After consideration, I decided to completely rewrite a previous work of mine, Sister dearest, since I felt it still had potential despite being rather disappointed by it overall. So here's the is the new, hopefully, better version - constructive criticism is always welcome, as long as everything stays polite! ;)
Also, I'm still playing around with ideas for the title of this, I might change it later on, and am entirely open to name suggestions.
If this isn't your first time around, welcome back, and thank you for still paying attention to this! And if it's your first time, hi, glad to have you!
disclaimer : none of the brothers conflict adaptations belong to me!
There is not a cloud in sight and the crisp, warm breeze that hits her when they get out of the train station is almost like a reminder that summer will soon be here.
"So," the eldest of the two, Hanako Hinata, says, glancing at her sister who is currently admiring how sunlight bounces off the skyscrapers they can make out despite the distance between them and the much more effervescent, crowded center Tokyo, "What do you think so far? Kichijoii really is a nice neighborhood, isn't it?"
She's not sure she's ever seen an area in Tokyo with so few people and buildings - a huge park on the other side of the street stretches on for what seems like an eternity, meticulously planted flowerbeds separating it from the sidewalk. Then again it is just past noon and, more importantly, the weekend.
"Oh yes," Hanako's baby sister, Ema, answers with a quiet sort of excitement, grinning just slightly, "Everything is so colorful around here...I can't wait to meet our new brothers."
Using the few inches she has taller than her sister, Hanako wraps an arm around the girl, messing her chestnut-colored hair with her other hand. Ema squeaks at the action, huffing and trying to pull away from her sister's hold, "Hana-nee, my hair!"
"You're too cute for this world my darling little sister," she pecks the teenager's cheek in an overly affectionate gesture, "I can't believe I'll have to share you with so many people now."
"Don't be too nervous now Chii, you'll make yourself sick," Juli, their shared - although mostly Ema's, pet squirrel warns from his place perched on the youngest's shoulder, beady eyes narrowed, "You both need to be alert when you meet those senseless beasts, right Nana?"
Hanako laughs at the nickname, eyeballs rolling behind her lids as she releases her sister, "Don't involve me in your delusions, Mrs. Miwa assured us that her sons are nice men and I believe her, let Ema have her fun."
Juli had always been a constant presence in the two girls' lives, watching over for them and keeping them company when they were young and their father, the now-famous adventurer Hinata Rintarou, was away on some business - which was most of the time, especially in recent years.
If a squirrel capable of communicating only with them both, and who is more similar to a human than a rodent, is far from normal, neither of the two siblings could imagine their life without Juli's loud and overbearing presence in it.
Like a tiny, annoyingly protective guardian angel.
"They're not beasts Juli, those people are going to be our family soon," Ema's eyes are unbearably soft as she says this and Hanako can only hope their thirteen new brothers live up to her sister's expectations.
That's right, thirteen step-brothers, and hadn't that been a shock.
Rintarou's oldest daughter had been elated when their father had told them about his intention of remarrying, even more so when they finally got to meet Miwa Asahina, the soon-to-be bride. Mrs. Miwa was everything their father needed in his life, lively and headstrong and independent - the girls had taken a shine to the woman almost instantly, the oldest especially.
"Family or not, they are all hot-blooded males with so many hormones they don't know what to do with them!" Juli's voice slowly fades into the background as the oldest Hinata sister gets lost in her thoughts, "I don't know what Rintarou and your new stepmother are thinking of! Sending two defenseless girls out there to live with them-"
Sweet, darling Ema's excitement was mostly related to the new siblings they would be gaining, something their father had failed to mention and that Miwa had to announce over dinner the first time they met.
Hanako remembers the moment as if it happened yesterday, how Ema had lit up like a Christmas tree and how her own self had choked on the piece of crab she had been about to swallow.
She remembers how her father had paled, sheepishly looking away as if he had not failed to mention such an important detail as children, thirteen of them. How Miwa had laughed good-naturedly at their obvious surprise, taking in stride Ema's sudden excitement and Hanako's mild horror.
The oldest sister was still convinced that the woman had a fertility God's blessing to birth so many boys and still look like that.
Miwa Asahina was the kind of woman little girls wanted to be when they grew up and despite only being a year younger than her future husband, she doesn't look a day older than thirty-five.
Sorcery, it had to be.
