Sister Pri 08

Mami shoved Wataru a safe distance away.

"Well, I guess your whole, 'I wash my hair, if only occasionally,' thing was gospel truth after all."

"Every day isn't occasionally, Bud."

"Brother Dearest certainly likes sniffing things since he woke up this morning."

"It can't be true," he muttered.

"What can't?" Mami asked.

"Wait… huh, I guess she's right," he said, rhetorically. Then he said in a light, crisp, determined voice, "I, Wataru Minakami, vow to never again sniff, as long as the sky is green."

"Green?" Yotsuba asked.

"Yes, Green!"

"The sky isn't green," Mami said through a confused sounding growl.

"Well then, maybe I can- just this once," and he started sniffing Yotsuba, first around her head, then her hair, before she giggled and shied away.

"Beloved Brother?" Haruka wondered, coming out from behind a pillar.

He wandered over to her instead of following Yotty, and stared sniffing her. Almost at once she went red, before Mami grabbed his nose in an anger-ly fashion.

"If you sniff out one more-"

But before she could finish he had grabbed her hand, twisted it around, and started mumbling.

"Chikage don't fail me now… If the moon is in the third quarter and Venus is… That line; it calls to me…"

Before she processed what he was doing all her hair was on end. She would have yanked her hand back and slapped him upside the head for his audacity, but believe it or not she didn't want the prickly feeling to dissipate. In another second Yotty and Haruka were standing on either side, the former gazing through a magnifying glass, trying to see what he saw in Mami's hand.

Truth be told they saw it. Nothing. Well, nothing other than Mami's hand. However if you mumble the right way you can make people think that instead of stalling for time or trying to just change the sway of the conversation you're reading their hand, and reading something very interesting, which everybody secretly wishes, that they lived an interesting life or that something interesting was going to happen.

His actual training came from a time Chikage grabbed his hand and started mumbling. He found it very… stimulating, though he didn't say so at the time, and though the Wataru we all know and love would never have imagined a feeling as special as that could be summoned wherever people mistake cunning for sincerity, the scum sucking playboy that cheap cologne (and every second he was becoming more expensive cologne) Wataru is knew it all too well.

"Oh yes… I see now… your mother was scared by an ant-eating elephant, and you suffer from a fear of carpets and upholstery because of it."

"Erk," the spectators said.

Mami slowly, gracefully, reached up and with all the prickly feeling left in her tried to pinch a hole in his cheek. Wataru, however, backed upand showed his fu-cha block to any and all advances by her wrathful hand.

"An ant-eating mouse, maybe?"

"Don't you know the meaning of propriety?"

"Propriety… No, do you?"

Her face went a little red, but not in a cutesy way.

"Oh I see… You've been watching What's Up Doc and thought I was going to quote the dictionary, but little did you know propriety is the last way to a young girl's heart, and this is the quickest," he said, pointing to his neck.

Mami just stood there, clenching her fist, growling though her gritted teeth, but Haruka wanted to know exactly, precisely, and would even settle for approximately what he meant.

"The neck?" she said, failing as always to hide her German accent.

"Oh yes, want to see?"

"Uh… Um… Sure…"

"Okay, now you might feel some pressure," he said, walking over to her and putting his hands on her shoulders. They were close, but not too close, yet she had been in this position before.

"You're not going to… kiss…?"

"Of course not," he reassured her, ducking down and evaluating her neck in a very professional manner.

She gave a sigh of relief, though down deep she almost felt a little disheartened.

"It's more of a nibble," he finished, zooming in and gnawing ever so gently on her delicate skin.

Between the two seconds it took her to realize that he was nibbling on her neck and then to fully comprehend that HE WAS NIBBLING ON HER NECK, about every cell on the right side of her face all the way down to his hand on her shoulder started buzzing with electricity. For the third and fourth seconds she lost her sense of better judgment and just enjoyed it, with a little 'ooo' slipping out her mouth. But then she heard Yotty going 'ooo' and Mami going 'aaa' and something clicked.

"You're very nice, but… bye!" she quickly said, pulling back and peeling out, stifling a giggle. His teeth kept moving, gently gnawing the air as she leapt behind a colum.

That's twice in twenty minutes… This was bad.

"Post traumatic stress, Bud…" Mami said, sitting down. "I might hate you right now, but I gotta know… Where did you learn to do that?"

He stood upright and worked out a crick in his neck.

"Long story…"

"I won't run away Brother Dearest," Yotsuba said walking up to him.

He bent over just a tad like he was going to start and then, unexpectedly, blew in her ear.

Being English, instead of Japanese, she stifled her own giggle and pranced off in the same direction as Haruka.

"Promises, promises," he whispered.

"What?"

"Oh that burns my cannolie!" he growled.

