"Mama! I'm here!" A young girl bursts open the door, the force slamming the handle against the wall. The noise does not faze her parents who are long accustomed to her spiritedness.
Her parents look up from their meal to see her jet-black hair flailing in the air, growing longer with each movement.
Her mother smiles, gesturing for her to join them at the table. A calloused hand rubs the girl's scalp, smoothing the hair into a single direction. The affection calms the girl down and her hair falls to her back.
"Now, now, Ayame. Did something happen?" Her father asks with a bright smile. Ayame nods, bouncing up and down in her seat. She is dying to tell them but her parents tell her to ask or wait for others to ask before telling. Since her father asked, she can tell.
"The author of Puri Puri Princess had a signing at Anazawa Hall! I got him to sign them all!" Ayame reaches into her bag to pull out her spoils of war. Four manga volumes fan out onto the table as Ayame disappears into the kitchen to take her dinner.
Her mother's hair extends into tendrils that hold up the books. She flips open the cover with a delicate precision, lest the tendrils accidentally tear the thin paper.
True to Ayame's word, every volume has a black squiggle, dotted with a seven-pointed star at the end. The tendrils hand over the volumes to her father, who looks over them.
"Oh yeah, that's Hiroshi's signature all right." He closes the books, setting them on a nearby chair.
"And you say I can't read your work, Dad." Ayame, now having emerged from the kitchen, pouts in between mouthfuls of eggs and rice.
"When you're older." Ayame shrugs at her father's response. She knows her father draws horror manga, but not whether it's scary or not. Still, who wouldn't be curious about everything at eight years of age?
After half the food has disappeared down her throat, Ayame looks around the table and feels something is missing.
Or someone.
"Where is Ayaka-nee?" Ayame darts her head around the house, hoping to catch a glimpse of her sister. On the wall, hung the family calendar where Ayaka had scribbled UA entrance results on June 19th.
Today.
For the whole two months leading up to it, Ayame rarely saw Ayaka at home. All she remembers is the front door opening from her room or the smell of Ayaka's sweat and the sound of running water at midnight. Sometimes in the dead of night, when she stumbled into the kitchen for a glass of water, the lights in Ayaka's room were on and Ayame swears she could hear the sound of scribbling pencils.
Did her hard work come to fruition?
"Ayaka got in, so she's out celebrating with her friends. Be sure to congratulate her when you see her, alright dear?" Ayame nods and continues eating, though she finds her mind drifting to the future.
Ayame knows her sister lives to help others. She was the sort of person who would crawl up a tree to help a lost cat. Ayaka was the one who would help an old lady or her mother run the bakery. In her mind, heroes were the ones who performed grand acts. They didn't have to sweat the small things.
Ayame sees the golden glow in her sister's green eyes every time she helps someone. Helping people brought the light to her eyes.
Could she find that spark too?
Sensing her uncertainty, her father whispers,
"Ayaka is seven years ahead of you. You have plenty of time to think about it."