The mystery of the brother situation wasn't something that was going to be solved easily, Owain found out, as he asked Inigo about it multiple times over the following days, each time ending in a snappish "I don't have a brother, stop asking me" kind of response. Based on what little he did know, he tried asking Lucina about it, to see if she had any answers for him, but she seemed just as surprised as her cousin about the whole thing. "I'm afraid I know no one who's told me they're his brother," she said, crushing Owain's spirits with every word. "You might have to just accept that your friend's a bit of a liar."

"A liar? Inigo? He's not like that, I promise! He's just…hiding something from us, it seems!" An idea was brewing in Owain's mind, taking this defeat as a springboard for his next great plan. All it would take was asking someone who would most definitely know if Inigo had a brother or not, aside from Inigo himself.

Making that happen was a lot easier said than done, as the plan required something of Inigo that he had never once done in all the time he and Owain had been friends: allow for them to hang out over at his house. Sure, Owain had met Inigo's mom before, she was a nice lady, but he'd only seen her at school events and when she was picking Inigo up after they'd been hanging out together, and now solving this mystery directly involved needing to interact with her somewhere that she could be asked things. It was a risk that needed to be taken, given Owain's curiosity on the matter, and so one day after school (and after a couple rejections upon asking the brother question), he approached Inigo with all the determination he could muster.

"If you're here to ask once more about the brother thing, you aren't getting an answer," Inigo said before Owain could even open his mouth. "I've told you more times than I can count, I'm not talking to you about it."

"Promise it's not about that," Owain replied, holding up both hands to show that he wasn't crossing his fingers and invalidating his promise. "I was just wondering if maybe we could hang out this weekend or something? Brady's gonna be with his dad so I can't get stuck at his house, and you know how my family is…I'd like to be out of there for a few hours."

Pausing before he answered, surprised that the question posed wasn't about the same thing he'd been being pestered about for days now, Inigo almost gave a positive reply before his eyes narrowed. "How do I know you're not lying about Brady's whereabouts, huh? He never mentioned before that he's with his dad this weekend."

"He's been talking about how he'll be at his dad's all week, didn't you hear him sniffling about how much he's gonna miss his mom while she's gone?" Owain knew that he was exaggerating things a tiny bit, as Brady hadn't really been that bothered about his mom having to go out of town for the weekend for something relating to the job she had, but the way Inigo was looking at him showed that he might have gone a little too far. "Okay, well, he's going to be at his dad's, you can ask my mom and she'll tell you that miss Maribelle's going to be gone, just trust me on this."

"Trusting you on anything proves to be difficult at times, Owain." Sighing deeply, Inigo considered what had been suggested before shrugging, saying, "What's the harm in a little hanging out? I don't think I have anything happening this weekend. Your house as usual?"

"Uh, actually…" Now that his suggestion had been accepted, it was time to get Inigo to fall for the rest of the plan. "I was thinking maybe we could go to your house? We've been friends for years and I've never been!" He clasped his hands together in front of him, the fingers on one hand not bending very well over the other's. "I promise you I won't do anything to embarrass you in front of your parents, if that's what you're scared of!"

"You're using this to see if I have a brother, aren't you?" Inigo might not always have been the smartest guy, but he was able to see through Owain's deception a lot quicker than had been expected. Still, he was a good friend through it all even if he wasn't entirely on-board with what was happening. "I suppose I'll ask my mother if you can come over, she'll most likely say no like she always does but we can try."

Victory was in the bag for Owain, and he thanked Inigo profusely for at least giving it a shot, conveniently forgetting to mention that he had, in fact, called out the overall goal of the get-together already. Now all he needed was for permission to be given and for a way to get over there if and when the time came. That was when he went to Lucina once more, begging her to give him a ride over to Inigo's house if he was allowed to go over there. "I…don't think I understand why you want me to take you when you have two perfectly-capable parents," she said with a smile, making him flinch back at the way she was talking to him. "But I'll admit, I'm a bit intrigued about what's going on with all this so I suppose I could do it, if it doesn't interfere with any plans I may have."

"Don't worry, I'll make sure it doesn't!" Owain gave his cousin some finger-guns, although one of them looked a little forced compared to the other, and she remained smiling with that same small, thin smile on her lips. He was getting the impression that she wasn't entirely thrilled with what he'd asked her to do, but he was not, under any circumstances, going to go to his parents about it. On one hand, his mother would probably have loved to go take him to a friend's house and talk with his parents, but on the other his father would have most likely caused nothing but trouble if he had been chosen to go.

