A/N: My sincerest thanks to everyone who has reviewed these attempts of mine to ponder and wonder about the potential worlds and possibilities present in Ore no Imouto. I do not own the light novels, nor the characters. Which is probably for the best since I wouldn't know what to do with such awesome responsibility anyway. :)

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Four Times Kirino Kousaka Becomes An Aunt and One Time She Becomes A Mother

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1. When Kirino first knew about her brother and the 'Plain Girl' as she always derisively refers to Manami, she was still a young girl, barely entering elementary school, still believing if she chased after her beloved Onii-chan fast enough he wouldn't leave her behind. As she grew older with the two, she always hoped in the back of her mind that he would never choose the glasses wearing young woman over her, especially once he learned of her Otaku leanings. But it is all for nothing. And despite her wishes, one day he announces to their parents that he is dating Manami. She is too internally distraught to see the glimmer of resignation in his eyes as their mother stands up to hug the two and gush over having her son finally make it official.

(Kirino always considers her mother a traitor for that.)

They don't date for long enough, at least in her private opinion, to consider marriage so soon out of high school. But that is what happens. The whole time period between the announcement and the day seems to pass in a complete blur to Kirino. She distanced herself from him, distraught over his breaking his word to her, unwilling to hear his apologies, excuses or justifications. And one day without her even realizing it, he stops trying. Soon years have gone by, she's lost herself in her modeling, in her own life just as before. But this time…this time there is nothing to stop the yawning chasm inside her heart from making itself known. And when Kyousuke and Manami welcome their baby boy Keitaro into the world, she is on the other side of the world, unaware that she has become an Aunt until returning to find that her nephew is over five months old. And when she does, all she can wonder to herself is that unanswerable question of why.

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2. Ruri Gukou had always carried a torch for Kyousuke. Kirino Kousaka has been aware of this, even when the gothic lolita broke it off with him in order to spare everyone involved the pain of forcing him to choose between the two of them when virtually all of their small circle of friends knew who he would choose.

(His cute little sister she tells herself, even the days she finds it hard to understand why.)

So when it comes time for Kyousuke to move out on a more permanent basis, she is one of the few unsurprised by his willingness to share a place with Kuroneko and try to live together. It still doesn't quell the flames of jealousy when he approaches her and bows before her, on his knees as he gives her permission to date whomever makes her happy so long as she can do the same for him, her distraught feelings causing her to miss the fact that he never once makes direct eye contact with her during the exchange. They aren't even finished with college before Kuroneko begins to show a growth in her abdomen, her happiness seeming to permeate everything she does, her now middle and high school aged sisters pleased about having a nephew/niece to spoil rotten and have give migraine headaches to their older sister on their behalf.

(Tamaki isn't really joking when she says that, but than again, everyone already knew she was the more mischievous of Ruri's two younger sisters.)

Kuroneko's style of art becomes slightly more subdued, drawing less on the supernatural for struggle and begins focusing more on the day to day that comes with every young person who is growing up when they don't feel like they'll ever be ready. Even as it pains Kirino, she knows that it has been good for both her brother and her friend. He grounds her, she allows him to express his more outspoken and spontaneous side in a way he was never free to with her or Manami. So when the graduation is said and done, Kyousuke is working with the same company that once upon a time had attempted to change her Little Sister story to suit their projected audience's tastes and Kuroneko is writing and drawing her own stories about two young adults struggling to figure out the world around them while coming to terms with their own feelings and thoughts.

(Projection much she sometimes snorts before remembering what people might say about her...awkward cough here, Little Sister focused novels.)

And when their young daughter Haruhi comes into the world with a healthy set of lungs that Kyousuke jokes reminds him of Kirino, all she can do is smile with all the bittersweet longing that she has held within her for years now, wishing wishing wishing in a quietly untouched corner of her soul to be able to claim Ruri's place in the hospital bed and by Kyousuke's side. But she's happy for her brother and for her friend. And that's what really counts in the end. Right?

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3. When Kyousuke claims paternity over the child growing within Sena Akagi's womb, he shocks both sets of families. They demand he take responsibility. They demand he own up to what he and Sena were apparently doing in secret. It is a horrible thing for him to do, to make a child with a woman who is not her.

