A/N: When was the last time I updated this again? I forget. Internet issues are a nightmare, anyways.

I made use of that time and finished another chapter, though. To be honest, I don't think this one's very good. Someday, I'll probably look back on this and either say it sucks or see if I can improve it somewhat... maybe.

Until then, here it is. Please let me know if there are any typos, though.

Chapter 13

Pocket Watches, Grudges, and Good Old Fisticuffs

…

Orphanage, 2nd Floor Boys Room - Morning

"Miki, don't go over there, that's where Shinji sleeps!"

Akihiko's attempts to reach the girl once again fell in vain as she climbed over the bed by the window, her silver pigtails flapping about.

"But there's a noise here, onii-chan! Miki can hear it!"

"Then how come I can't?"

"Because you can't." Miki climbed off the bed and proceed to crawl underneath.

Akihiko sprang off his own bed immediately. "No, Miki, come back! Don't you want to learn about animals?" He held up a large card in front of him. "See, this one's a lion; it goes 'ROAR!' and stuff."

"Boring!" Miki sang from underneath the bed. "Hey, onii-chan, there's a box here!"

"Don't touch it, Miki, it's not yours," Akihiko warned as he all but scrambled to where the girl's feet poked out from under the bed.

"But Miki wants to look! Onii-chan's gonna look, too!"

"NO, I'm not. Shinji's gonna be mad if he finds us here, you know."

"Nuh-uh! Shinji's in the kitchen with Reiko, helpin' with lunch."

To Akihiko's horror, Miki emerged from the bed a moment later holding Shinjiro's old shoebox. It was pretty dusty and the lid was taped to the box on one side. She beamed at him for a moment, but her smile disappeared suddenly.

Akihiko rushed over to her, worried. "What's the matter, Miki?"

"There's something making noise in here." The younger girl sat the box on the floor and, much to her brother's dismay, flipped it open.

"Miki, close it and put it back!" Akihiko panicked. "You're not supposed to look in other people's things!"

"Miki only wanna know what's makin' the…" Miki trailed off, her eyes focused on a round, metallic object in the box. It was a worn silver thing, and completely unremarkable-looking. She picked it up with one hand and turned it over, only to find strange characters engraved it its back. In the complete silence that settled in the room, a faint ticking sound was heard coming from the object.

"Onii-chan, what is this? What's it say?" Miki showed the object to Akihiko.

Forgetting his earlier panic, he took it from her, nearly fumbling with it as it was frigid to the touch. Curiosity occupied his mind as he examined it with inquisitive eyes and apprehensive hands.

"I haven't seen these before," Akihiko had to admit as he looked at the engraved characters. "I think these are the kanji Saito-sensei was talking about in school once."

Turning it over another time, his finger brushed against something, making the metal object flip open and reveal the miniature face of a clock.

… At least, it looked like the face of a clock. There was the thin second hand that moved with each and every "tick", the thicker minute hand that moved very little, and the short hour hand that never seemed to move at all. Instead of numbers, however, there were letters, starting with an "XII" in place of a "12", an "I" instead of a "1", and so on around in a circle until it reached "XI."

Miki seemed to notice this as well, because her brow furrowed the longer she stared. "Onii-chan, this isn't a clock, is it?"

Akihiko turned it around in his hand, trying to make sense of it. "It's too small to be a real clock; it's not like the one hanging downstairs. Maybe…"

Without warning, the door suddenly opened, causing the Sanada brother and sister to freeze. Two pairs of gray eyes immediately focused on the person standing in the threshold… who was none other than Shinjiro.

Everything was still. The brunette at first blankly stared at them. Brown eyes widened in recognition of the "small clock" in Akihiko's hands, then focused squarely on the silver-haired boy as the lone girl shrank back in worry. Shinjiro let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding in, shut his eyes tight and turned away from them, banging a clenched fist on the door. "Akihiko…"

Akihiko and Miki remained frozen where they sat, both wary. For one thing, neither of them had seen the brunette even act this way before. Akihiko was especially worried; this was the first time his friend didn't use his nickname. The silverette stood and took a couple of steps toward him. "Shinji…"

Shinjiro let out a bitter laugh. "… You're kiddin' me, right?"

Akihiko paused again. "Shinji…?"

"Don't 'Shinji' me, dumbass!" The brunette's glare was enough to make him nearly fall onto his rear, it was so intense. "What the hell do you think you're doin' with that pocket watch?"

"Pocket watch?" Akihiko looked generally confused for a moment before deciding now was the best moment to put it back where it belonged. Shinjiro watched him the entire time, his expression now completely unreadable. The silverette looked over at Miki, who had been completely silent and looking back and forth between the two boys the entire time.

… Miki didn't deserve to be yelled at. She got enough of that from a middle school student who simply didn't want to be around small children.

"I found it," Akihiko lied. "It was only by chance, though; I was a little curious…"

"Shove whatever else you're gonna say up your ass, I don't wanna hear it. I never messed with what little you've got; you have no right to go through mine."