"That's what you get for moving in on your sisters."

"Quiet you."

"You be quiet, I'm trying to think."

"Here," he said holding out a hand, as a means of pulling her back up.

"Huh?"

"I'll walk you to the nurse's office or something, but we had better get out of here. People are beginning to stare.

And it was so. And not just people, more like everybody and their dog.

Realizing the compromising situation she was in she took his hand, got up, and they walked back inside.

"You'll be alright," she said, regaining her composure ever so slightly as they walked it off.

He gave her a sly look and they walked inside.

"Brother Mine!" Marie shouted as they passed her on their way up some stairs.

"Oui, oui?" he asked.

"You know French?" she asked, her train of thought a little derailed.

"I know a lot of French, here, let me show you," he said taking a step toward her.

"Eeep!" she said, covering her mouth and backing away.

"Marie… you wound me!"

"Sorry, but…" she removed her hands and they saw some faint color in her cheeks.

"Blushing, and I didn't even get to do anything… tisk, tisk."

"Marie, you needed something?" Mami asked when the faint color became a not so faint color.

"uh… oh, yes! Mamoru's hiding out in the bathroom, Shirayuki's wandering around in a daze, I just saw Haruka jump into some bushes through a window and Yotsuba just came running past laughing like a madwoman. What's going on around here?"

"Need you even ask?" Mami said, pointing her nose at Bud.

"What do you have to say about this?" Marie asked him, a little aggravated.

"Me? Well… what else? I'm throwing a party in my mouth and you're invited. What d'you say?"

"Brother Mine! This isn't the place or the time…" Marie started.

"For what?" Sakuya asked, coming down the stairs.

"Nothing," she uttered, looking down.

"Marie…"

"It's just that…"

"I said I was throwing a party, but Marie isn't one for partying on stairs. Nothing to take too seriously now, right, Sa-ku-ya?"

"Say my name like that again… I dare you."

"While you're standing above me on a flight of stairs? Sakuya you insult my fear of being shoved down a flight of stairs when I least expect it!"

"You think that I-?"

"I think that you think that murder mysteries are sexy. Five minutes ago I would have said perish the thought, but now that you confess-"

"What? I-"

"Sakuya, I never knew… and quite frankly I didn't want to know, thanks for sharing by the way, but as long as were on the subject-"

"Were not-"

"-get everything you want out murder mysteries, I don't care… freak… but if you're thinking about making me the murder-ee then I'll ask you not to involve me in your sick fantasies-"

"Are you still talking?" she growled giving him a playful shove towards the wall.

"Woah!" he said, pretending that he was going to topple downwards.

"Yeah right, Bud."

"A! It could happen," he said, standing back up. "Think, if I had actually been falling then I would have gone to my doom and you could have stopped it. Don't you feel bad…" he scathingly inquired.

"Yeah but you weren't, and even if you had been afterwards you would have been all, 'Mami you save my life, oh thank you, I'll love you for ever!' or something like that."

"Oh please I'm not that pathetic. It would have been more like, 'Mami you saved my live? You? Mami? Are you feeling well today? Were you planning on murdering me in my sleep anyway? Oh no, Mami, why on earth would you'-?"

"WE GET THE POINT," Mami said, sounding angry but smiling.

"You are so mean…" Sakuya said.

"And you are so obvious… Please try and be a little less forward around Marie, can't you see it disturbs her?"

"What?" Marie asked.

"See? SEE!"

"You think I'm stupid!" Sakuya shouted.

"You think I'm sickly," Marie whispered.

"You two are thinking too much," Mami said shaking her head.

"A remarkably valid answer from a remarkably, beep, comment deleted, girl."

"Huh? What did you say?"

"I said," his head twitched to the side, "I said," his head twitched to the side again, "I said, I said, I said."

"There's nothing wrong, is there young man?"

His face stopped twitching and he turned to receive another faceful of old man.

"Aaa!" he shouted, backing up and almost falling down. I say almost because instead he backed into Sakuya, who was sort of in his way. "Sorry," he said, looking up past her… um… I don't know how to put this, but I think Sakuya put it best.

"Eeeeee!"

He jumped back up and straightened his necktie.

"These things do happen."

"If they happen again," she growled, grabbing his collar and pulling his face and inch away from hers, "then things… things… Your breath smells… bad…"

"Yours is…"

Somewhere nearby a bell sounded.

"As interesting as this all is, might I suggest we get off the stairs before the stampede?" the teacher humble suggested.

The lot nodded as they all went their separate ways in an awkward silence. However before Sakuya went up the stairs to her class Wataru whispered, "Sakuya."

"What?"

"Really good…" and he hurried off.

She blushed as she started up the stairs. Bad breath or not, another ten seconds and…!