Ui blushes and steps back as Yui falls rapturously on the cakes.
"Whatever makes you happy, O-nee-chan," she beams.