"-na! Nana, aren't you listening?" the girl blinks slowly as claws slightly dig into her left shoulder through the thin material of the loose long-sleeved shirt she had on. Juli, when receiving no answer from the daydreaming girl, had jumped from Ema's shoulder to her own, "You both need to be careful, we don't know what those strangers are capable of! I won't always be there to protect you from those ravenous wolves!"
"Enough Juli," she says with a twitch of her brow, she'd make a hat out of that pesky squirrel if he ruined her shirt, "Until they've given us a reason to worry, I don't see why we should be weird around any of them. If anything, it's our privacy we should be worried about, with so many people around, it'll be hard to get even a second of peace."
Ema grins, happy to have her sister's support, or well some sort of it, "I know, isn't it wonderful? We won't ever have to be alone."
"Oh, Ema," she shakes her head fondly, "Don't ever change."
The teenage girl rolls her eyes, a rare cheekiness to her tone, "Don't be silly Hana-nee." Hanako has never been more proud of the girl, and she takes a step back, fingers clutching at the material over her bosom as if suddenly struck by chest pain.
Her voice wavers, poorly hiding her mirth as she says, "Betrayed, by my own sister!" then almost as an afterthought, she pouts, a salty expression displayed on her features, "I'm never silly I'll have you know, I am the most serious, unfrivolous person you have ever had the chance to interact with."
Juli, not wanting to risk the chance of falling off because of the way she leans her weight backward, jumps back into Ema's awaiting arms. Hanako's reaction is instant, contradicting her previous words as she cries out, "Even Juli has abandoned me!"
The squirrel's laugh is sarcastic, somehow, "Hilarious, you could've gone into theatre if you wanted to," impossible, Hanako Hinata could not act to save her life, besides silly theatrics like these, woe is me and all that.
She was, some might say, an open book, unable to fake or hide what she truly felt - something her father would always use against her when he had to leave, her angry face he called it when her expression would pinch funnily, with her brows creased and her lips set into a bitter pout.
"Hm, we should be close to the apartment complex by now, right?" Hanako frowns at her sister's question, glancing at the map in the girl's hands and groaning when she checks on a sign to catch the name of street they were on.
"Damn, we took a wrong turn a few blocks away," of course, they somehow managed to not follow Mrs. Miwa's simple directives. Really, without Juli, the two of them would have probably ended up lost in the maze that was Tokyo long ago, never to be seen again, "Wait, hand me that, I think we can turn right on the next street and then right again to reach the resi-"
Of course, such as are the laws of this universe, a criminally beautiful and wonderful day like this demands that something bad happens.
"Wah!" the young woman's head jerks up at the high-pitched cry, eyes widening when, just as she had rounded a corner, a boy on a bicycle appears in her eyesight, only about a meter or two away, "Onee-chan, look out, look out!"
"Holy-!" Ema, who is a few steps behind her sister, jerks to the left, trying to avoid the poor boy, just as he'd turned to his right - and so, in front of Ema who almost directly rams into the bicycle's front. Hanako, with some fast reflexes she didn't she had, grabs her sister and tugs her back into the sidewalk's center, the momentum making her collide with the bicycle's side.
"Ohmyfreaking-!" a searing pain makes itself know in her leg, but the impact is enough to abruptly slow down the boy and his wheeled death machine, her hands blindly grab onto the handlebars and frame that connects the wheels as to not send the boy flying off the bicycle, and possibly into the street, leaning her weight back to stabilize it, "Are you okay?"
"Wha..." the boy's eyes spin wildly, her own bottomless pools of pink and purple hues wide enough to take most of her face. Her breath comes out in sharp pants, adrenaline running high within her veins. Ema gasps, as does Juli, "Hana-nee!"
She ignores it in favor of helping the boy off his bicycle, almost having a heart attack when she realizes how small he is compared to her, the top of his head not reaching higher than her torso, "How do you feel? Did you slam into the handle, is your head okay-?!"
"I-I'm fine, ah! I'm so sorry Onee-chan, are you okay?" she sets the bicycle down carefully on the lawn in front of the house next to them, ignoring the sickening squelch it makes to disconnect the thing from her leg, as she checks the boy from any sign of injury and he does the same, "You're hurt!"
Ema's face pales about six shades, "Oh no he's right! Hana-nee your leg!"
Slowly, Hanako looks down to see the loose jeans she had on, ripped somewhere along her calf, some specks of blood tainting the fabric. Oh crap, she winces, it must have caught in the wheel and since it was spinning so fast...
