Sho woke up uncomfortable.

His bed was uncomfortably lumpy. He was uncomfortably warm. Something was uncomfortably digging into his back. He was not comfortable and it took him a minute to figure out why. He tried to roll over but he couldn't. Big sis was sleeping next to him in his bed again. She had done that last night too. That had been weird, she didn't normally do that, but it was ok because she had been there for him when he had needed her…when they had been little…but it had been ok. Even if she had been spending all of her time with dad lately. Even if she had let dad come in and take over their Minecraft world…but then again dad was dad and if dad wanted to take over the world then he would. Taking over a Minecraft world was easier and quicker than taking over the real world…so he wasn't mad at her about that.

Or this.

Sho tried to pull his way out of her arms. He loved his big sister, he always would, but he did need his space. It was way too hot. The heat was on, which was already kind of warm, but also she was very warm while she slept. That was way too much warmth to deal with. People got very warm when they slept. Kind of like the old electric blanket that mom used to put him under when he was little. He needed to get out of this because he was not little and also he was way too warm and also he could sleep in his own bed on his own because he would be ten soon and he didn't need his big sister taking over his bed like she had taken over everything else.

Those were jerk thoughts to have.

She had taken over their family and their Minecraft world and she was always bossing him around and making him do stuff that he didn't want to and dad liked her best and…and he was starting to have jerk thoughts about her and he was not going to let himself think like that. He had to be better than that. He has to be better than dad. When he grew up he was going to be a better person than dad ever was and he couldn't do that if he let his brain think jerk thoughts about his big sister.

He loved her.

He pulled her arms off of him and slid closer to the wall. She tried to hold on to him but her arms were asleep and she was asleep so she wasn't very strong at all. He had succeeded in getting out of her arms but now he had almost no bed at all. He was pressed to close to the wall that he could feel his breath bouncing off of it while he breathed. There was a stuffed animal digging into his stomach. It was a little better than having big sis' arm digging into his back but not by much. What he really wanted was his own bed back and stuff…but she was not going to leave…..because she was sleeping and he was not going to be a jerk and wake her up even though she had already been a jerk first and woke him up and-

And he was not going to be a jerk.

He lifted himself out of bed with his powers. He could make himself fly and stuff, it wasn't hard, but he didn't do it that often. He never really had a reason to. If he ever needed something from up high he could just use his powers to grab it and if he ever needed to be up high then he could just have Shimazaki pick him up. He was strong like that. He could lift Sho up even without his powers and carry him on his back….those times were always fun….and he was always just so much fun to be around…

Sho almost dropped himself.

He needed to focus on what he was doing. He picked himself up and carried himself over big sis and across the room to her bed. He wasn't going to be a jerk and wake her up but he wasn't going sleep all crammed into the corner of the bed either. He would end up permanently smushed and tiny if he tried to sleep like that. So, really, the only thing to do was to trade beds with big sis.

Even if he didn't want to sleep in her bed.

Her bed had a lot more stuffed animals and dolls than his did. She kept them lined up against the wall so, really, they took up about half of the bed. Also she had Frozen bedding and he didn't really like Frozen all that much. Also her bedding smelled kind of like she did a lot of the time. Kind of skunky. Sort of like the inside of Shimazaki's house…which would have made sense since she spent so much time in there…and he didn't know why that made him so mad. She wasn't trying to make Shimazaki her boyfriend anymore. She had a boyfriend now and he was a much better match for her than Shimazaki. He was boring like she was, a jerk thought to have, and also he treated her really well. He was always getting her things in Minecraft and spending time with her and stuff. Also from what Sho had seen he never tried to kiss her or hold her hand or touch her boobs or any of that other stuff you were supposed to do with a girlfriend.

So Sho wouldn't have to beat him up any time soon.

Sho let himself fall down onto big sis' bed. It squeaked kind of loudly but big sis didn't wake up. She just turned around and took up even more of his bed. Well they had well and truly traded then. Fine. Whatever. He could sleep here. It wasn't so bad. She had a very soft pillow and no crumbs in her sheets, either, which was good. It even smelled kind of nice…well not really nice but like Shimazaki…which was kind of nice…even though it only smelled that way because he hung out with her so often and stuff…but that was ok….

Because she didn't like him.