That was the ride issue settled, and after the next day at school the other issue was pushed aside as well: Inigo told Owain between two of their classes that he could come over either afternoon that weekend, as long as he wasn't there too early and didn't stay too late. That was the ultimate victory Owain had been looking for, and it would have been a lie to say he hadn't grabbed Inigo in a big hug, squeezing him as tightly as he could before Inigo snapped at him to let him go.

"Sorry, I just…do you know how great it is to know I'm going to a friend's house that isn't Brady's? I'm so excited!" Pulling his arms from around his friend, Owain watched as Inigo's facial expression showcased his full regret on making this happen, which crushed his spirits a small amount but nothing too terrible. He'd experienced a lot worse after moments of happiness, this wasn't even comparable to some of those defeats. "We're going to have so much fun though! Should I bring anything?"

"There's no need to bring anything, I'm sure I know exactly how this will go." Sighing, Inigo didn't seem to want to elaborate further on what he'd just said, but Owain wasn't going to let him say something like that without pressing into it. "No, seriously, there is nothing you need to bring, anything we will do will be at Mother's insistence, not our own. If you expect this to be a fun afternoon you are sorely mistaken."

"Mistaken? No way, any time spent at a friend's house is fun, no matter what!" It wasn't true, Owain had spent many days he could consider to not be fun alongside Brady at either of his homes, but he wasn't going to admit that to Inigo. But he paused after that thought, looking around for any sight of their tall, dark, and apparently handsome friend, and shrugging when he wasn't spotted. "Oh well, I'll tell Brady what I'm doing this weekend later, I guess. Come on, let's go to class before we're late and get in trouble."

For the rest of the day, Owain couldn't focus on anything he was expected to do, something that happened any time he was excited for something that was to come, but even at the end of the day he wasn't able to tell the person he was looking for what he needed to. After the day's final bell he expected to see Brady and tell him how he was going to be spending one of the days that weekend without him, but while he saw the other people his friend tended to get roped up in hanging around, he didn't see his friend at all. "You're looking a bit lost," Severa teased, as she approached him like she did most days after school, a smug look on her face. "You missing something?"

"Leave me alone, Severa, this isn't anything to do with you," he replied, going from looking around the hallway to getting into his locker, which she prevented by coming up behind him and slamming her hand on the door. "Seriously, go away! Just because everyone else likes you doesn't mean I do!"

"What'd I tell ya about messing with Owain, huh?" That was Brady's voice, timid yet a lot deeper than anyone expected coming from him, given how small he'd been up until recently, and it took a moment for Owain to recognize that it was really him. "Come on Sev, leave him alone! Don't you need to be going and gettin' someone right now?"

Backing away as quickly as she'd approached, Severa grumbled something under her breath before adding, "Yeah, but so what? My father can wait a few minutes for me to get done here before we leave, and I don't need you pushing me around so…"

"I'm not pushin' you around, I'm tellin' you to leave Owain alone. He's my friend, he doesn't need you being mean to him." Thanks to Brady's appearance Owain was able to get into his locker and pull his belongings out, but before he could finish getting everything out Severa had gotten over the interruption and had slammed his locker closed on him, his bag trapped halfway in. "Sev, seriously? I'm gonna tell your dad you're actin' like this, he's not going to like it at all!"

If that was supposed to be a threat that fazed Severa, it didn't work, as she laughed and watched as Owain tried opening his locker again, only for her to slam it shut once again. "Okay, just because you don't want to leave doesn't mean I don't want to," he said, trying for a third time to open it. "Please, just listen to Brady and leave me alone."

"See? Owain's not having fun with this, you can't do that. Go do what you've gotta, there's always next time." Whatever it was about what Brady was saying, it was enough to get Severa to admit defeat and leave the scene, leaving the two boys standing there. "Sorry about her, she's just…I'unno, she's just got it out for you or somethin'."

"She always has, I'm used to it. Why's she listening to you to get her to stop?" Having finally gotten everything out of his locker, Owain closed it on his own terms and turned to look up at Brady, right as his friend was giving a shrug with his broad shoulders. "Come on, you've got to have an answer for that. Bullies like her don't just listen to anyone."