"I'm fine, I'm fine," she assures the two, Ema especially since she looks close to having a stroke, "Just a scratch."
The boy looks close to tears now, which is much more horrifying than the state of her leg. Hanako had never been able to deal well with crying children, she used to practically trip over herself to hand baby Ema to her dad when the girl cried, "Oh no, please don't look at me like that! I swear I'm fine, more than fine-"
"Wataru!"
Her eyes search Ema with a panic she has not felt in a long time when she hears the call, a man jogging in their direction with a heavy, unamused frown, "I told you to be careful, you shouldn't go so fast in a residential area, someone will get hurt."
The boy, Wataru, gulps, looking at the man, his father perhaps, with wide guilty eyes, "I'm sorry Maa-kun..." The man's gaze drifts to the bright red bike still resting a bit farther away, to a troubled Ema and Juli in the background, and finally to her, standing so close to the boy with a bloody leg.
"Good grief, are you alright?" he's now only a few steps away from them, and she gets his first good look at his face - handsome, she thinks with reluctance, because this man is far too handsome for her to meet him in such a situation, "I'm sorry about that, my brother should have been more careful."
Wataru withers under the glance his older brother sends him, one that is too dark for such a soft face, and Hanako quickly shakes her head, trying to kill the hint of guilt that hits her, "Oh no, I'm the one who wasn't looking where I was going, it was just an accident."
"Still," the man then proceeds to kneel in front of her, scaring the daylight out of her - a mortified blush rises to her cheeks, and a squeak leaves her lips when his fingers brush at the hem of her ruined pant leg, "Would you mind if I give this a look?"
"Wha...what?"
"Maa-kun's a doctor," Wataru explains, now only a breath away from her, practically glued to her side, fingers clutching at the hem of her shirt, "He can help you!" the man mumbles something about pediatrics, peeling the torn-up denim from the thick, but short bloody scratches on the side of her calf, oddly symmetric in nature.
Hanako jumps, swallowing down a curse at the unpleasant feeling of blood dripping down her leg, at the disgusting sight of peeled skin in some places.
"You don't have to!" she waves her hands, almost tripping when a firm, but terribly gentle hand grabs her ankle to extend her leg as to give him a better view of the minor, very minor might she add, injury, "Really it's nothing, I think I have some band-aids in my bag... hey, are you okay?"
The man's face had turned a sickly shade of green at the sight of her actual injury, if he's a doctor, she frowns and he lets her leg slip from his now weak grasp, shouldn't he be used to worse than this?
"Thank you," she says when he doesn't answer, finally having managed to wrangle a few band-aids of appropriate size out of her bag, she hastily slaps three of them on the wound and rolls down what is left of her pant, silently mourning the loss of a perfectly good pair of jeans, "I'll disinfect everything later, but I'm pretty sure I'll live."
"Ri-right," she offers him her hand, helping him up, "Sorry for spacing out, and for your clothes."
She laughs good-naturedly, "Haven't you heard? Rust is a good color to wear this season," Ema looks far from amused at the joke, staring at her sister's leg like it might need to be cut off - that girl could be so dramatic at times, under all of those layers of useless pleasantries and manners.
"Onee-chan, I'm really sorry..." Wataru makes his way to his brother's side, and Hanako is struck by how similar they look alike when she gets a better look at them is this light - same light brown eyes, and if the child's hair is a salmon color while this Maa-kun's is brown, the strands look soft and curl just slightly at the ends the same way.
"Don't worry about it," she says, smiling at the child in a way she wants to be reassuring. It doesn't seem to work, and the boy frowns, "Yeah, but...oh I know! I can give you an apology present!"
Before Hanako can tell him that there is absolutely no need, a handful of wrapped candies is held out for her, "Oh, that's..." does the rule of never accepting candy from strangers apply to adorable children? Probably, still, when the boy's older brother nods slightly when her eyes drift to him in mild panic, she hesitantly takes two of the offered treats, "Thank you, that's very nice of you."
"Ehehe, I made Onee-chan happy!"
Maa-kun nods, smiling proudly at the boy for his action, gently patting his head, "That was very good of you Wataru," the man turns to her once Wataru has straightened his bike, holding it yet not riding it, "Sorry about all that, we'll be off now, but make sure to clean your leg once you can."
"I will," her lips twitch at Wataru's lively goodbye, "Bye-bye!"
