A few weeks after that fated New Year's day, the door to the Teruhashi household to reveal one Kokomi, who promptly slipped off her shoes and moved toward her room to put her school bag down. Unfortunately for her, a sub-boss appeared to block her path.
"Oh, hey, Kokomi! I was just thinking about you and I realized that you needed a self-care day, so I booked a day spa trip just for you! No need to thank me, your happiness is more than enough! Enjoy!" Makoto said with a cheery grin.
Strange.
"Thank you, onii-san! I don't think I'm worth that much trouble…" Teruhashi said soothingly, quickly donning her mask to hide her incredulity.
"It makes me happy that you thanked me even though I didn't specifically request it! You really are a perfect sister. But no, I insist; please enjoy yourself. You should have an email in your inbox with the details soon," Makoto said, his eyes innocently closing and his grin widening at the praise.
Teruhashi quickly turned up her aura and bowed politely. The sound of an offu followed her as she headed toward the stairs, but no footsteps followed her up.
What in the world is going on?
The door to the Saiki household opened to reveal one Kusuo, who glowered at the puke-haired sub-boss draped over the back of a kitchen chair levying him a cloying grin.
"Greetings! Of course you're probably wondering why I'm here. I promise it's not the normal thing I do where I show up randomly, crack some jokes, annoy you, and allude to some crazy challenge I've whipped up…"
Didn't ask, Saiki cut the annoying guy off as he pushed past him.
"Oh, don't be like that! I'm just here to congratulate you on the 22,955th time you didn't listen to me. I told you she wasn't good enough for you, but here you are anyway. Since when has my little brother gone so soft…" Kuusuke moaned pitifully, stopping Saiki in his tracks.
"Did I touch a nerve? Usually you make me work for it at least a little bit more. I'm not sure if I should be hurt or elated right now," Kuusuke chuckled mischievously.
I could say the same about the candidness of your intention.
"Shouldn't romance be something you talk about with your siblings? Considering that I'm the only one even close to worthy of your attention, it seems right that you'd want to take a load off with your onii-san!" Kuusuke exclaimed, throwing his hands up to lean back into the space where the back of the chair should have been. That position had to be anything but comfortable.
Stop being creepy. You're way too full of yourself, Saiki cocked his eyebrow and crossed his arms, regarding the annoying guy with a testy frown.
"You're probably thinking, 'You're way too full of yourself'; but I assure you, I am not. Where did I go oh so wrong as a brother to clean up your messes and get nothing but contempt in return?" Kuusuke sighed heavily. Kuusuke leaned forward nonchalantly, the duality of the flush of his cheeks and the menacing undertone melding into an "exquisite" concoction of chaos. In other words: bog-standard Kuusuke expressions.
Are you jealous? Saiki grinned devilishly.
"Jealous? Oh, heavens, no! I just don't understand how blue algae can just come floating by and carry you off while I'm left on the shore all by my lonesome…" Kuusuke whined, waving his hand as if he were pushing the pond scum from the shore himself.
Saiki was close to taking this as a victory, but there was no way that Kuusuke would let him off so easily.
Saiki cocked an eyebrow. Why are you trying to provoke me this time?
"Isn't that just what brothers do? A little harmless horseplay? We missed that stage when we were kids, so I try to make up for it when I can. Especially since my little brother is all grown up now," Kuusuke flashed him a suggestive wink. "Tell me, when exactly were you planning on doing the deed? Getting married? Knocking her up? Or some other order?" Kuusuke took his chin in his hand and pursed his lips.
Why do you care? Get lost. Saiki snarled. Tortuous pink and green energy roiled the room, shaking countertops and threatening their occupants off of them.
"Ah, temper, temper," Kuusuke tutted, wagging his finger at the imminent calamity. "You know what would happen if Mom found out you hurt me."
The psychic energy whipped into a vortex, displacing all objects present like a cheap horror flick.
She won't find out if I erased you from existence.
"Oh ho ho! Spicy! Apart from the impossibility of that scenario, I think that's a record for gravity of threats on my life!" Kuusuke clapped delightedly before materializing a data pad out of his lab coat on which he started to type furiously. The psychic energy receded as utter confusion replaced rage upon Saiki's discovery that Kuusuke was tapping on a black screen.
What in the world is your damage? Saiki spat, the venom in his unspoken words more than apparent in his icy glare.
Kuusuke looked up at Saiki quizzically. "My damage? Well, the only damage I've done so far is loving my little brother a mite too much; for that I am guilty as charged!" Kuusuke said, breaking into unsettling laughter at his own awful misdirection.
Unfortunately for Kuusuke, his momentary distraction stymied his ability to keep his cute little brother from teleporting him back into his lab. A loud slam echoed behind him as Kusuo quickly escaped from the door.
Kuusuke stole a glance at the closed door struggling to still his beating heart.
The prescribed spa day arrived. A slender, blue-haired dame daintily disembarked from her jet-black limousine onto a black tarmac and allowed her brother's black-suited entourage to usher her across a runway toward a private jet. The staff respectfully greeted her, and after helping her on the plane took her order for refreshments she didn't need to bat her eyelashes for.
Now this is more like it, Teruhashi thought smugly as she sunk into the plush seat normally reserved for her brother. Understandably, though, she still felt a bit uneasy about this situation. She had subtly and not-so subtly attempted to glean Makoto's intention for booking her a spa day without his accompaniment, to which he only ever insinuated he wanted her to be happy. She could normally read him like an open book, so she wondered if she had lost her edge.
She mulled over these thoughts as she gazed out of the window to the cloud cover, swirling a drink in a beautifully blown glass cup emblazoned with a tiger-like crest. Yes, the crest was no sticker; it was actually blown into the glass. She never imagined herself exuding the air of a stuffy business magnate, but she supposed she had been a bit tightly wound recently. Well, no more tightly wound than normal; she of all people certainly deserved this spa trip.
