I wake the next morning to my alarm clock. The LED-display reads 5:30. I grumble quietly to myself. "Another morning, another run." With a sigh, I drag myself out of bed and prepare for my usual morning run. Downstairs, Emi is waiting for me already. She is excitedly hopping back and forth on her running blades. "Morning, Emi." I greet her as I rub some sleep out of my eye. "Hey hey. You ready? It's gonna be a good one. Today it's really misty outside, so we have to stick close together." Emi finishes the sentence with a wink. "I mean... I'm sure it's not that bad. We can probably still see where we're going, but best to avoid the forest in that case. Can't have you tripping and hurting yourself before school." I say as I bring a finger up to my chin. "I think we'll do the roundabout route then. Just mostly stick to the roads." "Sounds good to me. Let's go! I'll race you to the lights." Emi smiles, already at the door, impatient as always to leave.
After locking up again, we start our run at a slow pace. After a few minutes, we start speeding up until we're both running at a comfortable pace. I try to make some small talk with Emi. "So... what have you been up to? Got any major events coming up?" "Oh yeah, didn't I tell you? There's gonna be this huge track competition in about a month. I've been training super hard lately to try and beat my old times. I'm sure I'm gonna win this." The small girl running next to me seems to start glowing slightly on this misty morning. Her whole body seems to light up as she excitedly talks about the upcoming competitions and her training. Suddenly, her eyes shift and I could swear I saw a glint in her eyes. "Speaking of competition, did you guys smash yesterday? You three seemed very cosy. I can imagine a lot of stuff happened that you wouldn't want me to know." Emi says as she starts grinning widely. I can feel my temperature rising and my head going red as I process her words. "Huh?! Wha? What do you...? What are you talking about?" I try to speed up to avoid this conversation, but Emi easily keeps up with me. "I'm just asking if anyone got screwed yesterday. You know, something that'd make you really down... bad." I try to speak, but I end up short of breath and thus have to stop. As I slow my pace, I try to swallow and end up almost choking on my own spit. After a loud coughing spree, my eyes meet Emi's once more. "Okay... you're just doing this to fuck with me, aren't you?" With a playful grin, Emi hops forward slightly and leans in to whisper into my ear. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" A moment later, there is a few meters between us as I jump back, trip and fall on my ass. "Buh..." is the only sound I can muster. Emi's smile grows wider as she start to laugh amicably. "Are you okay?" She asks through her laughter. "Yeah, I'm fine. My legs just turned to jello for some reason." "Wow, that's a new one. I really thought you'd be used to me by now. Anyway, did you guys have fun yesterday?" I get up slowly, trying to control my shaking legs and beet-red face. Unable to look her in the face, I look at a nearby street tile. "Yeah, it was a great time. Most of the time was spent on teaching Mooms, but after that we got some good matches in. Nia got super competitive as usual, but she's surprisingly good at holding back. Mooms also managed to pick up the game rather quick. I think she could become really good if she sticks with it for a while." "Is that your way of saying you got your ass handed to you?" Emi gives me an inquisitive look. I sigh "It is... yes." Hearing the words for myself weirdly doesn't sting as bad as I thought it would. "Anyway, I think I'm good to go now. Let's pick up the pace again." The diversion helps as Emi unconsciously starts to focus on the road ahead again. I breathe a sigh of relief as we continue our morning run.
Half an hour later, we return to the house and do some stretches before heading back in. "Don't forget to take your blades off before going upstairs. You don't want Nia to get on your case again, do you?" "Yeah, yeah, I know. It was already gonna do that. I'm not that forgetful." Emi puffs out her cheeks as she sits down in the doorpost, removes her blades and starts scrubbing them with a brush we left next to the door. I start to smirk as I loom over her and smugly say: "Need I remind you of yesterday?" This time, it was Emi's turn to get all red and embarrassed. "Hey, no fair. That was one time. It hasn't happened before... much." She starts scrubbing more vigorously, trying to get the dirt off and venting her embarrassment into the object. After cleaning her 'legs', Emi calls dibs on the shower and rushes upstairs with her regular prosthetics. I make my rounds again, waking the others. Strangely enough, I don't hear any noise from Maki's room this morning. I shrug and assume she's heard me. Maki is not one to oversleep or skip out on breakfast, so she'll be fine.
Back in my room, I collapse onto the bed for a few moments, still desperately trying to push out the weird thoughts that Emi planted there. Before going for a shower, I suddenly remember to double-check my bag for work. "I knew I forgot something." Speaking my thoughts out loud as I hobble over to my closet to retrieve a fresh set of working clothes. The dirty clothing drops from my bag on the floor as the new ones are stuffed in. When Emi is done in the bathroom, she knocks on my door to let me know. I pick up my old clothes from my 'clothes chair' and head over to the bathroom. After a good shower and slipping back into some comfortable clothes, I feel great. My hair lets me know I need to go to the hairdresser soon because it sticks to my forehead. I swipe the wet strands aside and grunt in slight annoyance. Slinging my bag on my back, I head downstairs. As I get to the breakfast table, everyone is sitting at the ready, waiting for me. However, there seem to be two empty chairs. It quickly dawns on me that Maki is not here. So, it falls to me to go to her room and knock on her door once more. "Hey, you up? We're waiting on you. you're gonna be late." Some shuffling and grunts of annoyance can be heard from the other side of the door. "Just start without me. I'll be down soon." Maki answers in a sharp voice. "Having some... issues right now." The sigh of relief I was letting out upon hearing her voice, catches in my throat as I hear her answer.
"Anything I can help you with?" "No, I'll be fine. Just... Just leave me alone for a bit." "Is this about yesterday? Because I'm sorry about what happened. It's just..." Maki interrupts me. "You're still hung up on that? I said I'm fine. I'l be down in a few minutes. Just go." She lets out another grunt of annoyance. "Okay..." I say with a growing feeling of unease. "Just know that you can always ask any of us for help if you need it." With those parting words, I go back downstairs.
"False alarm, she just overslept." I say upon returning to breakfast. In the meantime, the girls had already started on their sandwiches, seemingly not having the patience or time to wait for me. I don't mind. Most of us need to be out of the house early to meet some kind of deadline. Emi and Fuuka need to catch the bus to school and I need to get to work. Mumei doesn't leave the house, but she is a streamer and she needs to go live later and she usually uses the time between breakfast and then to quickly test all her equipment and programs to make sure nothing will go wrong later. Nia is really the only one who could take her time, but she rarely does. "Girl's got a hell of an appetite." I think as I watch her make a sandwich while still eating another. "Thank god she's also the one doing our groceries, most of the time." Nia is a lot busier than she looks, she usually spends the days taking care of the everyday household chores. Doing the dishes after breakfast, watering the plants, vacuuming the house, stuff like that. Every so often she even cleans the windows. I once again realize how lucky I am to have all these girls around me.