Sister Pri 05

Wataru was in his room. Or so his little sister's thought. He was late for dinner. That wasn't like him… At the same time it wasn't spectacularly peculiar, and as strange as his recent actions had been they just let it be. However Sakuya, ever the sly one, took this opportunity to powder her nose. Had any of them given the phrase an ounce of thought they would have put together that she meant she was going to powder her nose… in Wataru's room.

Casually walking out of the dinning room was easier than she thought it might be, and soon she could hear the light sounds of snoring coming from the hall. He had left his door open. Not possible. Well, not for Wataru. And yet, with a gentle push the dark room opened up.

"Dear Brother?"

The snoring stopped with a large breath taken through the nose.

"Sakuya?" he yawned.

"Are you all right?" she asked, entering and turning on the light. He sat up.

"I'm fine, I just needed a nap. Is dinner ready?"

"Yes, the other's were wondering where you were. But I knew you were right here Dear Brother."

"Fantastic. Shall we be going?"

"Fantastic? Is that all? I knew where you were and all you can say is-"

"Wait!" he said, a charge pulsing through. "I know what you're going to say, and I'd like to say I agree with you one-hundred percent. Now let's get some eats."

"What? … No you didn't, you weren't even listening!"

"Fine, fine, here," he muttered opening his laptop and starting a word processor. "You write your message here…" he typed, 'Important message for Wataru,' "and I'll get to it as soon as I can."

Sakuya gave him a homicidal look, just as Kaho walked in.

"Brother?"

"Kaho?" he asked.

"We're all waiting for you in the dinning room…"

"Hold on a second," Sakuya said. "Kaho we'll be there in a moment, but right now Dear Brother and I-"

"D… Did you just excuse another person I was talking to before we were through talking?"

"I was trying to-"

He grabbed her hand and gently slapped it.

"You're bad, Sakuya."

Her face went red, and she backed away, whispering, "You're bad…"

He closed his laptop, flicked off the light and dragged Sakuya out into the hall. "We'll continue this conversation some other time, right now I see a cutie with a dinner plan."

Several moments later they were seated around the table munching and smacking away at the tender morsels Shirayuki had prepared. Roast duck with chicken nuggets. Karen had said a side dish with BBQ buffalo wings might have been a little much.

"What about BQB buffalo wings? Or BBZ buffalo wings?" he asked.

"BBZ?" Mami exclaimed. "What are you some sort of a rapper?"

He was suddenly graver than the grave. Er… Dead serious, shall we say.

"What did you call me?"

"Huh? I didn't mean anything I ju-"

Then, all at once, he was looking up and stoking his chin like he was actually considering it.

"Now that you mention it… I could…"

"Wha?"

Now he was concerned. "Mami, what's wrong with you today?" he asked. "I keep getting all these mixed signals."

"What? You're the one that's mixing the signals, Bud!"

"Me!" he countered. His indignity knew no bounds, or so it sounded. "I'll have you know I've never mixed a signal in my life!"

"Well then don't mix this signal!" she growled, picking up a chicken leg and throwing it at him. It hit him square on the nose and bounced off. The room gasped. Even Mami looked at little surprised at her own good/bad luck/aim/temperament.

He wiped the grease off his nose and smiled. "No harm done…" he whispered. The room sighed, just before he picked up a clean fork. In an eerie silence he poked the butter and lifted the whole stick up. The saucer it was on lifted an inch with it then dropped back to the table. Every eye was on him at twice, no! Three times their normal size! "Nothing personal… of course."

Mami, who was smiling in horror, wondered momentarily whether he would actual do it just as they heard a creek above them. Looking up they saw Yamada's nose on a windowsill, and his eyes just above them.

They all looked on in wonder as he got up and said, apparently the first thing that came to his mind.

"Wataru, 'ol buddy, if you need some mud for a wrestling match I can get some for you real quick…"

As gently as he could, Wataru put down the butter; the fork still sticking ominously out of it at a haphazard angle, stood up, and ran for the door.

Yamada, who had caught on a second too late, ran for the stairs at the same time. They met in the entrance hall Yamada above, Wataru below.

"Come down now and I'll let your next of kin bury what's left of you."

"Wataru, buddy, you know I was just kidding right?"

"Yamada there are two things I hate in this world. You! And your twin brother!"

"But I don't have a twin brother…" he said in that shaky voice people get just before the axe falls.

A look of confusion spread across Wataru's face. Yamada considered that opening his fool mouth might not have been the best of moves as the look turned to the purest rage. (That is to say the purest Wataru could manage since he wasn't really even angry in the slightest. Just a bit odd feeling.)

"What! Then… Yaaarrr!" he shouted running up the stairs. Yamada, in the smartest move he had made all day, ran the other way around. After a little game of run around the rosies, Yamada hurled down the stairs and out the door with Wataru on his tail. "And don't come back unless the sun's up and the moon's in the third quarter!"

Figuratively patting himself on the back, he walked back to his seat as his sister's looked on and sat back down. He returned their stairs and noticed that something was missing. After a second he placed it. The butter! And the fork; let's not forget that. After looking at it's absent place and reviewing the cuties sitting around the table again the lot of them smiled in a 'disaster averted' kind of way.