Once there's a good amount of distance with the two, Hanako answers to Juli's fretting and screechign, "Don't worry, I'm fine," she hands him one of the pieces of candy from Wataru, the strawberry one as a peace offering, "Hm, this one's lemon, do you want it Em?"
When the girl shakes her head, Hanako plops it into her mouth.
"Those two were nice," Ema says once she has calmed down from all of the recent events, now walking unusually close to her older sibling, their hands brushing as they squeeze on the sidewalk, "I hope our new brothers are as nice, they really seemed to be close, Wataru must adore this 'Maa-kun'."
"Ugh, I can't believe I almost forgot where we were going...leave it to me to meet our new step-brothers looking like this," despite the fact that the wound from Wataru's bike was superficial, it had bled quite heavily, soaking her ruined pant leg to leave a round stain that was drying uncomfortably over her skin since she had nothing to wipe the excess off, "My hair's all messed up too."
"It's fine, really," Ema assures, obviously lying since Hanako quite frankly must look like she crawled out of a car wreck. Flattening down flyways, she ends up stopping entirely to untie the messy bun she had been wearing, detangling the slightly curled locks with her fingers and tying them up into a neater bun.
The older girl's brow twitches when she catches sight of a group of girls, surrounding some poor guy who seemed to be trying to politely escape their clutches, looking at her without any shame, "This is the worst."
It's funny how you think the eyes of those around you, of perfect strangers, are irrelevant - until they are undeniably on you, prying and forming judgments.
Their Bright Centrair, a well-known private High school, uniforms are eye-catching, even with the subtle colors and design - the kind that screams of elegance and money. The girls stare, trailing off as they take in the state of her clothes with disdain that is so obvious Hanako almost laughs.
Instead, when they are only a few steps away from the group, she wordlessly meets the gaze of a pretty blonde who stands taller than the others. Her arched brow raises, lips quirking up in a smirk that is about as condescending as the group appears to be.
The other girls look away when the blonde does, not so much as out of shame, but most likely due to the unimpressed expression on the ridiculously beautiful face of the boy they were surrounding.
He, like herself, did not seem fond of the rude way the girls kept staring at her.
"I'm sorry," he says, glancing briefly at the girl who'd refused to shy away from the prying eyes of his noisy classmates, the hazel color of his eyes blurred with boredom, "There's something important I need to do, I have to head straight home."
Snips of their conversation are heard as she and Ema pass them, "Mou, it's not fair Iori-kun! You always give us excuses like that," one of them says, looking at her perfectly manicured hand instead of the boy she's speaking to. Hanako almost laughs at the boy's clipped answer, despite it being only a polite invitation for them to stop bothering him like this.
She releases the breath she hadn't known she had been holding when they are an apartment block away from the group, "That was so embarrassing."
Frowning, Ema looks at her sister with obvious sympathy, "We'll be there soon," sooner than they thought apparently because Juli informs them that the Sunrise residence, the apartment complex owned by Miwa, should be right on the other side of the street. She had almost forgotten about the map she had dropped when slamming into Wataru earlier, Juli must have grabbed it then - always more responsible than either Hinata sister, that one.
Once they've crossed the sideway, Hanako almost falls over her feet when she gets her first real glance at Sunrise residence behind its numerous trees and tall, metal fence.
The exterior of the building is magnificent, with wide windows covering almost the entire expense of the ivory walls on each side of the main rectangle forming the mansion - the building was U-shaped and about five floors high of modern architecture.
How much is Mrs. Miwa making again..? Ema grabs onto her sister's sleeve with a squeal as the older girl admires the complex, "Hana-nee look at those gardens!"
Even Juli seems positively impressed, and Hanako nods dizzily, "They're amazing...we should probably find the entrance, under that balcony maybe?" it seems to be the right door because they find the outside door unlocked, quickly followed by a second one inside as well as mailboxes and five doorbells connected to an intercom, they must be linked to each floor, "I think Mrs. Miwa said to ring the fifth one?"
When neither of the two sisters moves, Juli jumps on Hanako's shoulder, the one closest to the doorbells to slam his paw on the buzzer. Horrified, she looks down at the squirrel, "Jul-!"
"Yes?" the voice that comes out of the device is deep, yet mellow and the sound of it shocks the girls into a brief, but tense silence.
Recovering as quickly as she can manage, Hanako stammers out something she can only hope is understandable, "U-um this is Hinata Hanako and Ema, we're supposed to move in today?"