She didn't like him, she liked that other guy, and that was how it was. He was a nice guy and he treated her well and Sho was happy for him and her and he hoped that they got married and had a lot of babies because he really liked babies and then also baby sis could have some friends her own age to play with. That was why he didn't want her to end up married to Shimazaki, he decided, aside from the fact that if she married Shimazaki then he and Shimazaki couldn't be friends. Shimazaki said that he never wanted to have kids because he knew that he would be bad at taking care of them so if he and big sis got married then she wouldn't have any kids and then Sho wouldn't have any nieces and nephews to play with and teach stuff to and also baby sis wouldn't have any friends her own age to play with. So that was why the thought of big sis marrying Shimazaki made him want to start kicking holes in all the walls in the room.

He didn't.

Instead he rolled over and tried to get comfortable. He rolled onto his side, then onto his other side, then onto his back, and finally onto his stomach. That seemed to be the most comfortable way to sleep…well sort of. She had a lot of dolls and stuff in her bed and it was just…he didn't even know. He slept with some stuffed animals too, he planned to stop that once he turned ten because ten year olds did not sleep with stuffed animals, but having the whole other side taken up by dolls did seem to be just a little bit too much. He tried to push them out of the way…but there were just too many…there was no room at all in her bed. Maybe this was why she had been sleeping with dad lately. Maybe that was why she had been leaving him to sleep all alone in this room while she and dad hung out together playing Minecraft and also dad had let her sleep in his bed even though he had never let Sho do that before and Sho was littler than big sis and that was something that little kids did all the time, sleep with their parents, and…and it just hadn't been fair! Why did she get to sleep in dad's bed!? Why did dad always have to act like she was the best person ever to live?! Why did he have to-

Jerk thoughts.

Sho was not going to sit there and have jerk thoughts about his sister. He was going to be a good little brother and a good person. So he was going to stop. So he did stop. He made himself stop. He reached deep into his mind and made all of his jerk thoughts just…stop. All of them. Well he tried to…

He tried his best.

He rolled over onto his side and kept his eyes closed as tightly as he could. He closed his eyes and shook his head and tried to make the thoughts stop. He tried to shake them out like the times when he got water in his ears but he just…couldn't. Something was wrong with him and he just…couldn't stop being a jerk. No matter what he did he just couldn't stop being a jerk and…and he wished that he could have been anyone other than himself.

He wished that he and big sis could have switched bodies or something.

They had switched beds so why not switch bodies, too? He could get used to wearing dresses and brushing his hair every day and peeing sitting down and stuff. He could have gotten used to being with dad all the time, too. That was the only way that dad would ever love him as much as he loved big sis, if he were to become big sis, but that was only possible in the movies. This was real life and he had never heard of anyone with the power to swap bodies so it must not have existed. She was herself and he was himself and dad would never love him as much as he loved big sis. Dad didn't know how to break up love. He couldn't break it in half like a giant churro, the kind with the chocolate inside that they sold at Disneyland and filled you up really fast. You were supposed to break them in half because there was enough for two people. Well dad was bad at sharing since he never broke his love in half even though he had two kids already.

It wasn't fair.

Sho hadn't asked to be born the way he had been. He hadn't asked to have been born less powerful than big sis. He hadn't asked to be born wrong. He had just been born the way that he had been born. What was he supposed to do about it now? He had powers now and…and it still wasn't good enough for dad. Sho used to think that it was all about powers, that if he could just get more powerful then dad would love him, but that was not how it worked. Big sis was more powerful than he was and dad would always like her better. He liked her better, had always liked her better, and had only had Sho because he needed to have a boy so he had someone to inherit the world after he took it over.

Dad was such a jerk sometimes.

Dad was a jerk and Sho wished that he was strong enough to…to be the one doing the hitting for once. He wanted to hit dad. He shook his head more. He couldn't hit dad. If he hit dad then…then dad would probably just kill him and then figure out how to make it so that big sis could inherit the world he was going to take over. Sho was in no way strong enough to hit dad, to hit him and be able to walk away right afterwards, and he didn't know if he ever would be…but he did know that he just…wanted…he wanted….wanted…

He wanted to get these dolls out of the bed!

He reached over with his powers and just threw her dolls around the room. He threw them against the walls and onto the floor and even bounced hem off the ceiling. He was being a jerk and he knew it…but it was better to throw some dolls around than to throw her around. It felt like…like he wanted to pick her up with his powers and throw her…and that was a bad way to feel. He loved her and he never wanted to hurt her…until the times when he did. Like now. Until the times when he turned into the worst sort of person. Until the times when he threw things and broke them because otherwise he would pick her up and throw her and…

And he was not dad.

