Wow, 3 reviews! Just want to let you all know, that I REALLY appreciate that. And yes, I disturb you with my strange twinly twinness. As a reward for the reviews, I'll TRY to make this chapter nice and long.
Chapter 5
Juuhachigou dropped her canvas bag on the beige carpet of the lounge room. Not that much lounging went on in there, in fact, the only lounging that went on at all in the house was in her bedroom. She wasn't a messy person, yet her bedroom was in a constant state of disarray, in part to compensate for the stark, clean feel to the rest of what was supposed to be a home, and in part due to the fact that she was rarely there to clean it. Most of her time was spent visiting her mother at the hospital. She sighed. Soon she'd have plenty of time to tidy up.
As much as she hated to acknowledge the fact, Juuhachigou's mother was dying. Slowly, in a lot of pain. She'd had cancer for a while now, lung cancer. People often asked if she was a smoker. Juu always snapped back that her mother would never do something like that to herself, that this was just a cruel twist of fate. Repeatedly praying for her lost cause had stripped the girl of any faith in an almighty deity. Her mother's plight had also stripped her of any social life.
That was another complication with her possible 'relationship' with Kuririn. She never had any time. What time she did have she generally spent fretting over her mother's condition, and how she was doing without her daughter's constant presence by her bedside.
In truth, her mother appreciated the peace, and chance to rest as much as she appreciated her daughter's devotion. She was a dying woman and most of the time she just wanted to sleep, tired and in pain she hadn't the patience to deal with her daughter's emotional problems.
She stood up. The house emanated a silence so loud it hurt. Her shoes clunked against the white tiles of the kitchen area, so she slid them off and placed them on the counter, padding silently to the fridge. Yogurt in one hand, shoes in the other, she silently made her way up the carpeted stairs to the asylum of her bedroom.
She tiptoed gingerly over the scattered garments that lined her bedroom floor, then collapsed onto her bed and closed her eyes. She didn't want to think.
((A/N: this is really hard for me… I like to make each chapter focussing on one person))
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The door clicked shut behind her. Chichi could hear the television blaring from the living room so she wandered in. Her elder cousin was curled up on the sofa before the television, reading a magazine.
Chichi had been living with her 24-year-old cousin for two weeks now, and her patience was wearing thin. After antagonising her father for three days straight and managing to perceive herself as the wronged, she had decided that they needed a break, that she needed to go somewhere. Erika had seemed like the most reasonable option, she was close enough for the actual moving process not to be even more of a fuss, she was old enough to take care of Chichi legally, and she was a trusted relative, one that Chichi liked.
Unfortunately, Chichi's liking of her cousin was breaking down. Basically, she had become witness to the young woman's sloppiness. Erika was incapable of cleaning. She couldn't cook, either, and Chichi had been doing that since she arrived. She was growing better at it, and enjoyed the activity but it was the principle of the thing: Erika was the carer, Chichi was the caree and should not be cooking for the carer.
How Erika kept her figure when unable to cook a healthy, non-greasy meal was beyond the younger girl. However, she managed to stay fit enough to work as a dietician, vending useful advice whilst skilfully ignoring it when it came to her own life. Being a dietician was not something Chichi would have thought required you to be attractive, but she soon learnt that people simply did not take health and fitness advice from an obese, pimply man with a large nose. It was just one of those things. Well, the obese and pimply part was probably quite reasonable, as they were spouting dietary advice, but the large nose really had nothing to do with diet and yet Erika had informed her quite solemnly that a nice nose was a necessity.
Erika looked up.
"You got homework, Cha-cha?" the ebon haired girl frowned at the use of the nickname. It irritated her to no end. It wasn't even a proper nickname, it was no shorter than her real name and only served to irritate the shit out of her.
"Yeah, I'll go do it now," she left the presence of her cousin in measured silence, making not a sound on the tiled floor.
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I failed on the long chapter thing, eh? Hehe… he……. he…….. anyway, I didn't like all the jumping around, and I wasn't writing well. (not that I ever really do) and I'm quite sure any readers I may have would prefer short, reasonably-written chapters than long pieces of crap? I know I do.