"If it's not to do with Cynthia, then I've got nothin'," Brady answered, shrugging again. "She's just real weird about me, and it's only getting worse every time I see her. Which happens a lot, and I hate it." He stopped speaking, looking at Owain with a wistful expression, before shaking it off. "Okay, but, what've ya been up to today? Felt like I didn't really see much of ya."

"Oh, didn't really do much. Just kinda…made plans for this weekend since I won't be able to hang out with you." Owain proceeded to explain what was going on, and how he was going over to Inigo's house for the sole purpose of solving that mysterious brother issue, and by the time he'd laid everything out Brady was trying his hardest not to look upset about it. "H-hey, don't cry or anything! Whatever happens, next time I go over there I'll totally invite you too, swear on my life!"

"It's not that I'm sad I'm not invited, I'm sad that you're replacin' me with Inigo like this." Sniffling, Brady was beginning to look like he was on the verge of tears, which was only making Owain more frantic in his promises that the next time they'd go together; however, a single laugh escaped Brady's mouth that gave away the fact that he was playing with his friend's emotions over the whole thing. "I understand why I'm not goin', I'm not a jealous friend or anything, you know this. Next time we'll make it an all of us thing, then it'll all be okay and that's what matters."

The scare had been a bit more real to Owain than he'd liked, and even after they'd cleared the air between them and made absolute sure that everything was fine he was still a bit worried that he had actually hurt Brady's feelings. But there wasn't room for that fear to linger too long, especially once the weekend came and the meeting in unfamiliar territory was actually going to happen. The whole car ride over to Inigo's house (which Lucina was silent on, her only remark being that the address was familiar to her), he thought about how he should've waited for a day when Brady could've done this with him, best friends needing to stick together through thick and thin.

He hadn't chosen to wait, though, and he hoped that he wouldn't come to regret that decision. As they pulled up to the address given to them, Lucina stopped the car right outside, looking out the window at the house with raised eyebrows. "Are you sure this is the right place?" she asked, a question she'd posed a couple times previously due to her cousin's nature of being slightly absentminded. He nodded, already opening his door, and she couldn't help but softly laugh. "I'm going to trust you on that, Owain, but if Inigo's pranked you I don't want to hear a word of it when I come get you in a few hours."

"He wouldn't prank me, he's my friend," Owain retorted, sticking his tongue out at his cousin before slamming the door shut. As she drove off, he walked up to the front door of the relatively nice house not too far across town from where they lived, admiring the fact that it looked like a fun place to be. Why Inigo was never willing to invite him over before this, he wasn't ever going to understand.

After knocking on the front door and waiting a couple moments, he started looking at everything sitting around the front step; there were a lot of flowers growing in small pots, each pot containing a different color of flower and them all being arranged into a rainbow. "That's real cool," he said to himself, enjoying how much thought had to have been put into that arrangement. "Wish we had flowers like that at home, but Morgan and bees…bad times right there."

The door had opened while he'd been looking at the flowers, Inigo standing in its wake with his arms crossed in front of him. "Are you coming inside or not?" he asked, sounding impatient to get whatever was going to happen over with—something Owain found odd, as this was just a day where they were going to hang out together. Was he expecting something horrible to happen once they were both inside? Owain wasn't one to dwell on that sort of stuff, though, and he snapped to attention from the flowers and made his way in, Inigo making sure to close the front door behind them. "You're a bit earlier than we were expecting, so sorry if Mother isn't ready to meet with you yet."

"I've met your mom before," Owain said, missing the point of what Inigo meant entirely. "She doesn't have to meet me again."

Pausing as he tried to decide how to react to that, Inigo shook his head and sighed. "You know what, Owain, let's just…go to my room and do something. There's not much in there but we'll find something to do that isn't stand around and wait for Mother to be ready. Come on, this way." He directed him across the large main room of the house, into one of the many doors along one of its walls, telling him to ignore the lack of furniture in the room they crossed, as well as the mirrored wall they'd been walking towards the whole time. Once they were inside the small bedroom, which did have actual furnishings in it, Inigo gave a halfhearted arm flourish. "Here it is, my bedroom. Exactly what you expected, yeah?"

Owain didn't know how to say what he was thinking, as he looked around the room. There was a bed and dresser, but everything else was rather plain. "I never took you as the kind of person to like a plain room," he finally said, his eyes crossing over the pictures of flowers on the walls. "You like so much cool stuff, why's this place so lame?"

