"Onii-sama."
"Huh?"
The world shifted, and like a camera refocusing into view, it took a while before the blurs meshed together to form coherent shapes, and soon enough, colors. The first color I saw, the first color of the real world, was the same color I'd been seeing for the past year now.
The blue eyes of my beneficiary.
"Onii-sama, get up, or we'll be late for school," the shrine priestess harrumphed. "I know that you're barely functional as a human being, but please, for our sakes, don't extend that outside our home."
"Y-Yukino?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Yes, that's me. Have you forgotten your own little sister?"
"B-but..." I was silenced by her leaving through the door. In the silence of the room, I clutched my head. I was finally free, in the real world, yet...
"Weren't you an only child?"
I asked, but no one replied.
...
Haruno.
The creature that took me from the world.
She was a creature of legend, from the books I've gotten and from her own way of describing herself. She was a being that was on the Earth when the first random splotches of protein began to self-replicate after a chance encounter with lightning hitting a mud puddle. She was a being that will see the end of time, when the clocks finally strike their last toll, and when humanity was but a memory, a whisper among the radiowaves that stretched unto the infinite darkness.
She was the Alpha and the Omega, the owner of the world and its caretaker; its destroyer and its lover. She was everywhere, she was nowhere; the world was but putty in her hands, to be molded and given form, or to be discarded and left alone for millennia. Not that it mattered to her.
She was also everywhen.
She also keeps her promises. At least, those that she couldn't wiggle her way out of.
"This is the real world."
I said, for what seemed to be the umpteenth time. I was trying to convince myself - or perhaps I was already convinced. She keeps her promises after all. She sent me to the real world, but...
"Onii-sama! Breakfast!"
It wasn't the real world I wanted.
...
Walking downstairs stretched for an eternity. The one genuine thing in my life, and she didn't know me. I chuckled bitterly. The genuine thing I wished for, already snuffed away before I even made it past my first minute in the human world. Of course she was going to make it hard for me. Of course...
I clenched my fists, and entered the kitchen.
The sunlight streamed through the gigantic windows that covered one side of the living room. I vaguely notice that we were quite high up, if the building tops were any indication. Massive couches surrounded a coffee table, facing a gigantic screen. A television, I realize, but bigger than what I've seen before.
"Please stop dragging yourself like the undead." Yukino muttered. "You already look like the undead, you don't need to emulate them."
I just moved towards the kitchen.
Two plates of omelettes greeted me, and if I shift my gaze upward, two pairs of burning blue eyes. Yukino sighed. "If you don't eat now, we'll be late..." Her gaze shifted down, as if she was struggling to say anything. "And you know... if we're late, then... you won't have the chance to make friends."
The last sentence was more of a whisper, faint, and missable. I only caught it because I was quiet. Everything was quiet. It was a silence that was palpable, where even the most minute sounds resounded like thunderclap, yet no one wanted to say anything because no one wanted it to end. It was a comfort, being defeaned, because you could say whatever you want and no one would hear it.
I clutched my spoon, breaking apart the egg and digging in. Yukinoshita took that as a sign, for the silence was marked with the staccato of a spoon lightly clanging upon a plate.
However, I lied. Or mislead.
When I said that no one wanted to be heard, that one was me and no one else.
That much was true, at least, better than what she did, where she was true, but false at the same time.
Thus, Yukino spoke, breaking the silence.
"I know you're still hung-up on Orimoto-san, but..." she spoke slowly, as if chewing through her words, and swallowing up her courage. "You have to get out, Onii-sama. I promised that I'll help you get through this. After all..."
She paused.
"What kind of sister would I be, if I don't help my brother out?"
I couldn't help but snap my gaze upon her.
"That's the thing. We aren't siblings." I ran my head through my hear, the silkiness of it was a blessing given to me by her, but anything given by her was more of a curse than anything else. "None of this makes sense. Why are you calling me your brother?"
"You're my brother," she insisted. "We've been together since..."
"Since what? I don't remember any of this. You're supposed to be a shrine maiden. You're supposed to be an only child. You're supposed to help me!"
"I am helping you!" Yukino placed her spoon back on the table. It was a quiet thing, but to me, it spoke volumes. "I don't know where you got that idea... not your sister... I've been your sister since...!"
"Since when!" I all but shouted. "Since when did you become my sister?!"
I knew I shouldn't be venting my frustrations on her.
It wasn't her fault that she was human.
It wasn't her fault that she was played with by a god.
It wasn't her fault the accident-
"Since the accident..." she muttered. "Since your p-parents died."
"Huh?"
"I know I didn't want you to be my brother... I didn't want Onee-chan to be my sister either. I wanted ot be an only child and I..." Tears brimmed her eyes. "I don't know what's going on, Onii-sama."
Yukino stood up, and clasped my hand.
"But please..." her earnest eyes stared back onto mine. "Let me help you!"
Two earnest eyes stared back at me as the snowflakes tittered in the air.
"Let me help you!"
"Okay." "Okay."
Yukino smiled, and for the first time since I entered the real world, I smiled too.
