Author Note

And that sums up another 20 chapters! This has been a very productive week for me; I didn't expect to get all the way to this milestone already. I bet none of you expected that either, given the very lax writing schedule I imposed on myself, ha! ;-)

I hope everyone is still enjoying the story. I am definitely enjoying writing it, and am also very thankful for all the feedback I have received. Knowing that I make other people smile with this story really makes my day!

When chapter 30 comes around, you can expect another blurb. Perhaps with some questions to answer, but there were none of those for me to address this time around. I've simply been too fast at writing chapters, I guess?

One more time: thank you all for reading my story and sticking with it all the way upto here!

Chapter 21j: Hopping Mad

This reminds me of one of those schoolyard games I used to do back in primary school. Hoppity Scotch, I think?

Right leg. Hop. Left Leg. Hop. Legs spread. Hop. Left leg. Hop. Left leg. Hop. Right leg. Hop. Spread.

I'm ashamed to say I am glad my girl friends can't see me doing this, even though I have to admit it is fun. I could be like any older sister taking her younger sister to the library, harmoniously holding hands and trying to talk like adults to appear responsible.

But instead we're taking up the sidewalk. Jumping in sync. At first she'd yell it out, but we've stopped doing that because she said siblings need to understand eachother without talking.

She's got some strange ideas. But I like them.

Well.. most of them. Hop. Hop. Jump.

"Jeeellyyyyyyyybeeeellyyyy! That's wrong! Aren't you paying attention? It was the left leg next!"

I smile apologetically at her admonishing outburst, and we resume our hopping about after a moments worth of internal contemplation about our mutual synchronization.

"Setty... can you... tell me... why the... frogs?"

There, I asked her, my feet landing on the pavement with every pause so my teeth don't clatter uselessly from the shocks.

"Why..? Didn't you like them? They can jump and all. Mommy frog, daddy frog, and all the children..."

Is she playing dumb? Or is she playing coy? I can't quite tell. Of course I like them... but it is just so weird a thing to give someone! If it wasn't her gift, I'd be outright upset!

"I do! ... You colored... them all... very nicely... Especially... the kids, ... they were ... like ... cutesy rainbows!"

Her heart had been into making them, so there is no way I can't treasure them. And then the way she showed me...

"But why... frogs?"

I'm not sure if it is because we finally reached the entrance of the library, or because of the question, but the hopping game finally stops.

"I tried remembering... but I couldn't. Nii-san used to fold these animals for me. Little swans, cute rabbits, puppies, you name it. But despite trying for over an hour, I could only figure out how to make the frogs..."

Whether it is her expression or her explanation, both are just too amusing to the point where I can't help but laugh and squeeze her hand harder. She seems a bit upset that I'm laughing, but that makes it only harder to repress.

"Okay okay, I'm sorry."

I apologize while pushing down the final chuckles that bubble up, but she's already slipped her hand out of my own to stomp ahead of me into the library in one of her passing little fits of anger. They never last very long, so after mom's advice, I stopped worrying about them too much.

But I need to keep an eye on her, so I quicken my pace a bit.

To be fair, I don't think she'll run again. She's tried really hard to fit in after the phone call with her brother - I'm not sure why I can't even think his name? It's always Nii-san this, Nii-san that. Lacking a face to put with the boy, I guess it is easier to think of him that way.

Either way, she's been really well-behaved, and mom and dad seem to expect the worst to come out of it. But despite all their stern talk this morning, they can't just keep her locked up. And thus I became the one on the hook for watching over her now.

She has disappeared into the children books section. Well, knowing her, she's heading for the comics in the back.

When I arrive there, she's not in fact there. Damn it, Setty! Don't do this to me! Or yourself! Mom will be so ang...

"Bellyjelly! Over here!"

Oh, there she is. Whew. I really don't want her to yet again end up in her 'fluffy jail' as she calls it. There's been enough of that.