"Where were we?" he asked. Then, turning to Mami, "Oh, yes, you were just apologizing."

"What!"

"Not for hitting me on the nose with a chicken leg, I think everybody here would like to do that, you just got the nerve first, but calling people rappers when they're trying to eat…" he trailed off, shaking his head.

"Elder Brother?"

He looked up.

"You weren't going to hurt Yamada were you?" Shirayuki asked.

His mind started digging through its files. What was it's that made Shirayuki tick? And what would make her more… for lack of a better word, amorous? Food was her specialty, but he couldn't just bring it up. But maybe if he…

"Why do you ask, babycakes?"

"Huh?" she blushed. But maybe she didn't hear him right… "It's just that you seemed so angry a minute ago."

"Eh, you should have seen me back in Jing-te-pe," he shrugged.

"You don't even know what Jing-te-pe is," Chikage mused.

"Sure I do. They told me all about it at my most recent meeting of Ragoholic Anonymous Group Ensemble. Er… Isn't it where people get together to lock horn's after they've been in accidents?"

"Wow, Bro, that stuff's really getting to you. Have you been drinking any fluids?"

"We don't keep any in the house."

"Yep, he's wasted."

"What do you mean, Rin Rin," Karen asked.

"Well the hexadrocilrhyboneucleoicoxens have been paring off and siphoning his innate ability to reason and predict. It's sort of the way the cure works, he should be fine in the morning."

"Fine, normal, or fine, playboy?" Marie asked.

"I… don't know…" She leaned forward in her chair and started scratching the back of her head.

"Is there anything you haven't told us yet, Rin Rin?" Yotsuba asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

She stopped scratching.

"Of course not. Well… nothing that hasn't come to mind when we've talked… That is, it isn't like there's a slight possibility that the cure I used the morning actually made it so he'd fall in love with the first person he kissed as opposed to, say the first person who he saw, which was me, and so you might say this is all really Sakuya's fault in the first place."

"What? I didn't give him a rampant batch of hexadrocilmeyer-thingies this morning."

Before Rin Rin could respond Yotsuba, who had listened a tad more carefully than the others, paraphrased it for them. "Then Brother Dearest will fall in love with the first girl he kisses?"

"What!" shouted all the girls unanimously.

Yotty was folding her arms and looking down in that angry way she did when she was trying to think hard, however this time it might have been to deflect the glance of deepest loathing Rin Rin sent her way before even attempting some damage control.

"Well if I had had ten extra minutes before Sakuya-"

"If you had ten extra minutes before I came in then you and Dear Brother would be all lovey-dovey right now and none of us would be able to figure out why!"

"Brother Mine. Did you hear that!" Marie shouted in her already overdrawn voice, anxious at his non-pulsed attitude.

"Hamburger!" he shouted back, looking around thoughtlessly.

"What?" she asked back.

"Hamburger?" Mamoru thought out loud.

"We don't speak freak, Bud."

"Mon Frere… Aria will… Kiss you…"

"No, no Aria," Kaho said. "They don't mean love like a brother and sister… do they?"

"Definitely not!" Rin Rin growled.

"Then things are going to get ugly around Brother Dearest."

"Karen have I ever told you about the time my Rageahol got so out of control I killed a bear and ate him there?"

She smiled as a large sweat drop formed on her forehead. "Ate him, er… where?"

"There. Care. Karen. Do you know your name sounds like Care, Karen?"

"Ummm…"

"Don't worry he's just thinking out loud, just don't ask him any serious questions."

Before anybody could ask Rin Rin why, Sakuya shouted, "What do you think of Sakuya, Dear Brother?"

As a response he started singing, "Sakuya… Sakuya…" to the tune of silver bells. He started humming the rest as his balance gave way and he wobbled in his chair.

"Quick-!" Rin Rin shouted. She had meant to say, 'quick, catch him,' but he had already let his face drop to his plate.

"I have chicken for an eye," he moaned into the roasted foul, beginning to cry lightly.

"Somebody should put Bro Bro to sleep."

"Hina's right, and it hadn't better be Sakuya."

"Oh, be quiet Chikage," Sakuya snapped.

"It might be best if all of us do it… and lock him in his room for the night at that," Yotsuba casually noted. "Or a group of us at least… Does anybody know how to set a mean burglar alarm for ground level windows?"

"Oh, please, like I'm going to break in Dear Brother's own room."

"Well if you don't, she will," Mamoru said. "The only reason Yotsuba wouldn't set up the burglar alarm herself is so that she couldn't be blamed when it didn't work."

"What! I-"

"Don't deny it."

Yotsuba smirked. "You are smarter than you look."

Mamoru's mouth dropped open. "We'll you're-"

"Don't start," Chikage said with such force the two stopped. "We'll do this like big girls should. We'll all take him to his room then each of us, in pairs, will stay up and watch him for two hours at a time. Unless, of course, we can all trust each other not to try anything."

They all looked each other over. The silence was deafening

"I call first shift," Mami said, raising her hand.

"Me too," Kaho said, raising hers.

The room grew loud with cries of, 'me next,' and, 'me too.'

Karen and Chikage were the last to raise their hands.