Chapter 15: Big Brother

Alex woke up feeling better than he had in awhile. he sat up, stretched, and looked down at the albino next to him. Shiro was still sound asleep her arms loosely around his waist. carefully moving her arms he stood up and thought things over. He had his little sister again, granted he did forget about her for almost eleven years but... No, no there was no 'but' in this situation, Shiro was family and for one reason or another he had left her, just like Kaede. He winced at the thought, he wasn't a great person by any stretch of the word but he was going to make it up to her. Actually that sounded fun, he and Shiro could just spend the day making up for lost time. With that decided he jumped in the shower. It wasn't overly long, he just scrubbed the important bits and walked out in his jeans to find Shiro awake and entertaining herself by pretending to beat up some invisible bad guys. Alex chuckled at this and walked over to the bag of clothes he had bought before the whole scarchain thing and opened it up to see three white button up dress shirts. Why did he buy three of the same thing again? This wasn't some cartoon where he could wear the same outfit every day. Then he got a good idea on how to start the day.

"Hey Shiro I need to pick up some new clothes wanna come with me?"

"Sure!" With that Alex threw on his only other shirt, A black V-neck, and they walked out.

Hunter walked around not really looking for anything in particular just trying to kill some time. In truth while G-Block had plenty to do none of it just interested him at the moment. It was kind of like when he was back at home with his games but still couldn't entertain himself. Seeing as he was by some shops he decided he'd go window shopping and see if there was anything he'd want to save up for. He walked into the clothing shop first looking for anything he thought looked good. His one outfit besides the prison uniform he had been given was nice and he was thankful to have it but at the same time Hunter didn't like washing the same outfit everyday. He walked over to some shirts and eventually stumbled upon a t-shirt that started off baby blue and faded to navy. Deciding it was affordable he picked it up along with grey shorts that had two white lines going down the side of the legs. As he walked to the register she saw Shiro standing with Alex who was holding a plastic bag. It was Shiro who noticed him and pointed him out.

"Hi Hunter!" She waved and drew attention to him as Alex turned and gave a shorter wave before asking.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" Hunter held up the shirt and shorts as he explained.

"I was window shopping but I found these and decided to get them." They paid and walked out resuming the conversation in the hallway.

"Oh that's cool, I was actually getting some clothes myself." He motioned to himself asking. "What do you think?" Hunter somehow hadn't noticed before but Alex was now in a new outfit consisting of a dark gray hoodie, a crimson t-shirt, brown cargo pants, and black boots. It was a modest outfit mostly meant to blend in. Hunter decide he liked it saying.

"I think it suits you brother." Alex smirked at the approval as Shiro tilted her head in confusion.

"Brother?" Alex then explained to her.

"Not like us, kinda like how you and Ganta are close enough to be brother and sister." Now it was Hunters turn to be confused as he didn't understand the 'Like us' part.

"Wait, like us?" Alex smirked at this and saying.

"Oh right, so you know how I was all confused about how Shiro knew me?"

"Of course." How could he not? Shiro was pretty much a complete mystery to Hunter from her weird semi-third person speech, Superhuman strength, Uncanny knowledge, and as they were both very much aware familiarity with Alex. Who went on to say.

"Well as it turns out," He pulled Shiro closer wrapping his arm around the young albino's neck. "This little badass is my baby sister." Shiro beamed at this while Hunters eyes widened in surprise.

"Wait really? How did you forget about something that important." This was a fair question, Hunter knew he wasn't exactly the smartest of people, his wisdom usually consisted of admittedly advanced street smarts but still Hunter doubted Alex could forget something as basic and important as having a little sister. Alex looked away and chuckled

"When I was younger I got hit in the head and got amnesia, wiped my memory clean." Hunter seeing his chance to ask the obvious question leaned in and quietly asked.

"So are you two blood related or not?"

"Call it a hunch but I think she's adopted."

"Alex come oooon." She whined pointing to an ice cream shop. Alex rolled his eyes but smiled as he turned to Hunter.

"You wanna come with?"

"Nah i'm good thanks though."

"Alright see ya man."

Alex was really regretting not getting Shiro some less tight clothes, not only did he feel weird standing next to the teen but the stares she was getting from some of the men really pissed him off. He wanted to kill them, like really how interesting is a fifteen year old Albino? Granted she was actually very interesting but they didn't know that, they were just trying to get a better look at her body. She didn't seem to notice this thankfully and was concentrated on making good progress into her over sized sunday. Alex watched as she scarfed down a few more bites, she was strange and not just because of her appearance, outfit, or personality. He didn't know what she was exactly but he knew she wasn't human or not fully at least, kind of like the deadmen but with a different powerset. From what he had seen she had super strength, could heal incredibly fast, and according to herself didn't feel pain. Alex shrugged seeing as he didn't have reason or right to judge.

"Is something wrong?" As Shiro spoke Alex realized he was staring and shook his head.

"No im just thinking."

