I don't own Brothers Conflict.
On my way home from university I stop by a cafe to get something to drink and a snack before I have to head to the house. I got out early today, skipping my last class of the day, as the teacher left early in the day. They only left instructions to work on a project we were assigned at the beginning of the year. I am seated at a window seat waiting for my pastry to arrive. I take out my laptop and wait for it to boot up, I stare out the window at the trees outside. I begin to think about the park I used to walk at back in America, it was one of my safe haven's. I would go there whenever I could and stay as late as I could. Most of the time I would get home and Daniel would be passed out already, but on his days off he would wait for me and I would get beat ten times worse. I shake my head at the memories.
"Are you waiting on someone?" I hear a deep voice say from behind me. I turn around and look up to see Ukyo standing there.
"Huh?" I say confused to see him.
"Are you waiting on someone?" He repeats seeing the chair in front of me and two pastries laying on the table.
"Oh, no. I grabbed an extra one for Ema. She's always liked sweets." I say with a smile motioning for him to sit down. "What are you doing off work so early?"
"I just finished a big case and finally have a few days off. " Ukyo says with a chuckle. "What about you, shouldn't you be at Meiji?"
"I got out early, the professor had to leave and didn't leave any instructions, so I left." I tell him and take a sip of my drink.
"It's only a little after 1." Ukyo says with a quizzical look.
"I only have one class left, at 2:30." I say rolling my eyes, "You gotta live a little Ukyo, skipping one class to work on something that I have almost finished isn't gonna hurt my grades any." Ukyo shakes his head. "Besides I have the next 2 weeks off work, I need to relax some while I'm off."
"You're off?" Ukyo says confused.
"Yes, my manager said that I needed to take a break and focus on myself, so they said not come in for the next 2 weeks. It has me worried though." I say with a sigh.
"Well you have been working a lot lately and you do focus on school a lot too, so I can see why they told you take the time off."
"You sound just like Kaiji." I say with a laugh. "he always says 'You spend to much time here, you need some you time Love'," I say trying to imitate him.
"And how is Daisuke, handling the legal work?" He asks with a chuckle, "He doesn't ask for me to look over as many of his paper work as he used to."
"He's great, the way I've heard it you've been an excellent mentor for him. I actually have some paperwork here that Ms. Love wants him to look over for her." I say looking through my bag for it. Once I find it, I pull it out, and my laptop back into my bag. "Was he still at the office when you left?"
"I can look it over for you." Ukyo says going into business mode.
"It's nothing against you Ukyo but Ms. Love wants this particular one to go straight to Daisuke and only him." I tell him "Sorry Ukyo but that's what she said when she gave it to me."
"That's fine, he was there. I can walk you back there." Ukyo says standing up.
"Ok" I say grabbing my stuff and trying to catch up to him. "Hey slow down, Ukyo."
"Oh, sorry." Ukyo says looking at me from out the corner of his eye.
On Wednesday night all the guys were seated around the living room including Wataru. Ema and Evolette were out at a spa spending girl time together. This was suggested by Louis and Hikaru as a way to get them out of the house while the brothers held their meeting.
"Wataru, tell everyone what happened the other night when Evolette picked you up from school." Masaomi gently asks him.
"On our way home we passed a man that grabbed Evie-nees arm and it looked like he was hurting her. She said he was a bad man and that she wouldn't let him hurt me. He was scary." Wataru says scrunching his face up trying to remember what happened. "We walked past the residence and around the corner. She said we had to wait there a few minutes. She kept looking around the corner. When she said we could go back to the residence the scary man was gone." Wataru says looking over at Masaomi. "And the other night I saw him again when Masa-nii, and Kyo-nii were unloading the car. He left before they could see him though."
"Did she say what his name was?" Subaru asks trying to hide the anger in his voice.
"We asked him that the other night." Ukyo says "He thinks his name was Daniel."
"But to be sure, Wataru do you think you can tell between these photos which one the man was?" Ukyo says laying the two photos he had of Daniel and James on the table.
"This one." Wataru says pointing to Daniel's picture "But he looked older."
"Why didn't she tell us about this?" Azusa asks quietly staring at the photo on the table.
"I don't think she would. If they have been doing this a long time she probably won't come forward intentionally." Ukyo says pushing his glasses up. "I see cases like this at work, the victim usually sees themselves as the blame or deserving of the abuse, and don't want to accuse the abuser."
"They've done mean things to Nee-san before?" Wataru asks with tears in his eyes.