He was not dad and he was not going to hurt his big sister. He would hurt her toys but he wouldn't hurt her. He had hurt her enough. He had hurt her and…and he did not want to be that person…but it was hard not being that person. Maybe that was why dad was that person. Maybe he was that person because it was easier to be that person, the sort of person who hurt people and acted like a jerk, than the sort of person who kept their feelings inside and was nice all the time even though it made them want to scream. He wanted to scream. He wanted to scream because it just wasn't fair and nothing was fair and no matter how much time changed, no matter how much older he got, things would always be unfair and dad would always be a jerk and-

"Sho? What are you doing?" asked big sis. Oh no. He had woken her up and now…now she was facing him. She was laying in his bed facing him. It was weird to look at her from the right, his bed was always on the left and hers was always on the right, and that was the only thought he had as his powers calmed down and any of her dolls that had been in the air fell to the ground.

He was such a jerk that he couldn't even believe it.

"You have too many dolls in your bed. They were poking me in the back." Said Sho because he needed to say something. He couldn't just tell her that he had been mad at her and dad and himself and just…acted like a jerk again and wrecked her stuff and…stuff. No. He wasn't going to say anything like that at all.

"Oh." Said big sis. Sho waited to see if she was going to say something besides 'oh'. Didn't she think that it was weird that they had swapped beds? Didn't she think that it was weird that instead of kicking her out of his bed he had gone to her bed? She was the one who had crawled into bed with him without asking after all. He was the one who had woken up in the middle of the night to his big sister hugging him from behind and making him feel way too hot and way too squished. He was the one who-

He was the one who was having jerk thoughts, not her.

She wasn't a jerk. She was bossy, she was very bossy, but she was not a jerk. She had never once been a jerk to him so he needed to stop being a jerk to her. Even in his own head he had to be nice to her. Dad was mean to people in his head. Sho couldn't read thoughts but he could tell that if dad was mean to people in life then he must have been mean to people in his head, too. Well Sho did not want to be the sort of person who was mean to people in his head so he had to stop…even though she got everything now. His bed. Their dad. Their Minecraft world…and also maybe she was wearing his socks, too, now that he got a good look at her feet and stuff….but he was not going to get mad. He was going to tally up his mean thoughts and then kick the wall the same number of times that he had mean thoughts and that going to be the end of it.

He was going to kick the wall, not her, never her…because he loved her and she loved him and he wanted to keep her loving him but she wouldn't love him anymore if he went around hurting her…and he wouldn't love himself, either.

"I'm sorry that there were so many dolls in my bed…I guess that I didn't notice that I had put so many in my bed because….because I haven't slept in my bed in a while." Said big sis

"Whose fault is that?" asked Sho before he could stop himself. He bit his tongue after he said that. He needed to be nicer to her. He wasn't dad, he couldn't be dad, he was….a better person than dad. Or he tried his best to be, at least.

"Um…mine, I guess. I don't know. Maybe dad's because he made me sleep next to him but…I guess mine. I'm sorry, Sho." said big sis. He wished that she could have been a jerk to him. He wished that she would take the stuff out of his bed, his stuffed Nick and Judy from Zootopia, the sketchbook he kept under his pillow, the old socks he kept on kicking off in his sleep, his phone, his DS, and that smooth rock he and Shimazaki had found in the park and Shimazaki had let him have even though he had thought that it felt nice…he wished that she had taken everything and the bed too and just picked it up and thrown it all out the window and out into the cold or something!

But she didn't.

She was too nice to do that. She was nice and he just…wasn't. She had gotten that from mom. Probably because she was a girl. He was a jerk, like dad, probably because he was a boy. But he was trying…and trying had to be good for something. It was more than dad did, anyway. Dad never tried. He just acted like a jerk and everyone was supposed to just…just let him be a jerk….and stuff. Big sis let dad be a jerk and…and she let him be a jerk too…

And he knew that he should not have been mad about that but he was.

She was always so bossy! Would it have been so hard for him to tell him to stop acting like a jerk? For her to tell him that he needed to stop being a jerk to her and that he needed to start being nice and…and stuff like that? Why did she always just let him act like this? Why did she have to always be so nice all the time? Even now. He had woken her up buy throwing all of her toys around but she didn't even say anything. She just let him.

She was nice like that…and he was a jerk…and that was just how they were…

"Stop saying sorry so much. Just…I'm sorry that I threw your stuff around and woke you up, ok? Even though I only did that because you were in my bed and you woke me up I'm still sorry." said Sho. That hadn't come out that mean…had it? He had been telling the truth. She had been in his bed and she had woken him up and therefore it was her fault…was that a jerk thought to have? He didn't know. All he knew was that he was always so mean to her…and he needed to stop….and also that he was tired and he just wanted to go to sleep….