Once the jet landed, she was escorted to a gondola that took her up a mountain where an immaculately maintained sculpture garden and beautiful Greek portico awaited her. The face of the portico was adorned with a relief bearing the same tiger crest and the word "Saiko" in huge letters. "Olympus Resort" was barely visible under the A and I. Naturally, everything the Saikos had their hands in was private; so she was the only guest there. Apparently the Saiko corporation and Makoto had made up following their tiff regarding her hand in marriage. The staff waited on her hand and foot, even carrying her in a throne from place to place to maximize stress reduction. Her first activity was a full regimen of perfectly timed spa therapy designed by world-class practitioners; an involved process even by her standards. A small fraction of the course was a sauna where she was laid out on a slab of special mineral stone exclusive to Japan before being scooped off into a stone sauna where the temperature reached nearly 200 degrees Celsius immediately followed by a dunk in a room so cold that icicles clung to the large air conditioning pipes that kept the room near 0 degrees Celsius followed by a battery of massages and hot rock therapy. After the guided experience, the staff would allow her to request additional services. Of course, she was not going to miss the world class manicure and pedicure.
As the time went by she found herself lulled into introspection, allowing the treatment to work without her input. She could have had all of this and much more if she had just taken the Saiko son's hand in marriage. She could have become an actress, a model, or some other profession that emphasized her beauty in but a few words. Should a perfect pretty girl have followed that course? The main requirements were to be perfectly nice and unaware of her beauty, right? Yet, here she was, trying desperately to reject her lot. Most would kill just to be with her let alone BE her. But despite all of this, most of what she could feel was loneliness. The tension in her muscles seemed to resurface just as quickly as it was taken away by her spa pampering.
Call it what you will; it is nigh impossible for someone dying of thirst to understand someone who is drowning. She wanted to throw it all away and just live, accepting the fact that she'd never be normal during any moment during that lifespan. That was perfectly fine. The perfect bishoujo mask was something she had used to validate her existence, but that always kept her at arm's length from others. Right or wrong, circumstances or choices, she was who she was. It was too late to change the past, so she would only be able to find comfort in the future.
She felt a shooting pain in her back as the masseuse's hand found a knot in her right oblique muscle. A knot? How? She didn't get knots. Impossible.
But the reflexive balling of her fists and the clenching of her jaw made it apparent that this was no delusion. As the masseuse's hands gently worked the knot, the discomfort subsided little by little until it became a dull throb. Such was the nature of a deep tissue massage. They could be painful to the point of bruising, but the endorphins and tension release made a session more than worth the title of "therapy".
Feelings like these were the reason she selfishly threw everything away; the exhilarating rush of pain and delayed bliss of relief made her feel far more alive than anything she had ever done as Kokomi Teruhashi™. Kokomi Teruhashi™ was welcome to stay around, but she would need to follow behind Kokomi or be left in the dust.
Why do you keep showing up?
Saiki wore a disgusted frown as he pushed past Kuusuke through his front doors, his shoulders bristling at the condescending gaze that followed him.
"I simply don't understand why you don't want to be around me. Where did I go so wrong?" Kuusuke whined out a dramatic moan.
You know exactly why. Don't play dumb.
A pregnant pause filled the air in the room. Saiki could only imagine that Kuusuke was thinking up an elaborate scheme or basking in some delusion that he was a puppet master pulling on the strings of their relationship. Probably both.
"Tell me, then. What do you think I want?" Kuusuke spoke with unsettling calm, slowly striding past his brother into the kitchen. What was this candor? That in itself was starting to get creepy.
Kusuo thought for a second, scowled, shook his head, stared down at the floor, squeezed his eyes shut, clenched his fists…
You want to torment me. Something about this answer didn't feel right. Kuusuke's lip quivered.
"I don't know what you said. Usually I can instantly figure it out from the thousands of hours I've spent studying and learning about you and your body language cues and predictive analysis of your trends. If you'd like, I can remove my telepathy canceler so you can tell me yourself," Kuusuke said, wearing a placid, condescending smile.
Saiki stared down at the floor to deliberate, but after a few moments he quickly shook his head.
"Suit yourself," Kuusuke shrugged, holding his hands up as he strolled into the kitchen. He let out a large sigh. "I guess I'll never know what my baby brother thinks of me. Boo hoo," Kuusuke droned pitifully.
Don't sound so sorry.
"Ah, but I am," Kuusuke chuckled brightly. However, the chuckle did not stay cordial, instead swelling to maniacal laughter more in line with a typical mad scientist character. "How about this, then? It's obvious I've never liked that little girlfriend of yours, so I'm going to make her prove that she has the ability to take you away from me!" His laugh became uproarious, far beyond the point of plausible sincerity.
Back to his usual annoying self. Oddly more comforting than the alternative.
Neither of us are your possessions.
"I'm oh so glad I'm back to normal, but in truth, I was always acting normally! You may not be my possessions now, but you will be after my challenge. Haven't decided on casting you into a statue, turning you into an action figure, maybe even stealing your soul? Hm. Choices, choices…" Kuusuke trailed off, his fingers back on his chin as he scratched it inquisitively. He slowly paced back and forth in the kitchen, his eyes darting around as he continued his charade.
Quit being yourself.
"Well I can figure out what to do with you two after I finally win!" Kuusuke laughed, throwing his arms behind his head. His stretch lingered a bit too long, so he found himself back in his lab once again in his comfy office chair.
A farting noise came from below Kusuo as he sat down at the kitchen table to recover from his latest Kuusuke encounter.
Really? He scowled as he lifted up the offending whoopee cushion inscribed "KUSUO SUX" with no more legerdemain than that of a grade schooler.
