Disclaimer: Scroodge McDuck does not belong to me... :D Oh, uh... Neither does Ranma... ToT
Oneechan
The first day of university was… interesting. The Accounting teacher had been pretty young, and seemingly smitten by her. Hmm… There were rooms of opportunities there. Apart from that, the computer facilities were free for all the students, 24x7. However, it was very very crowded, and all the terminals seemed to be always occupied. She would have to see about that. The Computer Center In-charge was a lady, a very Scroodge McDuck-ish lady. Difficult. But not impossible.
She made her way along the crowded corridors and towards the cafeteria. It had been a hard decision to make, but, in the end, she had opted to spend for lunch in the cafeteria than to spend for cooking classes. After all, if everything went according to her wishes – and things usually tended to do that – pretty soon she would have lackeys to bring free lunch for her.
She arrived at the outdoors café and joined the queue lining up at the service counter. The line inched forward slowly, giving her ample time to do what she was best at – observe. Her eyes trawled through the milling mass of faces, committing everything of significance and insignificance to memory. That kid in the black jacket was probably a drug addict, judging from his rapidly roving red-tinged bright eyes and twitching fingers – good blackmail material. That girl wearing that green blouse probably had a crush on the boy with the spiky hair – she looked at him so often and blushed. That posse of girls preening themselves was going to give her trouble later, better do something about it sooner.
Her turn at the counter came up and she ordered a large burger with fries. Collecting her order, she picked up the tray and went over to sit by herself at an empty table. Letting her teeth sink into the burger, she continued to scan the crowds.
"May I sit here?"
The sudden voice interrupting her pleasant lunch made her look up at the speaker, straight into a pair of brown eyes and short blue hair.
"O-nye-cha! O-nye-cha! Cawy me pweese?"
"O-nye-chan! Let's play hidey hidey!"
"Oneechan! Look! A starfish! Ain't it pretty?"
"Oneechan, why did you take my teddy?"
"Oneechan! I made you a cake! Happy birthday!"
"Oneechan! That is my dress! Don't just wear it without asking!"
"NO! Oneechan! Grab my hand! Don't let go!"
"Oneechan! You're alright…"
"Oh sorry, I didn't mean to intrude." Abruptly, she was snapped back to reality as the strange girl hurriedly apologized and left to sit with someone else, probably someone who would give her a proper answer instead of staring wordlessly at her. Her short hair caught the sunlight and blue streaks played hide-n-seek in it.
A pale hand rose to knock on a wooden door. She watched the door open and her little sister walk in. My sister…
"Oneechan…"
She waited for more words to spill out from her sister's mouth, and finish what she was going to say.
"Oneechan… Is it okay… If I go…?"
And she had feigned nonchalance. She had feigned indifference. She had feigned that she did not know what it would mean for her baby sister. She had feigned that she did not know what blow it could deal to her baby sister. She had let the girl go…
"Thank you, Oneechan…"
And she had pretended that the words were well-deserved…
She had watched as her father and her elder sister had worried when they made the discovery.
"My baby girl! MY BABY GIRL!"
"Oh my! Where could she be? I wonder if she'll come back before dinner?"
The solitary sheet of paper that lay on the desk inside the room with the yellow duck nameplate, told them that her li'l sis would be gone on a week-long, no need to worry. Yet, her father did, and so did her elder sister. She had wondered if she was the only one sane in the house. She had wondered why anyone thought that anything could happen to an eighteen year old girl who was a martial artist. Anyway, time was gold, and the matter was not worth her time.
She left the room. Daddy kept crying.
She sat alone under the midday sun on a cafeteria bench, the burger still half-way to her mouth and she could not remove her eyes from the strange girl as the latter walked over to sit at another table. Apparently, the people at the other table welcomed her, for she sat down with them, and smiled.
She lay in the dojo – her little sister. She did not smile anymore. In fact, she hadn't been smiling for quite many days before this happened, even before she had left on that week-long trip nearly a month ago. But that had been expected behavior. However, right then, there were no tell-tale tears trails on her face either. And that was surprising.
A random thought drifted past her mind that she was capable of surprise even then. She felt both disdain and pride at that thought; disdain that random thoughts could find a place in her brain despite how organized she maintained it, pride that she could still keep calm despite the fact that her sister was no more smiling or crying.
Father was crying though, collapsed in a heap next to her expressionless little sister. And her elder sister, too. The doctor was there, although he certainly was of no use; the dagger buried to the hilt above the prone girl's left breast and the amount of blood that had spilled out on the dojo floor clearly indicated that the youngest daughter of the house was dead.
A funeral needed to be arranged. She fished out her abacus and had begun clicking away on it, calculating the expenses that would need to be paid.
It was time to go back to her classes. She stood up and walked past the table the strange girl was sitting at, her arms swinging to and fro apace with her steps. It could have been an illusion, an imagination, but, for a moment, it appeared as though her hand lightly brushed through a lock of short blue-black hair.
I need a better way to indicate when a flashback starts... =.="
Oh goody! Time for you to reviewwwww~ Ta!