As the sunlight crept through the gaps in the shuttered window blinds and traced across his face that lazy Saturday morning, Haruki groggily awoke to the most disturbing sound:
Total, suffocating silence.
As the second of five siblings, Haruki was used to the white noise of scuffling, stampeding, bickering, giggling, and perhaps the odd episode of DC Guy blaring from the television in the other room. Something was off. His sisters were never this quiet. His sisters couldn't be this quiet, unless...
Oh, God, no. Unless something had happened to them. His panicked mind manically began to compose fantastic, horrible scenarios. Kidnapping. Poison. Gas leak. Fire. Alien abduction. Spontaneous combustion. Planned combustion. Ritual mass suicide. Casual mass suicide. Haruki couldn't breathe.
As Haruki's eyes shot open in horror, his panic momentarily subsided when he realized that the cause of his arrested breathing was not, in fact, sheer terror, but rather two of his pillows pressed firm against his face. Two warm, inexplicably voluptuous pillows.
Oh. Those weren't pillows.
Adjacent to him on the mattress lay Mutsuki, fast asleep still, whose slender arms had reached around Haruki's head and tightly smushed it into her ample chest, clad in an old, worn tank top.
Haruki's panic promptly resumed. "Mmph! Mmph!" eked out his muffled pleas for his sister to wake up before he would pass out.
Mutsuki's eyes gracefully fluttered open, and her death grip gradually relaxed. Her mouth gently formed a slight smile. "Good morning, Haruki. Did you sleep well?"
Just a few moments ago, I was nearly asleep for good, he thought. "Fine, thanks," he choked. "Where is everyone?" It was Mutsuki's custom to let down her prim and proper façade whenever their younger sisters were gone, though strangely never hiding it from Haruki. Actually, she tended to colonize his room during such moments of leisure. Hence, Haruki concluded, the immodest sleepwear and intrusion into his bed.
"The twins are having a sleepover at their friend's house, and Yayoi is away at basketball practice this weekend. Don't you remember?"
Haruki attempted to recall any discussion about weekend plans from the prior week, but he could only remember the glow of his game screen in his retinas. "Um... no?"
"You're incorrigible," Mutsuki sighed. "Anyway, it's just going to be us at home this weekend. Would you like some breakfast?"
"I could go for some sausage and eggs. Thanks, Aneki."
Mutsuki beamed. "Absolutely!" She slid off the bed and cheerfully skipped into the hallway.
This is going to be a long weekend, Haruki thought.
Haruki dressed himself and headed to the breakfast table. As he sat down to eat, he glanced at his sister across the table, who remained in her ratty tank top and bike shorts, her hair unbrushed. He quickly averted his eyes and focused on his plate instead.
"Arn'cha... *nom*... geddin' reddy fer... *munch*... today, Aneki?" he mumbled between mouthfuls of eggs.
"Oh, but I am ready!" she chirped. "Finally, a day without errands to run! I'm going to stay home and enjoy the peace and quiet. Why? Did you have something planned for today?"
Haruki downed a glass of milk and belched. He tensed. Mutsuki had always scolded him about minding his manners at the table. Hesitatingly, he drew his eyes to meet Mutsuki's glace. She was unfazed, but smiling sweetly and cocking her head to the side in her hands. No need to model good manners if everyone else is gone, he reasoned.
Haruki relaxed. "Not really, except maybe playing some Brodyquest II later, and then watching some anime."
"Would you like to do something together?"
"Like what?"
"I thought it'd be fun if we played a game. Maybe you could show me that video game you were talking about?"
Haruki remembered the last time his sister attempted to play one of his video games. During the tutorial level alone, she accidentally deleted all his save files and corrupted the memory card. He still didn't know how she managed that in five minutes.
"Let's... try something else, Aneki," he grimaced.
"Oh, I know!" she exclaimed. "That game we used to play as kids! Pretzel!"
"Pretzel? Do we even still have that?"
"I'm sure we still have it somewhere." Mutsuki stood up and walked to the living room. Haruki caught himself admiring her gait. She opened the cupboard they kept all their board games and began to rifle through it, haphazardly tossing boxes aside into a pile, until she triumphantly held up a white box emblazoned with colored polka dots and the lettering "Pretzel" in bold font. "Here it is!"
Mutsuki slid off the box cover and from its contents unfolded a large plastic mat covered in neat rows of the same colored polka dots.
"That's been washed, right?" hollered Haruki from the other room, thinking of all the grubby hands and feet that had previously handled the same playmat.
"Of course, silly. Nothing in this house escapes my notice." Despite her cheery disposition, Haruki detected a vaguely sinister undertone. "Well? Who should go first?"
Haruki found himself in a rather compromising position. Facing downward, his limbs splayed nearly to the furthest corners of the plastic mat, straining to hold him aloft. Underneath him was Mutsuki, performing an exquisite upward-facing dog. Her raised head had shoved an unkempt mane of auburn hair into Haruki's face. Cinnamon.
He kicked himself internally.
"This is fun!" said Mutsuki. "I think this is the longest we've gone!"
