A/N: I don't know why, but for some reason, I felt like posting this possible storyline. Please see endnote for further ideas. Oh, and I don't claim ownership for the characters, the anime or the manga they populate. Just in case we all weren't clear on that before.
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Open eyes. Close eyes. Rub eyes vigorously. Repeat as necessary. Despite her best efforts however Kirino Kousaka, seventeen year old otaku/track star/darling daughter/etc, couldn't get her ocean blue eyes to lie to her. Her brother's room was a study. Nothing inside but a sparse bookcase, a desk with a closed file on it with a built in filing cabinet in the right hand drawers and a strange seemingly out of place bonsai plant on the left hand corner the mid-morning sun shining on it as if to highlight the absurdity of the entire situation. For one thing, she distinctly remembered her brother Kyousuke's bed and things being here last night. While he may have gotten his sense of aesthetics and decoration from their father Daisuke, he had never taken it this far before. For another, she had woken up this Saturday late in the day after having her alarm not go off for a modeling shoot only to find her room being openly covered in Stardust Witch Meruru! paraphernalia as though she had never had to hide it to begin with.
Oh yeah, and she was now apparently several years older than fourteen if the id in her purse and the significantly more developed female body she now possessed was telling the truth. As Kirino stood before her brother's former room, wondering what she was meant to do now, her head started pounding like something primal was beating away at the inside of her brain, her eyes starting to feel like their sockets were a vice squeezing them so tightly that a part of her was surprised she wasn't crying tears of blood. As her eyelids sealed her ocular orbs away from this lying illusion, images started to flash through her head.
Memories of another time, another life, another path.
Memories belonging to both herself and to someone who was her but also not her.
She saw herself as a small child, alone with only her parents and a few other acquaintances for company. She saw that as she grew up, she'd never emerged from a shell (she didn't realize) she had built around herself before joining the track team in middle school; her athletic prowess giving her something to concentrate on that didn't involve trying to reach out in shy tentative ways that would only get her rebuffed from people as they were repulsed. Either by her physical energy or by her…appreciation for the television program and manga series that had allowed her solace during some of her loneliest years. No beloved older brother for her to aspire to surpass. No onii-chan to show what he was missing when her modeling photos were the talk of Japan. No Kyousuke to console or comfort her when she was feeling down. With a feeling of sickness in the pit of her stomach, she opened her eyes again to find that she had fallen to her knees sometime in the intervening time of recalling these memories of her now apparent other life. Desperate to think of something, anything that could've triggered this, she came up blank.
She felt a mantra of denial approaching the point of madness repeating inside her overworked mind, the same refrain of 'This is just a waking nightmare! I'll snap out of it! Come on Kirino pull it together!' running through her head on a seemingly endless loop before she noticed a slight taste of copper in her mouth. Automatically her right hand came up to her face to assess where she was hurt, discovering a trail of liquid running from her right nostril into her lips that left her fingertips a shiny red. She rushed to the bathroom, slamming the door loudly and uncaring of who heard as she threw up into the toilet. All the anxiety and uncertainty and strangeness of everything that had happened over what seemed to be hours (but had in fact simply been minutes at most) combined with the sudden influx of foreign historical facts into her brain that held an extremely conflicting version of those same yet radically different historical facts to force everything she'd eaten in the past few days to empty itself into the shining white comode.
Her mother's anxious voice called to her from downstairs. "Kirino? Are you alright up there?" Oh Kami and all his spiteful minions, how was she meant to respond to her mother Yoshino? This world's Kirino had barely suffered from sickness a day in her life due to her generally reclusive social nature preventing her from interacting too much with other people outside her club and track team meets. (Oh, and how had she somehow wrangled becoming best friends with Kuroneko in the Gaming Club while barely interacting with Ayase or Kanako outside schoolwork?!) After a few dry heaves, she called down hurriedly: "I'm fine kaa-san! Just an upset stomach!"
There was a slightly confused silence at the base of the stairs before she heard her mother call back: "Well, just be sure you get some breakfast if you think you can keep it down." Kirino sighed in badly contained relief, the dry cool surface of the toilet a stark contrast to her sweat soaked and slightly heated brow. She racked her brain trying to think what could've done this to her, why she was in this weird cock-eyed universe where her brother didn't exist! As she took some deep breaths, she decided to employ one of the oldest tactics in her book: 'Act as if.' Act as if onii-chan choosing the plain boring glasses girl over her didn't sting and tear her heart into fluttering shreds. Act as if admiring and enjoying the moe qualities of her sis-con eroges managed to make her forget her brother's voluntary abstinence from her life in all but the physical sense until recently. Act as if her world wasn't falling through open sky and her perception of the universe (or was it universes now?) at large wasn't unraveling at the seams.
As she made her way to the head of the stairs, she suddenly covered her mouth with a start, her eyes widening almost impossibly as it finally occurred to her what might've triggered this strange hallucination/mental break from reality. Last night she'd been in a significantly more philosophical mood, entertaining the thoughts she dare not articulate. But in her forlornness at her brother's density and obvious interest in the dark haired Kuroneko or her aqua maned friend Ayase, she'd rashly whispered that sometimes she wished he wasn't her brother. And now, like so many cautionary fables had written of before, the cosmos had proven that it truly had a warped sense of humor by granting her wish. And in the process, taken him away completely. As she made her way mechanically down the stairs, Kirino's mind was already racing with half-formed thoughts, ideas, plans, machinations and other such issues that needed to be dealt with. Because one way or another…she intended to either find her beloved Onii-chan. Or find her way home again.
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Slightly Longer A/N: Okay, that's about as far as I got with transcribing the plot bunny that's been ranting in my head for days now. The basic idea of the plot was: Kirino makes wish that Kyosuke wasn't her brother. Some shooting star, mystical item or other cosmic hand-wave later and Boom! She wakes up in a world where she's the oldest and only child. Now according to the plot bunny, it could've gone one of two ways. A) Kirino is in a world where Kyousuke doesn't exist, no ifs ands or buts about it. Or, B) Kirino discovers that while A version of Kyousuke exists in her world, it is not her onii-chan. Preferably, he is somehow related to one of the other primary characters lives. For example, Kaoru Akagi: Twin brother to Kohei who competes with each other for their little sister's attention.
Or, Ryudan Makishima: A cousin of Saori who provided the safe harbor and confidence boost she needed to believe in herself when she fell short of her sister's (perceived) standards.
Or, Haru Gokou: younger brother of Ruri Gokou.
Or, Mikan Hellgenki: the new hotshot talent agent who manages Ayase and Kanako's careers.
Or whatever else you can think of. Personally, I wanted to see whether or not any of the other characters he interacted with would still fall for him and what Kirino would do if she discovered something like that. {Like say, discovering he's Saori's cousin, attempting to get close to him only to discover that he and Saori have unresolved tensions between them or something like that.} And then just when she gets to the part where it seems worst...*snaps fingers* She finds herself back in her own world. What, if anything her little trip down Possibility Lane does for her I leave to the potential readers and writers.
And here's where I tell the best part: even if I never finish this story, my version will only be one of what I hope will be others. If you want to take this premise and sprint, run, jog or even walk with it, just let me know so I can admire the fruits of your labor! :) After all, we all have our own voices that deserve to be heard. And I for one, am very eager to see what my fellow enthusiasts think and conceive of when they spring into the sky with a single leap from a provided jumping off point.
Oh, and in case I haven't said it before: Reviews are the coin of the realm. Good, bad, constructive, destructive, it all feeds the flames of creation. They're much appreciated no matter how brief, long, clear or opaque.