"It's not lame, I just…don't spend a lot of time in here. Sleeping and that's it." Inigo sat on the edge of his bed, kicking one leg up onto it before he began stretching, effortlessly grabbing onto the foot that was propped up. "Most of my free time is spent out in the open dance studio right outside my door. And if I'm not in there, I'm…" He trailed off as Owain looked at him, waiting for him to finish his statement. "No, no, I cannot say that."

"You keeping secrets from me, Inigo?" Owain asked with a laugh, but the serious glare he received in return made his blood run cold. "O-okay, never mind then, jeez. So, what were you thinking we could do in here for 'fun', since there's really nothing? We gonna tell stories or something like that?"

"That's something you would enjoy, but no." Finishing his stretch, Inigo stood up and walked to his dresser, opening the bottom drawer and pulling out a box from within it. "I was thinking more along the lines of making letters to hang on the locker of a certain bully of ours. She's been rather…vicious as of late, hasn't she?"

He was speaking of Severa, Owain knew this, but as he thought about her he could only think about how she had been rude to him until Brady told her off. "Yeah, guess so, but, uh, when isn't she? She runs scared when Brady's around though, I've seen it happen. A couple times now, actually."

"Yes, yes, we know that she's terrified of him. Except she's not 'terrified', really, she's just trying to impress him or something." Inigo had opened the box, taking out all sorts of old magazines and ads that he must've been saving up for this exact sort of situation. "We make her a cutesy letter thinking that he sent it to her, we confuse her, we get her off our backs forever and onto his! It's foolproof!"

"Inigo, this feels more like…I don't know, something we shouldn't be doing." The fact that Owain had spent a lot of time reading about real-life kidnappings where ransom notes were made, and that he knew that what Inigo was suggestion was making those exact kinds of notes to send to Severa, made this whole situation feel wrong to him. "Maybe we could make things and not send them to her?"

"Are you suggesting that we use all this for fun? Not ridding our lives of her?" He was fanning out the magazines, to show off everything he had saved up for this situation. "Come on, there's no harm that can come from this except potentially losing Brady as a friend, but he's not that important to you, is he?"

Owain could feel himself shrinking away from Inigo mentally, even if his physical body stayed there in the room. He wasn't prepared to hear something like that be said to him about his lifelong best friend, someone who he cared about like a brother and would do anything to make happy. There wasn't any way he could agree with Inigo on that one, but he had the fear that disagreeing would get him kicked out without any sort of closure on why he'd come over in the first place. "He is important to me," he finally mumbled, trying to clear his head so that he could focus on what was happening. "I can't hurt him by making Severa go after him, she'll hate him like she hates us."

"Hurt him? Owain, have you misunderstood what we're going to do?" Setting the magazines down and grabbing a pair of scissors out of the box, Inigo snipped them a couple of times before placing them on the floor as well. "We're going to make her a love letter, you idiot! She'll think someone's in love with her, and since she's clearly trying to impress Brady she'll think he's the responsible one and chase after him forever! Sure, he'll not be amused that we set her up with him but that's a small casualty, I'd say."

Hearing the explanation made Owain feel a bit better about what was happening but he still wasn't fully able to accept the idea of involving his best friend in something he wasn't able to agree to. "I really don't think we should do that, sorry. If Brady was here and we could ask him if he wanted to—"

"Asking him will get us nowhere, I'm sure he hasn't noticed that Severa's playing hard-to-get with him and he'd accuse us of lying to him! Now just start finding good words for me to cut out, I know you can't use a pair of scissors to save your life." It was the first time Owain had ever heard Inigo raise his voice in an angry manner, and he hoped it was going to be the last if he went along with what was expected of him. Thankfully, the sound of him yelling caused for someone to knock at the door moments later, a soft voice outside the room asking for permission to come inside. Inigo sighed, glaring at Owain as he replied, "Yes, Mother, you can come inside to see what we're doing."

The door opened slowly, and the woman Owain recognized as Inigo's mom came inside, a soft smile on her lips and water actively dripping down her face from her wet hair. "I was wondering if you'd forgotten what you need to do today," she said, after giving Owain a nod acknowledging that he was present. "Practice waits for nothing, not even a friend being over to visit."

"Mother! Me, practice, in front of Owain? I can't, he'll make fun of me and I'll never hear the end of it!" It was clear that Inigo was regretting his moment of letting his mother come into the room, especially after she'd fully opened his door and taken to standing right in the doorway, preventing him from shutting her out or being able to escape around her. "Can we push it until after he leaves? He won't be here all day, we made sure of that."