"They may have Wataru." Masaomi says kneeling down at his level. "We aren't for sure."
"So when nee-san was hurt before the bad man did it?" Wataru says close to tears. "I don't want nee-san to get hurt."
"We don't either that's why we are trying to protect her and Ema from this bad man." Masaomi tells him drying Wataru's eyes.
"They've hurt Ema-nee too?" Wataru says with a look of shock.
"No." Yusuke yells his face going red. "I mean no, she doesn't know anything about them. I asked her in class once if Evolette liked her foster family and if Ema and Rintaru got to meet them, but she doesn't know anything about them." His face getting redder and redder as he speaks.
"Okay." Wataru says sitting down beside Masaomi.
"Remember when she didn't want to come down to dinner and Wataru said he seen bruises on her?" Masaomi asks everyone, several of them shake their heads. "The next morning I question her about them asked if she would let me take a look to make sure nothing is broken. There were several healing bruises and some that were newer and still forming. I believed she also had several cracked ribs."
"What?" Kaname says anger evident in his voice. "How did she get them?"
"She said she took a tumble in dance class." Masaomi says then hangs his head and continues, "But I don't think that's where she got them from. I've seen patterns like that before, and they are only ever in abuse cases."
"So, she's getting beat up by someone and we can't do anything about it?" Tsubaki says raising his voice and slamming his fist down on the couch.
"The son James goes to Meiji with us" Subaru says. "The whole basketball team has noticed strange things happen to her, not anything physical, but they've all teamed up and are trying to make sure someone is with her in between classes and at lunch to keep it from happening. They even grab extra food so that if she doesn't arrive with something to eat, we've got something for her."
"What things have been happening?" Ukyo says in his lawyer voice.
"They said they seen some girls bully her, knock her things down, and say hurtful things to her." Subaru says looking at the ground. "There are rumors circulating around school as to why she missed class when she was hurt, and they have even the teachers judging her."
"You knew and you didn't say anything before this." Natsume says accusingly.
"We were taking care of it." Subaru says standing to defend himself.
"You still should have told one us instead of getting your team involved." Natsume says with a slight hint of anger.
"I didn't involve them they involved themselves, Evolette is friends with them too so naturally they care as well." Subaru says getting more and more riled up.
"Calm down." Masaomi says standing in between the two. "There isn't anything we could do at her school anyway. It's actually good that the team cares about her safety, and that they took it upon themselves to do this. There isn't a way that any of our schedules would align up to let us be at Meiji with her between classes." Natsume nods his head at this.
"So they are not only physically abusing her but mentally and emotionally as well." Hikaru says speaking up.
"We need to find a way so that someone can be with her at all times when she's outside of the residence. " Ukyo says grabbing some paper to start writing down schedules.
"We can't do that to her." Masaomi says shaking his head.
"How else are we supposed to keep her safe?" Tsubaki asks raising his voice.
"She already feels that we are smothering her and that she doesn't have much freedom as it is." Masaomi says "actually I think she said she felt like a prisoner. But if we try to protect her anymore than we already do she may try to sneak out, and then. . . " Masaomi says trailing off.
"We would never know if something did happen to her." Natsume says finishing Masaomi's sentence.
"So what can we do?" Azusa asks worried.
"We can only do what we have been and hope that she tells one of us what is going on" Kaname says somberly.
"There really isn't any way one of us could be with her all the time?" Tsubaki asks quietly.
"Not without penalties or her feeling even more imprisoned than she is now." Masaomi says hanging his head.
"I wish there was more we could do." Iori says taking in what had been said.
"They should be getting back soon." Ukyo says looking at the clock. "Wataru you have to promise not to say anything to Ema and Evolette, Okay?"
"Hai Kyo-nii." Wataru says with a serious face.
"We're back." Evolette's voice can be heard coming from the top of the stairs. Ukyo quickly grabs the pictures and shoves them into his briefcase. "Oh, I didn't realize everyone would be here tonight." She says walking down the stairs. Several of them stand seeing her. "I'll get started on dinner." She says heading into the kitchen. Hikaru slips outside and lights up a cigarette and Fuuto follows him, having been silent the whole meeting.
"I know" Fuuto says to Hikaru once the door's closed.
"You know what?" Hikaru says turning toward him and blowing smoke out of his mouth.
" Evolette, I know who she is." Fuuto says.
"Oh and who is she?" Hikaru says teasingly.
"Evie Love." Fuuto says. "You've been hiding her identity from everyone."