"About what?" Well shit. He wasn't going to try having that conversation right now, partly because this was supposed to be family time not 'Hey guess what you and me are freaking weird' time, and mostly because he didn't think she would understand in the slightest. So he decided to ask another question he had on his mind.

"Well it's just I never asked, why are you in here?" Shiro blinked in confusion before responding.

"What do you mean?" Alex stifled a groan as he realised that was probably a very dumb question. but not seeing anyway out of this he continued.

"Well this is a prison." He paused, no he can't just accuse her of doing something he needed to rephrase it. "How long have you been here?" Without missing a beat Shiro swallowed a bite and said.

"Always." Now he was confused what did that mean?

"What does that mean?"

"Shiro's always been here."

"But that doesn't make sense." Before he could try to explain basic math to the younger teen he was interrupted by a voice calling out.

"Hey Hawk!" Alex turned to see a man in his early twenties looking at them next to another man next to him. "You looking to share that piece of ass next to you?" Alex shot the man a glare. The fuck did he just say? Now Alex didn't particularly care about what the man said, but the fact that it was directed at Shiro made him want to punch his teeth down his throat. He turned to Shiro who was seemingly oblivious to the older mans comment as she continued eating the sunday. Now in fairness her outfit didn't hide much besides the skin which Alex could see how that could bring attention to her admittedly nice figure. Okay no, he wasn't thinking about that time to break some teeth. He stood and gave Shiro a pat on her back saying.

"Wait here for a second 'kay." She smiled and went back to eating her ice cream. Alex then turned to the man who was still next to his friend who was shaking his head. Alex wasted no time and bit into his thumb crating a claw.

"Hey jackass." As the man turned Alex jabed the man in the nose knocking him down, Alex moved in quick grabbing him by his collar with his normal hand. He only spared a quick glance at the man friend who seemed to be just fine with the idea of the crude man getting a little sense knocked into him. Alex then turned back to the older man and held him by the jaw with his claw. "Now look, if you wanna go around catcalling like some dumbass frat boy then by all means go ahead." While saying this he moved his thumb under the man's jaw and put just enough pressure to pierce the skin. "But if you ever call my sister a piece of ass again, we are going to have some very serious problems." For good measure he dug his claws into the man's jaw dragging them down. "Got it?" He asked looking the man in the eye.

"Yes sir." He tried to nod his head resulting in more cuts. Now as much as Alex wanted to just take his head off and be done with it he figured that would be taking it too far and that his point had been made. He dropped the man and turned around seeing a few others looking at him along with Shiro. Alex walked right on up next to her and patted her head.

"What was that about?" She asked looking back to the man who was holding his jaw and walking away with his friend.

"Oh I just needed to make an example." Alex looked around to the rest of the room to see that not many continued to look at them.

"But why?"

"I'll tell you when you're older." Before she could protest his non answer he pointed to her sunday and said "You might want to eat that before it melts." She quickly started eating as Alex felt the urge to smoke. Moving over to a wall and pulling out one of the rolls of nicotine and tobacco before bringing it to his lips and lighting it with a stolen lighter. Alex took a deep breath as the cigarette lite up and smoke entered his lunges, he make an 'o' shape with his mouth and blew a smoke ring. He glanced over to see Shiro was glaring at him and coming over to him. Well this was gonna be annoying. "Let me guess, you don't like me smoking?" She nodded as she stood net to him.

"It's bad for you." She said pouting. Alex sighed it was never fun having the 'Smoking is bad for you' conversation. He knew his habit was killing him, so what that was his decision and he was fine with it. but he didn't think his usual counter argument of 'Fuck you it's my body' probably wasn't going to work even if he was willing to say it to her.

"I do a lot of things that are bad for me." Shiro was far from pleased with that answer. Why would he do that if he knew it was bad?

"You know that can kill you right?" He knew, he knew all too well. From those crappy anti-smoking ads that just made him want to smoke more, from being told by some pricks who didn't know how to mind their own business on the streets. He sighed, Shiro was just worried and he knew that. Hell he didn't like it when his dad smoked but he got over it, maybe he should try being direct with her.

"So what? I'm old enough to make that decision for myself." Well that backfired spectacularly as her eye's started to water and she looked at him before asking with a soft voice.

"Why do you want to die?"

"Shiro I don't-"

"Is it something I did?" Alex felt his heart skip a beat. Why would she think that? Tears started to flow from her eyes as she tried her best to hold in sniffs and sobs. Alex sighed, one cigarette just wasn't worth dealing with this. He dropped the cigarette and stepped on it rubbing it out before pulling Shiro into a hug.

"Better?" She nodded into his chest before speaking with a shaky voice.

"Yeah, but you still need to quit."

"It ain't that easy snowflake, but i'll try." In truth he had no intention of quitting anytime soon but he'd make a note to cut down around Shiro.

"Promise?"

"Of course." Another blatant lie on his part but she didn't need to know that.