— In Fine Print —
in which Syo actually makes sure he reads the small, fine print, but overlooks something blatant, and Kaoru's the one who breaks the unfortunate news to him.
Cherry Shimono
does not own the characters. Broccoli and the UTAPRI project owns them.
Kaoru sighed, quietly grumbling at the amount of work he had already received for his first week of classes. A research paper and oral presentation for Science and two stories complete with reactions for Literature (all due in two days) was a lot for a 14-year-old, he believed.
Nevertheless, he pulled a smile as he took of his shoes at the threshold and creaked the door open. Syo's strangely excited voice echoed from somewhere within the house. Kaoru checked his watch. It was exactly four in the afternoon.
Instead of a warm, "I'm home!", Kaoru called out, "Syo-chan, time for your medicine!"
He expected a grumble from his older twin, but instead he was greeted by an unusually hyperactive brother who had a slightly crumpled piece of paper in his hand.
"Look, Kaoru! Look at this!" Syo practically yelled, waving the paper in Kaoru's face. Kaoru could barely make out the heading printed in bright orange, but once he read the word, KENKA, Kaoru knew the rest that followed.
"You never change, do you, Syo-chan?" Kaoru commented with an amused smile. Always such a fanboy. "Did you drink your med—"
"Never mind that for now!" Syo interrupted him with a grin. "Look at this first!"
Kaoru moved past his brother. "Syo-chan, how do you expect me to read it if you're waving it around like that?"
Syo pulled himself together and cleared his throat to tell his brother what was on the paper. "KENKA NO OUJISAMA EVENT—FIGHTING. They're going to have an event, KAORU!"
"I can tell, Syo-chan. Calm down. Did you ask Mom about it?"
"She said yes, of course!"
Anything for this fanboy, after all, Kaoru added mentally.
"Well, that's great. Can I see?"
Syo looked hesitant to hand him the paper for a moment, before giving it to him. Kaoru scanned the paper carefully. Syo was known to skip the finest details when he was excited, even if it was in obvious print.
"Free admission... First-come, first-serve... Well, looks like everything's okay."
"I KNOW, RIGHT?" Syo practically squealed.
"When is this, Syo-chan?"
"April onwards. There's a list at the back. I'm going to meet Hyuga Ryuya for real!" Syo drifted off into his own world.
Kaoru turned the paper. Major cities at Honshu were in it, Nagoya, Nagano, Kobe, Tokyo, Kyoto, Toyota...
"Are you excited!?"
"Yeah, looks like it's going to be a fun—Oh."
Syo's mini-celebration fell short. "What? What do you mean by, 'oh'? Don't use that tone on me, Kaoru! I read all the details and the fine print!"
"Syo-chan, look at the Nagoya date."
"What? WHAT? It's on the 14th of April. What's wrong?"
Kaoru rubbed his forehead. "Syo-chan, the 14th of April was yesterday!"
Notes: A ficlet inspired by pixiv art ID 26112447, by 冷凍みかん (Reito Mikan). Look it up, it's adorable!Original plot involved something about a Kenka no Ouji-sama event, but it did not seem to take place in Nagoya, the twins' hometown—or at least, that's what I understood. I'm not fluent when it comes to Japanese (yet!), so bear with my unsatisfactory interpretation of the original text.