"So? You have an alias as well, what's your point?" Hikaru says with a little venom in to his voice.
"Why are you keeping it secret?" Fuuto says his eyes turning to slits.
"She asked me to. How did you find out?" Hikaru says stamping out his cigarette.
"That bruise on her arm. I saw it at the vacation home when she stretched at the table." Fuuto says hiding how he really found out.
"Really?" Hikaru says with a bit of sarcasm.
"Yes." Fuuto says and head back inside ending the discussion with Hikaru.
It had been several weeks since Ema and I had gone out just the two of us. I was laying in bed, thinking about how peaceful the days have been recently. Hardly anyone at Meiji is bothering me, let alone remembering the rumors that were spread. I had successfully been able to avoid both James and Daniel. I have my brains to thank for that. I was able to get access to James' schedule, so now I know what areas to avoid and when. My ribs are almost healed and the bruises are gone. I have this eerie feeling that something bad might happen soon. I shake my head at the thought and say to myself "Stay positive." I sit up in bed and look out the window as lightening flashes across the sky and rain pours down, a few seconds later I can hear the thunder roar through the air. I look over to my alarm clock to see that it's 4 am. "I need to get some sleep and roll over in the bed. I wake up feeling exhausted. I walk down to the kitchen to find Ukyo and Ema already cooking breakfast.
"Watcha makin?' I ask groggily.
"Evie," Em says looking up at me "bad night?"
"I had a hard time getting to sleep last night." I tell her yawning.
"Oh well breakfast is almost ready can you get Wataru for us." Ukyo says as he gathers plates and utensils.
"Hai." I say mid yawn again. I head up to Wataru's room and knock on his door. "Wataru, breakfast is ready."
He opens the door and says "Onee-chan, I'm still tired."
"I am too, how about after breakfast we take a nap." I tell him giving him a hug.
"Hai." he says sleepily, rubbing his eye with one hand and Usa-tan in his other arm.
We head back down stairs to the dining room to see everyone there, even Natsume. "I am not used to seeing everyone here for breakfast I say seeing the table almost full. Wataru pulls me over to the two empty seats.
"Well everyone has today off so we thought we would spend it together." Masaomi says with a smile.
"Oh, I'd planned on going back to sleep." I say putting some rice on my plate.
"Evie didn't sleep well last night." Ema says before anyone can ask.
"I didn't sleep well either. "Wataru says with a big yawn. "Onee-chan said we could take a nap after breakfast."
"Hope you guys didn't have anything special planned." I tell them.
"No we weren't entirely sure what we were going to do." Masaomi says with a chuckle seeing me try to stifle a yawn.
"We were going to throw some choices out after breakfast, but we can stay in for a while, and decide later." Ukyo says.
"Yay can we watch some movies to get us to sleep." Wataru says managing to get some enthusiasm in him.
"Who's gonna pick the movie?" Fuuto asks, "It better not be a baby movie."
"Fuuto stop." Ukyo says "We'll take turns picking something to watch."
"I'll probably be asleep in the first 5 minutes so it doesn't matter to me, unless it's a scary one then forget it." I tell them pushing my food around on my plate.
"Aren't you going to eat?" Natsume asks.
"I'm more tired than I am hungry." I say shrugging my shoulders.
"Are you sure?" Azusa asks worried. I nod my head at him.
"You still need to eat a little bit of something." Masaomi says. I just nod my head and take a small bite and everyone's eyes that had been on me turned away. I took a couple more bites but spent most of breakfast pushing my food around.
"Who's picking first?" I hear someone say and look up to see everyone standing up having finished breakfast.
"Let Wataru pick, he and Vii will fall asleep quickly." Louis says holding Juli in his hands.
"Hai" Wataru says with a yawn. I get up and take my plate to the kitchen and hand it to Ema who is standing beside Ukyo cleaning up the dishes. I go up to my room and grab a blanket and a pillow and head back down to the lounge. I set the pillow down on the floor and spread the blanket out. I get under the blanket and hold the edge open for Wataru to join me. He laid down beside me as Masaomi put the movie Wataru picked out, in. I lay my head on the pillow and watch as the title for "Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi" come on. I fell asleep soon after.
I open my eyes to see the sun shining through the windows of the lounge I look over to see Wataru is gone from my side, I sit up and look around the lounge not seeing anyone. I get up and wander around the house, unable to hear a sound from any of my siblings. "Where'd everyone go?" I ask myself walking to the balcony. I look down to the courtyard to see the majority of them down there watching Ema and Wataru blow bubbles. "Found you." I say and make my way to the courtyard.