"Mm-hm..." Haruki grunted. His arms tremored to support his body weight.
"Let's see..." Mutsuki flicked the spinner with her free hand. "Left hand, green."
Daintily, Mutsuki lifted her left hand and began to reach around her back. As she did so, she twisted her torso in the same direction until she was facing upwards. She planted her hand next to Haruki's on the same green spot. She now maintained a reverse plank, with her feet crossed, gazing up into Haruki's eyes.
Haruki momentarily lost himself in those twin pools of gold and hazel. Time and space seemed to vanish away as he beheld the magnificent light of an ethereal sun. Gone were the dim silhouettes that vainly flickered on the cave walls. The light novels, the video games, the anime that littered his bedroom—a shallow mockery of transcendent beauty which now stared him in the face.
But man, frail that he is, cannot know such immortal joys forever. Suddenly, Haruki's right calf seared with the pain of an untimely cramp as his muscles contracted involuntarily. He yelped, collapsing on top of his sister.
Instinctively, Mutsuki grasped his shoulders to keep him from crushing her, stopping his head only inches from her own. Haruki's palms slammed onto the floor on either side of Mutsuki's head, catching himself.
"Aneki! Are you okay? I'm so sorry!"
Mutsuki gasped breathlessly, and Haruki could almost swear he felt her subtly squeeze his shoulders. In the twinkle of an eye, she regained composure.
"I believe this means I win," she grinned.
"I... I guess so," he replied. Their faces now much closer than before, Haruki felt her warm, delicate breath on his neck. A feeling stirred inside him that he could not place.
Haruki then felt the blood rush to his face and to another extremity. Actually, he realized, he could place that feeling. Arousal. His stomach churned a little. He always thought Mutsuki was pretty—the attention she unfailingly received in public only confirmed the fact. It always bothered him whenever he noticed strangers leering at her, which he would formerly chalk up to fraternal protective instinct. However, he only now admitted, the same could not explain the funny feelings he had whenever she wore a bikini at the beach. Or lounged about in his room in only a towel. Or the time she had innocently asked him to practice kissing for a school play. He felt dirty.
His mental self-flagellation was interrupted by the sensation of Mutsuki's hands moving down his shoulders down to his biceps. Yep, that was definitely a squeeze just then.
"Aneki!"
"Yayoi's right, you know," she mused. "If you just worked out a little, you would look so cool. But I think you're wonderful just the way you are. My little brother is a fine, strong young man," she cooed.
I don't feel so fine, he thought. Actually, he felt rather queasy.
She perceived his obvious discomfort. "Are you okay?"
"I... feel a little nauseous."
"Oh! Poor Haruki! Would a kiss make it better?"
Before he could protest, Mutsuki leaned forward but a few inches until her plush, rosy lips met his forehead.
"Aneki!" he cried. "Don't do that! You're my sister!"
Mutsuki released his arms from her grip. She lay down again on the floor, pouting, and clearly a little hurt. "I don't see how that has anything to do with it. I was just being affectionate."
He sighed. "I know, Aneki. I'm sorry. I... I just had a weird idea that popped into my head that freaked me out."
She cocked her head to the side like a golden retriever. "Weird idea?"
"Don't wanna talk about it," he groaned.
Mutsuki's signature pleasant, innocent smile crept across her perfect mouth. "Well, I have a weird idea." His ears pricked up. "I think you're afraid of your feelings, and feel that you have to stuff them deep down, or else you'll lose the people you love most. Is it something like that?"
Haruki flushed with naked shame. "Wh-what makes you think that?"
She laughed. "Because you always look so guilty whenever we do anything fun!" She lay her palm on his cheek. "Haruki, there is no man I feel safer being around than you. You don't have to feel embarrassed around me, because I love you."
Mutsuki's "I love you" echoed in Haruki's ears as if he stood on a precipice overlooking a grandiose, rust-colored valley. "A-as a brother, right?" he stammered.
She slid her hand from his cheek to the nape of his neck, and gently pulled him down until their lips converged. This time, he did not resist.
"As a helpmeet," she whispered in his ear. And she kissed him again.
The next morning, the light of the sun once again peeked through the window blinds, and Haruki awoke to the cacophony of his three younger sisters scrambling about the apartment. The indentation of Mutsuki's body, still warm, remained beside him on the mattress. Haruki rose from his bed and left the room in his pajamas, to see what all the commotion was for.
He walked to the kitchen, where Uzuki and Satsuki flitted around Mutsuki's waist like butterflies as she leaned over the stove. She wore a long, ironed skirt under her apron, and her hair was immaculately brushed.
"We want pancakes! Buttermilk!" chimed Uzuki in a sing-song.
"-milk!" concurred Satsuki.
"Stop bugging Mutsuki-nee!" Yayoi scolded. "Be patient!"
Mutsuki turned her head over her shoulder as she heard her brother approach. "Good morning, Haruki," she smiled. "Did you sleep well?"
Haruki met her gaze and returned her smile. And he was not ashamed.