"Oh…ok. I'm sorry that I said that I was sorry…please don't be mad at me, little brother. I didn't mean to make you mad and I didn't mean to wake you up…I just didn't want to be all alone…" said big sis

"What do you mean 'all alone'? We were asleep in the same room…and also stop saying that I was mad at you and stuff…" said Sho. She was making him feel bad talking like that. He loved her a lot and all but also…also it made him mad when said that he had been mad at her…and that was just so dumb kind of…because…because it just was.

"Ok, little brother, I'll stop saying that you were mad at me…and I was just lonely because….because dad doesn't like me anymore. He kept on making me sleep with him but then he made me go away and…and he doesn't like me…and I just wanted to be next to you." Said big sis. Sho didn't know what he was hearing. Well he did, obviously, because he spoke Japanese. He knew that big sis was telling him that dad didn't like her anymore but that wasn't true. She hadn't had a bruise on her. Dad still liked her.

Dad would always like her.

He had no idea where this stuff was coming from. So dad wasn't making her sleep next to him anymore. Big deal. Dad had never even once let Sho sleep next to him. Dad had never picked Sho up and carried him to bed to sleep next to him or played with him or spent time with him without being mean and…and it just wasn't fair. She didn't know what it was when dad didn't like you. She didn't know what it was to be treated like a piece of gum that dad had found on the bottom of his shoe. Sho knew what that was like.

She would never know what that was like.

He was mad at her. He was so mad at her that he had to turn around and kick the wall behind him a few times. He didn't care if he was being loud or if he was putting holes in the walls or if he was going to end up with a broken foot one of these days like Fukuda had said. Sho was just…mad. So mad. The most mad…and he could either kick the wall or he could kick big sis. He chose the wall. At least the wall wasn't someone who loved him and who he loved right back. At least the wall wouldn't be all 'Sho, I love you so much and you're the best little brother ever' in the morning when he was done. At least the wall wouldn't have bruises and stuff in the morning.

Better the wall than her.

She was watching him. He could feel her watching him. He kicked until he was done and then…kept his back to her. He had to keep his back to her because if he turned to face her then he would end up saying something mean. He would end up telling her what it was really like when dad didn't like you anymore. He would tell her…he would tell her a lot of things that he didn't want to tell her because he was not going to be a jerk to her anymore. It was hard but he had made up his mind already. He was going to be nice.

"Are you ok?" asked big sis. She was still looking at him and she was still worried about him. Why did she have to be so worried? Why couldn't she just…stop being so nice to him all the time? And stop worrying about him? Why couldn't she just…stop it already?

"Fine. Just tired." said Sho. He didn't want to talk about this so late at night…or maybe it was early in the morning…at all. He didn't want to talk about this at all. He just wanted to go to sleep and then wake up and then it would be tomorrow and then he could pick up her stuff and forget that she had ever said that thing about dad liking her anymore and then he could forget about how he wanted to tell her, show her, what it was really like when dad didn't like you. He just wanted this moment, this night, to pass already.

"I'm sorry if I made you mad." Said big sis. She was still sitting up and she was still looking at him. He could feel her. He still kept his back to her. He didn't want to start fighting with her this late at night…or early in the morning….or ever. He just wanted them to be ok together, that was all, and he wanted to be a good little brother. He couldn't be a good little brother if he was being mean to her…so he decided to stop being mean to her.

"I told you to stop saying that I was mad at you." Said Sho. He wished that she would just go to bed already. He had no idea what time it was but he knew that it was late. He knew that they needed sleep, that he needed sleep, and he wished that she would just let him sleep already….

"Ok. I'm sorry." said big sis. He wished that she would just stop saying that…but he said nothing to her. He still was not going to run the risk of being a jerk. Even if she was still looking at him and…and still in his bed…and he wanted her to just stop looking at him and to stop being in his bed and just…just to stop this already…

"I told you to stop saying that too." Said Sho. He pulled her blanket up over his head. Maybe then she would realize that he didn't want to talk, he wanted to rest, and then that she should just leave him alone before he said something or did something that he regretted.

"Ok." Said big sis. There was some silence there. If he had been anyone else he would have thought that she had gone back to sleep. But he wasn't anyone else, he was Suzuki Sho, and he could sense his sister's aura. He knew that she was looking at him and…and he knew that she needed to stop that right now…for both of their own good…

"Well, goodnight then." Said Sho. There. After he said that he felt her attention to leave him. He heard his bed groan. That meant that she had turned around and gone to sleep. He wanted to be in his own bed on his own side of the room with his own stuffed animals…but he wasn't going to drag her out of his bed so he could sleep. No, he just made himself comfortable. He was a good little brother.

And sometimes being a good little brother meant switching beds with your big sister.