"Shinji…"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT NO MORE!" Shinjiro bellowed. He turned his back to the two siblings, willing his trembling fists to stay still.

After a few tense moments; Miki stood up and started to walk over to Shinjiro, but Akihiko took hold of her hand, shaking his head.

The brunette finally seemed to have settled himself, but he didn't turn back to face the Sanada siblings. Instead he addressed the elder brother directly, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Stay outta my way."

…

In the days that followed, Shinjiro was barely seen anywhere inside the orphanage. When Akihiko would wake up in the morning, the bed by the window in the boys' room was always empty, a sign that he was already up and about.

When they were in the vicinity of each other, whether Miki happened to be around or not, the shaggy-haired youth completely ignored him, greeted Miki stiffly, and continued to wherever he happened to be going.

Covering for Miki had backfired in the worst way possible. And it was making him irritated.

As the brother and sister sat in the grass in the backyard one afternoon Akihiko noticed that Miki, too, wasn't very happy about it either.

"Onii-chan, why did you lie to Shinji?"

Akihiko knew where this was heading; she'd asked the question twice before, and when he told her the answer, he had to stop her from speaking with the brunette. While part of him thought it was a bit ridiculous to pretend the silverette didn't exist over some pocket watch, he was all for giving his friend some space. Miki had wanted to tell him the truth of the matter, but Akihiko wasn't having any of that.

"Do you really want Shinji to be mad at you, too?" Akihiko replied. "S'better this way."

"No it's not!" Miki stood up and glared at him. "You're… you're a liar, onii-chan! Why did you lie to Shinji?"

"I'm not going through this again, Miki…" The silverette trailed off, noticing that Miki was going back inside. "Oi! Where are you off to?"

The small girl ignored his question; she turned about face to look into his eyes, stick out her tongue, and slam the door shut.

It left Akihiko with a bad taste in his mouth.

…

Naganaki Shrine - Next Afternoon

"Hey, Aki-freako, where's your freak baby sister?" Masaru shouted from the top of the slide.

Akihiko had chosen to sit on the nearby bench. Ever since their small argument yesterday, Miki refused to speak to him. Coupled with the fact that Shinjiro was still ignoring him completely, it left him not in the mood to deal with Masaru's antics. Then again, maybe the third-grader didn't have anything better to do than to bully first-graders.

"Hey, did you hear me, Aki-freako?" Masaru shouted louder. "I said, 'Where's your freak baby sister?'"

Masaru's younger brother Kenta poked his head out from under the slide. "Aniki, I don't think he hears you!"

"That so? Looks like I'll have to make him, then!" Pushing up the sleeves of his shirt, Masaru climbed down from where he was perched on the slide and made a beeline towards Akihiko, with Kenta right at his heels, giggling as though he were looking forward to a silly cartoon show.

It would be easy to pretend they didn't exist, Akihiko knew, so he flashed them a cold look, hoping they would leave him alone. The brothers wouldn't be easily driven off, however…

"Finally, you're payin' me some mind," the elder of the two brothers sneered. "I was afraid I was gonna hafta get your attention another way."

"Whatever." Akihiko hopped off the bench. To his chagrin, Masaru and Kenta followed.

"Where's your freak sister, Aki-freako? I see she ain't followin' behind you like some lost little puppy no more."

"None of your business."

"None of our business, he says," Kenta piped up. "He's messin' with us, aniki!"

"Shut up, Kenta, I ain't stupid!" Masaru snapped. Turning his attention back to the silver-haired youth's retreating figure, he added, "Not like old Aki-freako and his gray hair!"

Akihiko stopped mid-step. Masaru had always made fun of the color of his and Miki's hair color, but this new insult caught him off-guard.

"You think he's old?" Kenta didn't seem to get it. The younger boy didn't always catch on to some things right away.

"Only old people have hair that color." Masaru was sneering at Akihiko the whole while he spoke. "How old are you s'posed to be, Aki-freako? Is it six, seven, eight, or a hundred?"

"Shut up," Akihiko growled.

Kenta seemed to comprehend his brother's joke now. "Oh, I get it! If Freako's an old man…"

Masaru's eyes narrowed to slits as his smile widened. "Since Aki-freako's an old man, his sister's an old hag. An old hag just like Reiko-SAN." He pronounced the honorific as though it were one of those bad words the adults kept telling them never to say.

Akihiko had completely ignored that obvious disrespect directed at their caretakers; he found his rage building at the fact that Masaru insulted his sister. If she were here at the moment, she'd have no doubt started to wail and cry. But she wasn't, and as far as Akihiko was concerned, that was fine.

Masaru definitely saw the fury in his eyes, and had the audacity to laugh. "Ooh, look, Kenta, he's really mad, now."

Kenta didn't look too thrilled, however, and took a step back, staying silent.

"What, are you gonna pick a fight with me, you skinny little shrimp?" Masaru continued heckling, ignoring his younger brother's wariness. "You know you can't-"

Masaru never got the chance to finish the sentence, as Akihiko rushed at him that next second and tackled him.

