A/N: Haha, so I actually received a review, lol. Then I realized I'd actually finished Chapter 2 since forever. Just not edited and uploaded. So I edited it. And uploaded it. idfsjgsdihbsdjfgbd Enjoy. XD BTW, thanks to MemoriesoftheFlame for reviewing! \m/_

And that is the sad tale of how adoptive brothers Kiku Honda and Yao Wang ended up with aprons around their waists and bandannas around their heads, washing dishes in the kitchen of Maid Latte one fine, shining Sunday morn.

"Next time," grunted Kiku, scrubbing a particularly dirty dish rather irritably, "Make sure you are paying attention when I'm talking to you."

"I'm sorry already aru!" Yao was in no good mood either, albeit because he wasn't able to eat even a spoonful of all the stuff he ordered. "Sheesh. You're so demanding aru. You should have brought money."

Since when was it my fault?Kiku, though, did not reply, focusing all his anger on his dishwashing instead. Arguing with Yao would bear no fruit. He was just about as stubborn as a bull, and if you managed to get him mad, well…It was the same for Kiku, actually. Once, their American friend Alfred had called it "Asian rage." Unfortunately, that "Asian rage" was brewing inside both of them at the moment, as the two brothers grudgingly blamed each other for the whole ordeal.

One of the staff members, a somewhat shy maid by the name of Subaru, inched nervously into the room, watching the two as they fumed silently. Pushing up her glasses, she called, "Um, are the two of you okay in there? You have to understand that we can't just let you go without paying, even if Master Kiku is a regular-"

Two annoyed pairs of eyes turned to her.

"Er…Then if you don't need any help, I guess I'll—"

"Aoi!" An exasperated screech resounded from the back room, catching the attention of all three. "What are you doing here again?"

"Oh dear," murmured Subaru, and at that very moment, a rather dainty young girl came to view, curly blonde locks bouncing as she stomped irritably. Her pretty face was contorted into a scowl as she snapped, "What am I supposed to do about it? It's a weekend. And I kind of, um, snuck out again today, so…"

The girl, Aoi, was followed tightly by a frowning young woman in a uniform that was unlike the other employees'. The manager of Maid Latte—Satsuki Hyoudou. "Aoi…You really need to get a life."

"I have a life," retorted Aoi indignantly. "Which I spend going here."

Satsuki was ready to bark out a lecture, but Kiku interrupted, putting down his current plate with mild surprise playing on his face. "Manager-san."

Said woman blinked, all traces of her former chagrin lost. "Oh, look who it is! Kiku!"

"A-and…" Kiku hesitated, eyes wide, and even then, the next name rolled out of him like a careless cascade of rocks. "N-Net Idol Aoi…"

"What? Who's this?" Yao and Aoi happened to bark at the same time. The two gave each other furtive glances.

"Oh, Aoi, this is Kiku," Satsuki immediately introduced, motioning to the Japanese in an apron. He turned ever-so-slightly pink at having to be presented in such an…unusual manner. "He's a regular here at the café."

"I-It's nice to meet you, Aoi-san." Kiku smoothed down his apron and bowed in a rather flustered manner. Yao, however, did not share his sentiments.

"Eh? 'Net Idol' Aoi?" He commented, frowning confusedly. His hands had never stopped scrubbing the dishes, and he merely glanced at the girl disinterestedly over his shoulder. "What's that supposed to mean aru?"

"Yao!" Kiku gave his brother a look that was a blend between astonishment and frustration, sprinkled over with a little leftover abashment. "How could you not know…?"

"Well, I don't, aru, and I'd like someone to tell me!" Yao scoffed. Without waiting for an answer, he turned back to the mundane task of dishwashing.

"Whoops," said Subaru, and glanced over nervously at a rapidly reddening Aoi. This was not the Internet idol with the cute face and playful tactics. This was Aoi Hyoudou in her—well, his—natural habitat.

"You've got some attitude, miss," the crossdresser snapped, giving up on any mere hint of his previous adorable-little-girl façade. Kiku gaped; that voice was…quite unlike what it used to be. But most of all—"I can't help it if you're jealous! Jealous that your precious boyfriend here has other places to focus his attention than some second-rate girl with a verbal tic!"

Wait—

Yao dropped the teacup in his hands, suddenly frozen. The delicate china shattered on the counter, summoning cries of protest from the manager. But Yao couldn't care less. "Wh…What did you just call me?"

"A second-rate girl with a verbal tic," Aoi repeated, triumphant for all the wrong reasons.

"Y-Y-You just called me a girl aru…!"

At that point, the smugness dropped right off Aoi's face, replaced by a pouty look of puzzlement. "Uh, yeah, aren't you…?"

And finally, Kiku could no longer help it. For the first time in ages—or possibly since the beginning of time—Kiku Honda broke apart into rather frenzied laughter.

"Oh my God," groaned Satsuki as the realization hit her. She turned away from the others, massaging her temples. "There are more of you…"

"I'm not a girl! I'm not a girl, aru!" Yao had been screaming for the past few minutes now, clutching at the edge of the sink like he was about to fall apart from embarrassment, if such a thing was possible. Kiku was not quite done laughing, and that only made it all the worse.

Yao's hysteria had by now attracted the rest of the staff of Maid Latte, who were watching awkwardly from behind a rather stricken Aoi. Black Honoka scoffed and snorted ironically, "That's alright; Aoi isn't a girl, either."

And here is where Kiku's laughing stopped abruptly. Usui snickered rather tactlessly from behind Misaki, who smacked him on the arm and proceeded to lecture him about how being amused at other people's shock and disappointment was totally wrong.

Shocked wouldn't really be the word for Kiku, though. Disappointed, yes. Shocked, no, not at all. Which made complete sense, considering the kinds of things he of all people was used to. "Ah, I should have known," he shrugged, and limply took another dish to wash. Crossdressing was a pretty common thing in the industry, after all…Well, at least for Kiku.

Aoi, on the other hand, was not very amused at his secret being distributed like free pancakes to people on the sidewalk. "Hey, you can't just tell people like that!" he snapped, slipping off his blonde wig and reverting back to his "real" self, flustered. "Honestly now, if everyone knew that, do you think I would be—"

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No one was really listening anymore, so Satsuki took the wonderful opportunity to goad the certain other, sulking dishwasher back to work. "Hey, uh, this has been a really…No, I won't say 'great'…awkward moment, but you should really get back to, um…washing now. We'd been having an important events meeting before this, and I'd like to get back to it ASAP."

And, just like that, just as everyone was about to return to the backroom, Aoi was jerked out of his rant. "Did you say events?"

Satsuki groaned. No one else was really paying attention to him; Kiku had gone back to the dishes, his initial perception of the Net Idol crushed, and Yao…Er, Yao had crawled into a cupboard. The rest of the staff had gone pretty much back to the meeting. "Not now, Aoi. I don't want you interfering in—"

"Shush!" Aoi interrupted. A sinister smirk played on his girly face as he eyed the depressed Yao with a glint in his eye.

"What? What do you want from me now aru?" Yao whined, voice cracking in a rather adorable, squeaky, unmanly way. He scrabbled deeper into his emo-hole as the manager and his brother followed Aoi's gaze to him. So pretty in a girlish sort of way, flushed in embarrassment to a shade of rosy pink, so…

Hyoudou Aoi said with a confident note in his candy-sweet female voice, "I have an idea for you, dear Auntie."