(Who is not someone Kirino would approve of, the orange haired otaku hastily amends mentally, not willing to take that potential train of thought to its original terrifying conclusion.)

But he confesses to her after the rushed wedding, after the whirlwind of tears and accusations and glares leveled at him that it isn't really his. That it's Kouhei he's taking the fall for. He only tells his beloved little sister, able to go back to living virtually friendless, able to go back to his solitary existence even if he once knew what it was to be a part of a crowd. And much as she wants to tell her friends the truth, she knows they would understand even less than they do now. No matter what people may say about brothers and sisters and their feelings on true love conquering all, it's one thing when it happens to fictional characters that you can simply imagine finding happiness somewhere rather than when it stares you in the face: a stark contrast to the fantasy and the ideal that you have built within the safe confines of your own mind. So she distances herself from her brother like the rest of her friends. They eventually thaw a bit toward him for his perceived betrayal even as they maintain a certain…emotional distance between themselves and him without ever telling him why.

(Something to do with being so much less than they thought he was and yet simultaneously wishing that they had been the ones to become the accidental bride for him she sometimes thinks in her more fanciful moments.)

When the first child is born, it has the red hair characteristic of Sena's family; the young boy Kouki never knowing he is a step-child to the man he will call Father and the son of the man he will call Uncle all his life. But the second…the second child is a girl. And Keiya grows into the black hair of her father soon enough, a sharp contrast to her half-brother as they grow up. Making Kirino an Aunt in blood as well as name at last. But that knowledge does not give her comfort that her brother married his friends younger sister to protect their greatest secret. Because when she's being completely honest with herself (an occasion that gets more and more rare these days)…she wishes that they didn't have to cover for the siblings. She honest to kami wishes the siblings had to cover for them.

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4. When Saori announces that she is being forced into an engagement and that she'll have to go soon, their group is understandably distraught. Despite their status as vitriolic best friends, she and Kuroneko owe quite a lot to Saori in terms of emotional support and understanding. Nearly as much as Kyousuke when they come to think on it. But she isn't sure what to do and neither is Kuroneko. But what she doesn't notice is that later that week her idiotic big brother leaves the house without a word to meet a friend, one he never tells her or her parents the meaning of. Several months later, Saori tells herself and Kuroneko that the engagement is off, that it all got worked out. They are relieved but neither thinks to question the meaning of this sudden change of heart her parents experienced. So when Kyousuke uses his last day moving his things out of the house to tell her and his parents that he's working in one of the companies Saori's family owns in order to prove his worth as their youngest daughter's suitor...well, to put it mildly, he shocks all of them. He even manages to crack even their fathers normally stoic façade. But there is nothing to be done about it now, and even a massive and heated argument they get into soon after behind closed doors and out of their parent's house isn't enough to get Kyousuke to relent with this idea of 'saving' her friend. She refuses to speak to him in a fit of childish pique. And when she sees him and Saori together, she'll talk to the older shyer girl as if her brother isn't even there. Not out of a sense of vindictiveness, but a sense of injury and betrayal that is even greater than when he choose the 'Plain Girl' over her when they were younger.

(Mostly because he had been A} trying to distance himself from his little sister for sometime prior and B} had been straightforward enough to tell her upfront who he was choosing in her mind.)

She retreats from her brother, mostly greeting him civilly and asking his advice on mostly trivial matters if she must, but never regaining the level of trust she built with him before. Which is why she doesn't find out from him, but from Saori that they're expecting when quite some time has passed. They're all grown up and living their own lives, keeping in touch for the most part. And when Saori tells her they're expecting twins, she is genuinely happy for her sempai. Angry at her brother's callousness toward herself as she may be, she can see the visible glow of contentment and happiness Saori gives off. She can't bring herself to ruin that for one of her few true friends. And when the fraternal twins Kaito and Ayaka are welcomed into the world, she sheds tears of happiness and loss as she sees her brother and Saori holding the two newborn babies as if their whole world has become complete for that one moment in time. The absence of her brother pains her. She can admit that. But for his happiness, she would do anything. Even if it means smiling when all she wants to do is bury her face in her arms and cry.