"What are you looking at?"

Her hands are pointing at the entirety of the shelves. Childrens reading books from M to P.

"I want to find a book about folding. Origami."

She explains this to me quite animatedly, waving her arms around to imitate the folding aspect in case I don't understand what she means from the difficult Japanese word.

See? Her mood has passed already. That makes me feel better.

I lean down to once more grab her hand, more for my peace of mind than hers no doubt, and begin to explain whilst leading her away.

"These are books with made-up stories. Adults call them fiction novels. You find books about folding somewhere else."

Her smile is so adorable that it just makes me feel happy. Screw girl friends, I'd not even mind it if that cutie Edwin saw me walking hand in hand with her like this. If he can't see the fun in this, he'd not be worth dating anyway!

Soon, we arrive at the right category. At least, I hope it is; I'm not sure if it walls under instructional or educational material. But who cares - the bookcases are next to eachother. She won't notice: if it isn't in the first I'll just play it off as there being more bookcases than I thought.

Big sisters are supposed to be all-knowing. Just like her all-knowing brother. I'm not going to lose to mere blood!

Soon we are on our knees to look for the right book, because that is where our search has led us: the bottom shelf. Well, at least I don't need to lift her up, it saves me a bit of trouble. Top shelves are going to be her brothers responsibility; if we need to share her he might as well get the annoying bits!

And off we go again. This time I'm dragged to one of those tables parents tend to dump their kids at whilst looking for books; there are a few toys and whatnot there, but Setty has long escaped the age where such toys attract her attention. So why..?

"Jenny, come show me?"

She inquires this lovingly as she plops her bum down on the ground, and I sit down besides her, unsure as to what she means. But it becomes clear moments later when she takes a pack of colored square papers from her bag. Mom had bought her those after seeing the gift she gave me made from plain printing paper, and apparently she came prepared.

"Okay, let's see..."

As we page through the book, a variety of designs and instructions for said designs appear. Some are simplistic, others are quite hard and might take a whole afternoon to pull off. Most are animals, but there are also things like snowflakes and geometric shapes and... damn, that's a lot of airplanes.

It turns out most designs aren't quite limited to pure folding either; they take a bit of scissor work and perhaps some glue. Or multiple squares to fit together for really colorful creations.

Wow. There's an entire world of even that silliness, huh? I thought folding was something kids did...

Soon, we find ourselves hard at work with some simple designs that involve just a single origami square. Initially, I end up having to point out to her how to read all the little arrows that designate folding and turning and whatnot, but soon she catches on. Her tinier, more nimble fingers are already escaping mine in their productivity.

I could swear her fingers are more slender than my own, even when I was her age. Does it have anything to do with her heritage? Her dad is Japanese, if I recall.. but her mother was an English woman, right?

Honestly, if not for the few Japanese words that frequently spill out of her - the biggest offender of which is 'Nii-san' - I'd think of her as an english lass thru and thru. She just doesn't look Asian in the slightest.

Even ignoring the blonde hair, I can't quite say her eyes have a noticeable Asian quality to them either. Her eyes aren't quite a bright blue, but more resembling a blue from a barely lit-up night sky. And she's graced with curly eyelashes and cheerful open eyes. Maybe her eyes have a slightly less round shape, but... nothing near enough to even think of her as foreign, right?

Actually.. from what I've seen, she doesn't get much body hair, either. My real mother would have killed for that; she was waxing her legs at least twice every week from what I remember, and cursing every bit of th...

"... inking of, Nee-san?"

I didn't pay attention to what she said at all, despite looking at her and studying her face. God, that's embarrassing!

"Nee-san?"

My voice responds before my brain catches up on what little I did understand, and I hear myself asking about something I already know the meaning of. It's just... really weird... to hear her address me as like that.

"It means 'older sister'. Are you dodging my question?"

She sounds just a bit annoyed, but I can only smile.

That's the first time she called me 'sister'..!