"Oh right, Rintarou's daughters, wait just a moment," the two sisters share a nervous glance and, soon enough, a figure comes out of an elevator down the hall and opens the widowed door for them.
For a moment, the man doesn't speak, his gaze firmly stuck on Ema.
This immediately sobers up Hanako who subtly hides her sister from view by taking a step forward and waiting for the tall, blond man to step out of the way and let them pass, "Ah, s-sorry."
If Ema's grin is sweet and unbothered by the weird reaction, Hanako's is all sharp teeth and narrowed plum-colored eyes, what in the world was that all about?
"It's a pleasure to meet you both, I hope we get along," he clears his throat, adverting those piercing baby blue eyes of his, "I'm Ukyo Asahina, the second eldest. Please come in, everyone is excited to meet you."
"So are we," Hanako's smile is pleasant, perhaps a bit too much and he must sense this because his expression suddenly turns a bit sheepish, "I'm Hanako Hinata and this is my younger sister Ema. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"We're happy to be here!" Ema adds, bowing her head slightly and it snaps the man out of whatever trance it was that made him look at the teenager with such intensity.
He looks so much like his mother it is shocking, from the pale platinum hair to the dimples, "Likewise, we're glad you're here. I'll show you the fifth floor, it's where the shared areas such as the dining and living rooms are, all of the bedrooms are on the floors below."
"I'd hate to impose," Hanako winces as they wait for the elevator, fingers unconsciously tugging at the hem of her shirt, "But is there a way I could go change before that? Our father said our stuff had already been dropped here - thank you for that, and um...well," she then gestures to her bloody lower leg, "There was a slight accident on our way here."
"Oh, of course, I'll show you to your rooms first then, as well as the bathroom so you can clean up," Ukyo blinks before pressing the button to the fourth floor instead of the fifth one, surprised he had not noticed the rips on the bottom of one of her denim pantleg, or the blood caked on it, "Did you fall?"
"Thank you," the girl laughs nervously, "More like I had an encounter with a bike, I think my trusted pair of jeans lost that fight." Ukyo considers her words, brows furrowing in thought, could it be..?
He does not ask, instead leading them to the fourth floor's bathroom, which has no business looking like a work of art. Hanako takes in the finely decorated room with wide eyes, from the ceramic floors to the intricate golden details around a wide mirror above the sink.
Once the blood is cleaned off her leg with some rubbing alcohol and new band-aids have replaced the old ones, the two girls are led to their rooms, which are facing each other much to their mutual excitement, "We thought you might like to be close to each other," the bright grins the two sisters send Ukyo are proof it was the right thing to do and Hanako quickly goes in to change, struggling not to admire the size of her bedroom, the plain walls just waiting for her to decorate.
But, since she does not want to make Ukyo and her sister wait too long, she doesn't bother to look around much, quickly slipping on the first pair of pants she can get her hands on - thankfully, the pair made of tight, but light beige fabric she finds, does go well with her simple, long-sleeved, coral shirt.
Chest slightly heaving because of the haste at which she'd changed, Hanako opens the door with a sheepish expression dancing on her features, "Sorry for the wait."
"Don't worry, it was no trouble," she could swear the well-dressed man is amused by her, despite his expression barely budging. Perhaps it's when that they once again reach the elevator that the situation becomes apparently more real, "As I'm sure you were informed, this house is filled with filthy boys, if any of them inconvenience either of you, come to me or Masaomi, the eldest, we'll take care of it."
The blunt way that the lawyer says this startles a laugh out of her, Ema swatting at her sister's arm.
When Ema's hand drifts back to her side, she grabs it with her own and intertwines their fingers when she notices the girl's nervous expression. Ukyo's small smile softens at the gesture, "There's no need to be nervous, they've been warned to be on their best behavior and as I said, you can always come to me."
I like this one, Rintarou's eldest decides as the elevator makes a sound to signal their arrival on the right floor, even with how he was staring at Ema when we first got here.
"Thank you," she says sincerely, secretly hoping for all the Asahina boys to be as thoughtful as Ukyo - although she doubts it. Ema squeezes her sister's hand when they exit the elevator, and chirps, "It means a lot."
Hanako's heart does a flip when Ukyo motions for them to follow him down the staircase that leads to the modern living room the fifth floor has to offer, quite a few pairs of eyes landing on them.