"Ohayo." I say as I walk onto the courtyard. I see several heads turn my way and Wataru running toward me with his bubble wand.
"Onee-chan, look I can blow a big bubble" Wataru says stopping just short of me and pursing his lips at the bubble wand. He blows air through his lips gently and I see a bubble start to form but the wind blows and pulls the bubble off before it can get any bigger. "Oh I wanted to make it bigger." He says with a pout.
"It's ok Wataru, the wind thought it was perfect at that size." I say ruffling his hair. "Let's go blow some more." He turns and runs back to Ema at that. I walk behind him and sit beside Ema. "Have they decided what they wanted to do yet?"
"No, I don't think we will be doing much of anything today, no one can agree." Ema says with a giggle. I can here Tsubaki, Fuuto, and Yusuke arguing over what they want to do.
"What are the choices then?" I ask not being able to catch exactly what each wanted to do.
"Tsubaki wants to go to theme park, Yusuke wants to go to an arcade, and Fuuto wants to go see a play." Ema says looking over at them.
"What about the others?" I ask looking around.
"I'm pretty sure they just want the arguing to be over." Ema whispers in me ear.
"I want to go to a park and have fun together." Wataru says laughing as a bubble lands on his nose and stays there a moment before popping.
"What about you Em?" I ask her quietly.
"I'm not sure." Em says as the argument gets louder.
"Would you three knock it off, you are going to disturb the neighbors." Ukyo yells to Yusuke, Fuuto, and Tsubaki.
"What do you want to do?" Iori asks, I look over to see him standing beside me.
"Hmm, a game night sounds fun." I say with a smile.
"Yes, arcade here we come" Yusuke says pumping his fist.
"That's not what I meant." I say my shoulders dropping a little bit in exasperation. "I meant board games and card games."
"So you want to stay in then." Masaomi says with a smile taking the bubbles from Wataru and Ema as small drops of rain start to appear on the concrete.
"It would be best, it looks like it's going to storm again, plus we have plenty of stuff to do here that we can have fun doing." I say looking around at everyone
"That sounds like a good idea." Kaname says walking over to me. "What exactly does our imouto-chan have in mind.?"
"Well I have plenty of board games in my room that Ema and I use to play." I say getting up as the rain starts to sprinkle. "I just have to get them and bring them down."
"I'll help you." Natsume says from behind me.
"Thanks." I say with a smile.
"Nani, Nani. Why does Natsu get to go?" Tsubaki whines as he walks in the door. "I want to help imouto-chan to."
"Sorry Tsubaki, he volunteered first." I say back to him as I enter the elevator.
"Not fair." Tsubaki whine some more and hugs me close to him. "Please let me help you too."
"That's enough." Azusa says and Tusbaki releases his grip on me.
"Ow, Azusa." Tsubaki continues to whine holding onto his head.
The elevator dings and I get off on my floor with Natsume. I stop at my door and pull out my key to unlock it. I open the door and step to the side, "Come on in." I say shutting the door behind Natsume when he comes in. I open the closet door and look around the bottom shelf for the games, not finding them I glance up at the top shelf. "Dammit." I whisper to myself.
"Here." Natsume says from behind me reaching the top shelf, easily. He brings them down and holds them in front of me, his arms around me. I freeze for a moment as my memory flashes back to when I stayed at his place and the last time I was in his arms. I slowly lift my arms up to take the games and he reaches up for the rest of the games on shelf. He steps back once he has the last of the games. "Is that all?" he asks from near the door. I nod my head and walk toward the door.
"Thank you." I tell him once I've got my voice back. We head back downstairs and play board games the rest of the night.
Later that night after everyone goes to their room. I am laying in bed thinking over how the day was. The storms raging outside again, I stand up and move toward the sliding door in my room. I look out at the storm watching the lightening strike and the clouds roll. I look down at the ground as something caught my eye in a flash of lightening. At the gate there is a dark figure holding onto the bars, with the next flash I can see Daniel's face. I stand back away from the window in shock. "How... how does he know?" I ask myself quietly. "He can't see me, the windows are too dark." I say to myself as I hold onto a necklace I am wearing out of nervous habit. "I have to be more careful, I can't let him hurt any of them." I say as the nightmare I had of my new family flashes through my mind. I stay up the rest of the night unable to sleep.