Five year old Ibusaki Sosuke stepped out of his room, rubbing his eyes and wearing a surly expression. No matter how loud he played his music, he could still hear the wailing in the next room through his earbuds.

His father was walking back to the baby's room, holding a coffee in one hand and a bottle in the other, and uttering some very bad words under his breath.

"It's your turn again, already?" Sosuke asked. He had seen his mom twenty minutes ago, and dad again a half hour before that.

"What do you think of your new baby brother?" his father asked dryly, messy hair shielding his eyes as usual.

"Can we send him back?"

"Trust me, I've considered it," his dad said before disappearing into the baby's room to pick up Daisuke. "Try to get some sleep if you can. We've got trees to cut down in the morning, wood to smoke."

Sosuke blinked a few times. He could not be serious.

Once it had been fed, the little monster was quiet for a while, but exactly forty-two minutes later, it started again. Sosuke's eyes shot open and flitted immediately to the alarm clock by his bedside. It was 3:28.

3:28 in the frickin morning.

With a gargantuan sigh, Sosuke put on a hoodie and pair of sneakers and then stuffed his pillow and mp3 player into his backpack. When he opened his door, his mom was walking the little monster up and down the hallway, bouncing and humming to it softly.

"And what are you up to?" she asked.

"I'm moving across the street," Sosuke said decisively. "I can't live like this anymore."

His mom laughed a bit. "You and me both," she said. "But you were the one who wanted a little brother."

Sosuke's head lowered a bit as he remembered pestering her and dad a year before. "I didn't think it would be this way."

His mom patted his head. "Make sure you pack your toothbrush and a change of clothes," she said. "And try not to wake the whole house up. Your Aunt Yuki is gonna deliver any day now, and she should rest while she can."

After he finished packing, Sosuke headed out of the house and across the street. He knew his mom would be watching from the window even though he'd gone over to the Maruis' on his own a million times before.

Sosuke could hardly see anything in the dark, but he climbed the tree in front of the Maruis' house by muscle memory, and once he'd gotten to a long enough branch, he tapped on Yuna's window with a familiar beat.

After a minute, the window opened and a very sleepy Marui Yuna squinted at him. "Sosuke?" she asked through a yawn.

"Sup, Yuna."

Wordlessly, she waved him inside and then closed and latched the window behind him.

"You're all grumpy," she said, once she'd looked at him for a moment. Sosuke didn't know how she could see him at all in the dark and without her glasses, but he somehow knew that she did. "What's wrong?"

"It won't stop screaming," he explained. "I'm running away."

"Don't call baby Daisuke an it. That's dehumanizing," she chided. "You have to be patient with him. He's small."

Sosuke raised an eyebrow at this. Let's see how patient she'd be once her kid sister arrived. "I'll be patient when I've slept for more than twenty minutes. And if my dad really thinks I'm gonna be up at the crack of dawn chopping wood then he can—"

Suddenly, Yuna took his hand and guided him to her canopy bed. "Just come lie down with me," she said. "In this house, we don't wake up before ten on the weekends."

He was asleep next to her before she could even finish the sentence.

Author's Notes: Just a short interlude introducing the next generation of Polar Star kids (also...on the topic of siblings, does Raiden even know what he's asking for? lol). Thanks for reading, everyone!