"I'unno, I kinda want to see what this 'practice' thing is about," Owain remarked, never having heard much about what Inigo actually did in his free time (aside from when they were at his house, or out somewhere together, then it seemed the answer was whatever they were doing in that moment). "It can't be that bad, whatever it is."

Inigo slowly turned to look at Owain, his chest rising as he took in a deep, angered breath, but it was his mother who spoke before he got the chance. "Oh, it's not bad at all! Inigo must spend an hour every day practicing his dancing, or else his instructors will catch on to his slacking and they'll kick him from classes!"

"Hold on, classes? Inigo, why haven't you told me about this before? This sounds cool!" Now Owain had caught on to why Inigo was basically glaring at him, but he wasn't observant enough to realize that this was stuff Inigo hadn't wanted him to know. "Do you think you'd like it more if you had a friend to join—"

"Absolutely not!" Jumping to his feet, Inigo started pacing around the bedroom to calm himself, nearly kicking the scissors he'd laid out on the floor in the process. The moment his foot got dangerously close to them, his mother dove to the ground to retrieve them, nearly knocking her son over in the process. Rather than thank her for the trouble, Inigo looked to the now-clear doorway and made a break for it without another word to either person in the bedroom before leaving.

In the aftermath of what had happened, Owain did what he figured was the gentleman-like thing to do and helped Inigo's mother back to her feet. "Sorry that I made Inigo mad, I guess, miss Olivia. Does he do this a lot?"

"He's just a bit secretive about his dancing skills, I suppose. He doesn't like people knowing because he doesn't think he's good enough for people to care. I understand that feeling, but he doesn't need to go to extremes like this to preserve his secret." Olivia was a sweet woman, and she was soft-spoken and kind and so much like Owain liked to think his mother would be if she weren't always being put in stressful situations, and he felt comfortable just standing in his friend's bedroom with her. But she didn't seem to feel the same, her eyes actively searching the room once they were both to their feet. "Um, you wouldn't mind just staying in here while I go find Inigo, would you?" she asked, revealing the reason for her uneasiness. "I don't like that he's stormed off like this, he never acts to these extremes…"

Nodding, Owain let her know that he didn't mind at all, and so she left in a hurry, calling out her son's name once she was past the doorway. Now that he was alone, Owain sat back down on the floor and started looking at the magazines Inigo had pulled out before, noticing that, aside from the top one, which was a typical gossip magazine, they were all more "adult" in nature. He recognized the titles as being things he was told to stay away from, and the curiosity of wanting to know why that was existed within him, but he couldn't bring himself to look past the covers, which were of nearly-nude women. The moment he heard footsteps coming back his way he threw the safe magazine back on top and pretended like he hadn't moved anything around, a decision that proved wise as it was Olivia, still with scissors in hand, that came back to the room.

"I'm sorry about all this, but he doesn't want to speak with you at the moment," she said, placing the scissors on her son's bed so that she didn't lose them. "However, he said he would consider it in a little bit, so…would you care for something to eat while you wait?" Her offer was genuine and while Owain was hurt that Inigo was acting like this, he wasn't going to take it out on his mother.

"I think that sounds good," he replied as he came to his feet once more, following her out of the room, through the studio-slash-living room and to the kitchen, where she drew him a chair before pulling out the selection of snacks she had available to him. As he figured it would be, it was all natural and all healthy, something that he was more than fine with, especially when it meant he could have whatever fruit he wanted. "My mom cuts up my apples for me still, even though I'm not a baby and could maybe do it myself," he said as he watched Olivia wash off the apple he'd picked out. "I don't think apples need to be cut though, right? You can just eat them like that and that's fine."

"Your mother babies you because she loves you, don't ever forget that. I'd baby Inigo if he allowed me to, but he's insistent that he's grown and doesn't need it." Olivia sighed, sounding genuinely upset that her son treated her that way. Once she'd handed Owain his fruit she moved on to doing other tasks, and even as he was eating he found himself watching her, seeing how she spun around the kitchen on her toes as she moved around doing various things. After she completed whatever it was she was doing, she left the kitchen area and headed to the studio, sitting directly in the middle of the floor and stretching her legs out, breaking into a full stretching routine almost as if she'd forgotten she had someone watching her.