…

Orphanage, 2nd Floor Boys' Room - Late Afternoon

Miki slammed the door shut behind her as she entered, fighting back the urge to cry as a few tears streamed down her cheeks. As she tried to wipe them away, laughter erupted from the girls' room next door.

"Seriously, she's always around boys so much, she might as well be one of them." A voice could be heard through the wall.

"She certainly smells like them," piped up a second.

"That's because she's in their room all the time!" exclaimed a third.

"What kind of girl plays in dirt with dump trucks, anyway? That's something only boys do!" the first voice said loudly.

"She should put some of that dirt in her hair, maybe it'll get darker."

"That'll only make her hair dirty!"

"Why should that matter? She already acts like a boy; she may as well stay dirty like one and her hair won't be that awful color anymore. Come on, you don't even see other kids with that hair color."

The last comment was met with even more laughter. Fresh tears welled up in Miki's eyes, and as she tried to wipe them away again, a familiar voice- one in the room with her- made her pause at it addressed her.

"I know you're there. Quit listening to those idiot girls and clean up your face so your eyes don't get red and puffy."

"Shinji?" the girl dared to speak, her voice shaky.

"No one else is here," the brunette responded, rising from the other side of his bed by the window. Miki hadn't known he was sitting there, much less actually there. His grey-brown eyes were forlorn as he looked on, and he motioned for her to come forward after a moment. "It's rude to stand over people. Come over here."

She did as she was told, wiping her eyes with one hand as she walked over to him and followed suit when he sat back down. She immediately noticed the open shoebox sitting between them, the fact that Shinjiro's hands were in the pocket of his burgundy hoodie, and the faint ticking sound coming from that same pocket. She looked up to him expectantly, as laughter from the girls' room resounded again through the wall.

If Shinjiro noticed the girl's stare, he didn't show it… at first. After a few moments, he sighed, closing his eyes. "What is it?"

"What's tick, tick, ticking in your pocket?"

"… Pocket watch." The brunette's voice was so low, she barely heard him.

"Pocky-what?"

Shinjiro sighed again, and removed his hand from his pocket, showing her the round, metallic object she and Akihiko had picked up before.

"Oh, it's that clock thing!" Miki exclaimed.

"S'called a pocket watch," Shinjiro said begrudgingly, his voice a little louder. "It's like a clock, only smaller."

Miki's eyes seemed to light up. "You mean you can look at it and say it's time to eat like Suoh and Reiko?"

"That's because they look at the clock and read what time it is." Shinjiro stuffed the watch back into his pocket hastily.

What followed was an awkward silence; only the ticking and the now muffled voices from the girls' room could be heard.

"Hey, Shinji, can you look at the watch and tell what time it is?" Miki finally asked.

A trace of pink appeared on the brunette's cheeks that he couldn't easily hide. "We… we didn't learn it in school yet," he said, a little too loudly. "Anyway, why aren't you with your brother?"

Miki's cheeks puffed. "Onii-chan's a dummy-liar-head."

The comment took Shinjiro by surprise. "What?"

…

Orphange, 1st Floor, Den - Evening

No one was really paying attention to the sentai show playing on the television that evening, much to Shinjiro's annoyance. The murmuring amongst the children about Akihiko and Masaru getting in trouble for fighting at the shrine's playground proved too strong to ignore.

"… and then aniki had him pinned, but that's when Suoh came from the shrine," Kenta was telling a couple of other boys who would listen. Some of the girls nearby snorted and started yapping amongst themselves about how fighting was so barbaric and something only boys did. Two of the group hand wrestled over a doll earlier that afternoon.

The brunette sighed and moved away from the two groups of children, with Miki right behind him, and found a certain kid seated apart from the rest.

Akihiko was in a corner facing the wall, legs crossed and head held high, as though he'd decided challenge himself by punishing himself with a time-out. Even with his back to them, the shaggy-haired youth could tell the other boy had his arms crossed.

As Miki ran over to her brother to inquire about him (she had been worried after hearing the other kids talk about him), Shinjiro thought back to just a couple of hours earlier when he and Miki were sitting in the boys' room. Miki had told him everything; how she was the one who actually found his pocket watch while going through his stuff, and her brother had tried to get her to stop, even though he ended up looking at the watch with her. She became teary-eyed again as she apologized and asked him not to be mad at Akihiko anymore.

Shinjiro's cheeks burned as he remembered how easily he complied with the girl's wishes; it was starting to make his stomach turn whenever he saw tears in her eyes, and he didn't like the feeling that accompanied it, either.

Right now that very same emotion was bubbling to the surface as he saw Akihiko perk up a little in the presence of his sister and started describing to her what happened at the shrine.

He decided he didn't like that feeling. In fact, it was the probably the worst thing anyone could feel as far as he was concerned.

As he sat with the Sanada siblings and addressed Akihiko by his nickname for the first time in several days, Shinji decided that, for now, it was time to make things right. At the very least, Aki could look at his pocket watch.

…Asking where he got it from was out of the question.