Hey guys! This is just a short chapter to give more of a look at Rin's dead brother, Shou. Enjoy!

Chapter 11

I sat on my bed and held my 2nd place ribbon above my head, studying it. It was the first sign of a competition win I had seen in my hands in over two years. It felt a little strange but also pretty darn good.

My eyes traveled up the wall of the numerous shelves that lined the top of two walls. On these shelves were dozens of other trophies and awards that I had won over the years of performing with Shou.

I stood and placed the blue ribbon next the others and smiled contently. It was the first thing on the shelf to be won without Shou. Sure, we had won individual awards before but this was different. This time Shou wasn't be my side when I'd received it.

Still I knew that this would not be the last. We were going on the Regionals and I hoped to win there and then again at Nationals. I truly believed that we could.

As I thought about that my mind was swept back three years to a day when Shou was still alive. We were laying on the roof of our house in Italy staring up at the sky and talking about the future that never happened…

The sky was always so blue in Italy, not like in New York. There was no smoke to dirty the sky here, only the endless blue and big fluffy clouds. I lay side by side with my brother enjoying the companionship. We had just won the duo World Championship for the third year in a row and had come out to our summer home to celebrate and relax.

"We did pretty well, didn't we?" Shou asked in contentment. I laughed and answered, "Well we won didn't we?"

He laughed and said, "Yes I suppose we did."

I rolled over and faced my brother with a puzzled expression. "You don't seem very happy about the win, Shou. What's the matter?"

Shou sighed and replied, "It's not that I'm not happy about the win, Rin, of course I am! It's just that the glory seems to fade every time we win a competition."

"Because we never seem to lose?" I asked, flipping over again to stare up at the sky.

"Exactly!" cried Shou sitting up to look down over me, "do you think the same way?"

I reached up and touched my brother's forehead gently. "Of course I do," I admitted, "but music's in our blood so it's not like we could ever stop."

"I know," Shou said. We were silent for several minuetes.

"Do you think we will ever do anything but perform?" I asked in sudden curiosity. I had never really thought about it before but now I wondered and college, jobs and all the other things we didn't have time for as it was.

"Yes," my brother answered, "I'm sure we will, because you see Rin, I have our entire future already planned out."

I laughed and asked in amusement, "Oh you do, do you?"

"Yes," said Shou in something close to triumph, "I've been thinking quite a lot about it in fact."

I felt a slow smile stretch over my face as I replied, "Ok, let's hear it."

"Well," my brother started, "we will keep traveling and performing until our sophomore year in high school."

'What will we do after that?" I asked in surprise.

Shou looked at me like I was crazy and said slowly, "Go to high school."

"Oh, right," I said, flushing, "continue."

"We have never been to a real school," Shou said, looking up at the sky again, "I certainly want to see what an actual school is like and I know you do to. So when we're fifteen we'll stop traveling and join a little orchestra in a small Californian town."

I giggled and asked, "We going to join an orchestra? That's a recipe for disaster."

Shou smirked and answered, "It will be an adjustment for sure."

"What about after high school?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

'Julliard!" Shou and I chorused and then burst into laughter. We had wanted to go to Julliard for as long as I could remember. Shou didn't like big cities as much as I did but he would never pass up the chance to go to the country's top music collage.

Also, it wasn't as though we wouldn't get in. The dean of admissions was an old friend of our dad's and had told us when were only ten years old that we had a secure spot in the school.

"And after that?" was my next question.

"England," said Shou with a dreamily smile, "Spain, Germany, France. We'll graduate from college a year early, when we are twenty one and travel and perform all over Europe." This too had been a longtime dream of ours.

Of course, we had been all over the world, which included Europe but we both had fallen love with the numerous romantic cities. Spain was our favorite place in the entire world.

"We'll do that for four years," continued my brother, "Playing as a duo and maybe for groups and a lot of it will be for charities and such."

Whenever we had the time, Shou and I would find a little park in a new town and simply play for the normal people. We would always draw crowds and it didn't cost anyone a penny. They loved to hear us play and we loved the simple feel of love and charity. Any and all money we raised would go to charities.

"We'll retire at age twenty-five?" I demanded in mock horror.

Shou grinned and exclaimed, "We could retire now if we wanted to! We are all ready loaded and we'll be filthy rich by then."

I nodded, it was true. "So what comes after that?"

"You and I will retire to a beautiful estate in Spain, near Barcelona. I'll open a shop for repairing instruments and you'll become the best violin teacher in the world. I'll find a beautiful wife and you'll get a dashing husband and we will both have lots of musical gifted children and live in Spain until the day we die!"

I laughed and my brother's vision of a perfect future but I had to admit that it did sound wonderful. Our life had panned out pretty perfectly so far and I wondered if that dream would someday become a reality.

I reached over and twined my fingers through my brothers and when he turned his face to smile at me I said softly, "That sounds just about perfect, Shou."

I was snapped out of my revere when I felt a single tear slide down my face and fall onto the pillow, turning the blue darker in one spot. I stared at the spot in mild surprise, thoughts spinning all around my head.

I had almost forgotten about that beautiful afternoon in Italy when everything was still ok and my life was centered on my brother and our music. Of course, it could never be like that again but now I had something new in my life to strive for. I would still have given anything for my dream with Shou to have been lived but I supposed this was a close second.

My brother would be happy for me, that much I was certain of and I was going to win the NHSMC competition for him if no one else.

I stood up from the bed lifted one hand to wipe all traces of tears from my face and glanced in my mirror. I saw a girl with black eyes and blacker hair staring back at me. Shou and I had looked so much alike that I could still see him in my face.

I smiled and the girl in the mirror smiled back. Picking up my violin, I stepped through my door and carefully shut it behind me. It was time to practice.

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