It turned out that she had, in fact, forgotten that Owain was watching her, as the first time she looked in his direction after she'd started stretching she let out a loud scream, visibly panicked for a second before she calmed down, realizing who it was that was there. The scream not only worried Owain, but it caused another door in the house to slam open, Inigo bursting into the room as fast as he could. "Mother! Is everything okay?"

"Y-yes, I was just startled by seeing your friend, it wasn't anything bad I promise. I just…I wanted to have family practice time and you refused so I…" Going back to stretching, Olivia didn't say anything else to either of the boys, but Inigo knew what he had to do to make things right.

He looked at Owain, who was wide-eyed and a bit worried about if him staying there was going to make more screaming happen. "Stay right there, don't say a word about what you're going to see, not now and not ever, got it?" The seriousness in Inigo's voice made going against his words impossible, so he merely nodded and waited to see what was about to happen next. "Thank you, I would hate for Mother to get spooked again or for anyone at school to know that I do this sort of thing."

"Wait, what sort of thing?" It was proof that Owain only half-paid attention to anything that was going on around him at any point in time, but he was soon clued into what he was not supposed to talk about. Inigo went over to his mother's side and joined her in stretching out on the floor, and after they'd spent a good amount of time making sure they were flexible enough they stood and began doing what looked like warm-up dance moves. Those warm-ups quickly turned into full pieces of dance routines, pieces they repeated over and over again with small tweaks each time they ran through them.

It was beautiful to see and would have been even more beautiful if Owain knew anything about professional dancing beyond the fact that it was hard. He was entranced in watching them, seeing how they worked together and would break from doing something so that the other could take center "stage" for a moment; he was so busy focusing on watching them that he hadn't even begun to notice how long he'd been sitting there. They took a couple long breaks, for drinks and snacks, that they included him in, but other than that it was entirely him watching them do their thing.

This wasn't how he'd intended to spend his day, but there was no way he was going to complain about it, especially not when he found himself actually having fun watching them. Part of him was begging to ask if he could participate, but the rest of him was aware that he had zero experience and they had years upon years of it, and if he jumped in he'd most likely just be getting underfoot. That took a bit away from the beauty of watching them, but he moved past it when he saw them both stop in the middle of a dance move they'd done several times already that afternoon—and it was then that he realized someone was shaking the doorknob on the front door, trying to get in.

"Don't worry, I'll check it," Inigo said as he ran past his friend towards the door, his mother standing in the studio area slightly panting and waiting for his return. That very return came with Inigo looking worried, his worry not aimed at his mother even slightly as he only spoke to Owain when he'd come back. "Listen, the 'don't say a word' thing doesn't just apply to the dancing, okay?" he asked, putting his hands on Owain's arms and grabbing them tightly. "There are some things that are better left not explained to everyone."

Owain's mouth opened to say something but he couldn't find any words to use to verbalize what he'd thought. This was beginning to feel like he was wrapped up in some kind of illegal situation and he wasn't going to come out of it with all his limbs, and he felt like he'd been tricked with the dancing he'd seen. "You shouldn't be ashamed of your family," Olivia told her son as she walked towards him, having realized that their dance session was over. "Let me guess, it was your brother at the door, wasn't it?"

Wincing at the bluntness of the statement, and not daring to look towards Owain to see his reaction, Inigo let go of his friend and went back towards the door. "It's all of them, it's a wonder that none of them thought to take their keys with them today."

"I did ask them to not, so that they wouldn't come in and surprise our guest with their appearance." The way Olivia spoke was still soft and sweet, but Owain wasn't able to find comfort in her words. In fact, he was pretty sure that she'd told people to not take their keys with them so that they couldn't come into the house and murder him without her being aware they were back. "Let them in, he deserves to meet them all, don't you think?"

"I don't know if I want to…" Owain said under his breath, but there was no stopping Inigo from letting them inside, especially since whoever was on the other side of the door had taken to knocking on it loudly. He gulped when he heard the door open, followed by what sounded like several people filing in, all giving Inigo some form of hello as they passed him. As they came into the kitchen area, Inigo coming in behind them to stand by his friend, who was looking at everyone confused, they were all clearly waiting for some kind of explanation as to what was going on, as was Owain. "Hey, the way your mom was talking, it sounded like everyone was going to hurt me or something. But who are these people?"

Inigo took in a deep breath, before pointing at the lone woman in the group who'd come inside. "That's Cherche," he said, as his hand moved to gesturing towards the man next to her, who was laughing at the introductions happening, "and that's Henry. They live here with us because…er, well, it's a long story I don't want to tell you. They just live here, how about that? And that," his hand was moving towards the next person, someone Owain recognized as being from school, "that's Gerome. No big deal."