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5. When she and Kyousuke confess their feelings to each other, a part of Kirino that remained idealistic and young believed that their love for each other would help them overcome all obstacles. Of course, that part of her didn't consider how exactly they were going to do so while still living with their parents, who they were going to tell and how they were going to manage to maintain a relationship when one of them had a very public persona and the other was…well, her biological brother. Thank kami for Mikagami. Mikagami, who knew and actually did pretend to date Kirino so that they could be together without too much suspicion falling on their heads from everyone.

(Especially their mother, who Kirino still sometimes catches looking at them out of the corner of her eye with that oddly inscrutable expression.)

It gets to a point where she has to marry Mikagami, her brother his best man. When she and Mikagami make their vows before friend and family, only herself, her future husband and her brother standing beside him know that she is addressing the vow to Kyousuke himself. Soon enough, Kirino and Mikagami have to leave the country. Before she goes, she and her brother share one last night together. They both reaffirm their love for each other in the most intimate ways possible. As her modeling career took off, Kyousuke had opted instead to follow their father into the police force, to the vehement objections of both his mother and his sister. Kirino had always wanted her Onii-chan to remain safe, to not put himself in harm's way unnecessarily. But while she is away with her "husband" on an extended contract in Europe, Kyousuke manages to get himself in trouble. She and Mikagami don't manage to return from the Christmas party the firm practically forced them to attend until early into the morning.

(Curse her good looks for making her go away at the most inconvenient times she thinks to herself, having looked forward to being with her family this season like so many before.)

When she finally opens her eyes to check her phone, she finds two missed texts, two missed calls and two voicemails. The missed texts are from Kuroneko and Saori, both essentially asking her how her Christmas is and wishing her all the best for the New Year. The two missed calls are from her brother and an unknown number. She goes to her voicemail inbox, eager to hear from her brother. "Hey there Kirino." She hears, as her brother's voice fills her ear. He's breathing heavily however, apparently exerting himself recently. As he continues, her mind also picks up shouts and other noise in the background. "The snow back here is beautiful. Wish I could…" he pauses to catch his breath. Something is clenching in her chest, she feels like her lungs are sympathetically locking up as she listens to him regain control of his breathing. "Wish I could have you here to see it. I…I miss you Little Sister. I love you, hope you're enjoying yourself. Goodbye." The phone message ends with a click. Kirino doesn't know what to make of the message. If it were any other day, it would sound like an ordinary message from her older brother saying he misses her. But the shouting, the heavy breathing…something's wrong. Hurriedly she saves Kyousuke's message before playing the next one. As she listens to it, she hears an almost mechanical voice of a man who calls himself Dr. Omura say that he's calling the listed contacts of Kyousuke Kousaka to tell them…as he completes his dreaded phrase, the phone slips from her nerveless grasp, her legs almost giving out as she races toward the bathroom as she upchucks everything she's eaten the last two days into the porcelain bowl.

(She's screaming and crying and clutching herself desperately trying to make it untrue not real not him no no no.)

But her tears and pleading with Kami for it to be some horrible nightmare for her to wake up from anytime now are all in vain. When she is brought back to Japan, her mother and father meet her at the airport. Her mother and her father's eyes are red. She rushes to her mother and grips her in a hug that could crush bones as the tears rise again against her will. It is only when they're all in the middle of making their arrangements for him several days later that she discovers Kyousuke left something for her to safeguard: his child growing inside of her. As they put her brother in the ground, her hands clutch protectively at her stomach, almost as though she doesn't want their unborn baby to know that its father is dead. That he never will know the truth of their love, that he can never know his father is gone and never coming back. Mikagami is a good shoulder for her to cry on, as are her friends and family. But the one shoulder she wants there is the one who they've trapped under six feet of cold uncaring earth. And when her son is born bawling his small lungs out two months early, she holds him to her as though he is the most precious thing in the world to her. Because even if no one but Mikagami ever knows the truth, she will. She knows her son Kyousuke is the last vestige of his father left in this world. And she will do everything in her power to safeguard what remains of her brother. No matter the cost. And as the tears run down her cheeks for the first time since the funeral, she knows that her beloved Aniki would approve of her resolve. And while it does not erase or dull the pain, it does give her a sense of connection to him one more time.

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A/N: So...yeah. That's all I got for this installment. Please leave a review, a pm for constructive criticism, ideas or even just to say you were here. Every voice is appreciated.