"I was wondering why Lucina messaged me asking why she'd dropped her cousin off at my house," the one labeled as Gerome said, face turned so that Owain couldn't keep staring at it. "This is stupid, I'm not dealing with this today." Without anything else to say, he left the lineup and went straight into one of the other rooms that were adjacent to the studio area, slamming his door shut while the people Owain assumed were his parents stood in place and didn't say a word.

"Don't mind him, he's never eager to talk to anyone." Inigo looked towards the door that had just been shut for a moment, before shaking his head and looking back at Owain. "As for Father, he's not home yet but he'll let himself in when he gets here, I assume. Mother, you didn't make him leave his keys here too, did you?"

Olivia seemed a bit shocked to be called out to as she was, but she wasn't the one who answered Inigo's question. Instead it was Cherche who spoke, sounding completely dry as she said, "He would never think to leave his keys anywhere, if it meant being locked out from his dearest wife and child." At her last few words, Henry started laughing once more, nearly doubling over with his chuckles, and he had to pull himself a chair and sit down to collect himself.

Of course, he happened to sit right across from Owain, who was very confused at what was happening around him, and he wasn't getting any answers from Inigo about it all. "You're a new face around here, kid," he started, trying his hardest not to laugh over his own words. "It's good to see Inigo having friends! He's never had anyone over before, it's kind of a big deal that you're here!"

"Henry, don't embarrass me in front of him. I don't need him being scared to ever come back." Inigo was getting into his own chair next to Owain as he spoke, trying to be protective of his friend from what he figured was about to come. "I figured it'd be safe as long as you didn't walk in the door, but here you are and now everything's going to be ruined."

The two of them went back and forth for a little while, Henry finding what Inigo was saying hilarious most of the time while Inigo was just trying to caution him into being careful about what he said. Owain wasn't sure what he was supposed to make of what was going on, but he didn't want to interject and make things more difficult than they currently were. He could hear the two women starting to talk about something, them having moved into the studio area, but he didn't know what it was they were discussing, and he wasn't going to ask and seem rude to the two people talking beside him.

When Lucina arrived to pick him up an hour or so later, he was shown out the door by Inigo and his mother, the other two adults right behind them, and he was walked to the car by Inigo alone. "I'm really, truly sorry about all of that," he apologized, much to Owain's confusion. "You see, my family's got a bit of a quirk to it, and while I know you have a large family as well at least you know you're all related."

"So they're family too?" Owain asked, thinking back to what had started this whole visit: the fact that Inigo insisted he had a brother, but wasn't willing to elaborate. "But I thought, just looking at him, that—"

"We have different mothers, that much we're certain of. Fathers, on the other hand, is where it gets tricky." Already they were at the car, Owain's hand on the handle and Lucina sitting inside looking unamused that he was taking up more of her time than expected. "Do yourself a favor and don't think too hard about it, he's my brother but he might not be. Does that make sense?"

"It's going to have to," he replied, opening the car door and bidding his friend goodbye and thanks for the time at his place. The moment he closed the door and buckled in so Lucina could take him home, he saw his cousin looking at him expectantly, almost as if she was waiting for him to tell her something. "Uh, you brought me to the right place earlier, and I get why you were so confused about it now."

"Let me guess, they're related, aren't they?" she asked, putting the car in drive and heading off for home. She took Owain's silence for a positive answer, and smiled in response. "Knew it the moment I dropped you off. No wonder Gerome's got so many stupid stories about him, only relatives would know that much about someone."

The thought to ask about what kind of "stupid stories" she was talking about crossed Owain's mind, but it was immediately ignored in order for something much more pressing. "Wait, do you tell him stupid stories about me?"

Two could play at the non-answer game, and that was exactly what Lucina did.

A/N: First of all, I am SO sorry this took me so long to write. Like...I have wanted to write this particular part of this story for so long and I let other projects get in the way of it. I promise there won't be that long of a gap in posting again.

Secondly, I have been so eager to write the Inigo family situation since I came up with it years ago. I'm glad I was pressured into doing so rather early in this story. The next chapter focuses on a different family situation, then an Actual Plot chapter, and that'll be followed by another family situation chapter. After that? Well, that's up to any readers and what they want to see be focused on outside of the Actual Plot. c: