"I don't have any parents," Atla said.
"But there must be someone taking care of you," I said. Filo was technically orphaned- or rather, abandoned, but she had Fitoria taking care of her. 'Taking care of' in a very loose sense of the word, but she had someone nonetheless.
Before we could get any further with this line of questioning, someone ran up to us. I thought it was just someone running on the street going somewhere else but they very deliberately walked near Atla and seemed to recognize her.
"Atla, I've been looking all over for you, " this person said. He was also dressed up in a school uniform, this one completely different from that of the girl/s. Now that I got a better look at him he and this girl seemed to share some similarities. Both of them had grayish hair and bluish eyes, though his were far darker. He then looked at the two of us and seeing Atla's clothes that seemed to be a bit dirty he appeared to have reached the completely incorrect conclusion.
Or, actually he had reached the correct conclusion but for completely wrong reasons (I was the one who had grabbed her ankle and caused her to fall after all) and had misunderstood something else. After all, we were the reason why Atlas clothes were dirty but not in the way that you would think.
"Hey you! What did the two of you do to my sister?" he lifted up his arms and made a fighting stance as if he was ready to take the two of us on, never mind that he was a head-and-a-half shorter than both of us. "Hey! Atla stand behind me I'll protect you from these weirdos!"
"Hey! Who are you calling weirdos!?" Shindo said. "We weren't the ones who were hiding in the bushes stalking people!"
Shindo technically had a point- if there was anyone weird it was that girl over there, but that was going to be hard to explain to anyone. Not that anyone would have that anyone would have believed us either. From my own experience, people would believe the word of women over that of a man's without hesitation. Indeed the mere thought of that brought a slew of bad memories to the forefront of my mind.
However, there was no need for anything like this to happen as at that very moment the girl smacked the boy on the back of the head.
"Nii-san you need to stop jumping to conclusions!" Atla said. Ah, so they were related, my hunch had been correct.
The boy seemed to be quite confused at this and then asked her "Wait, wait, weren't these guys bothering you!"
"Well of course they weren't," Atla said. "And even if they were I don't need you babysitting me! "
The boy turned to her with a worried look on his face. "But Atla why weren't you at school?"
"Before I answer that you need to apologize properly," the girl said and then grabbed him by the back of the head while dragging him around. It was quite comical because she was doing this even though that it didn't look like she had even 1/4th of his strength and yet it was dragging him around. Yeah, in any other situation I'd have found this funny but it was all too weird for me to laugh.
"Bow your head and apologize to Rocketboy," Atla said. "How dare you call him a weirdo?!"
The boy had a strange expression on his face, as if he had just realized something. He turned to Shindo. "Wait so you're Rocketboy?"
Shindo said, "No that's my brother over there."
Then something surprising happened. "I'm sorry for all the trouble my sister must have caused you two," he then turned to Atlas after he had escaped from her grip. "Atla, does that mean that you've been spending your time following him?" he asked her.
She put her hands on her hips and pouted. "I'll do whatever I want. And doesn't that also mean that you're outside of school right now as well?!"
"Yes, but I left class because they told me that they couldn't find you!" the boy replied. "I love you, but you can't go around following people." he said.
"Okay, I don't know what's going on here, " I told them. "If you want though to talk about whatever is going on here we can talk about this inside."
In response to this the girl's eyes and face completely lit up like a Christmas tree
"So we get to see the inside of Rocketboy's apartment? This is one of the best days of my life!" she said.
On second thought, it might have been a better idea to meet up in some more 'neutral battleground' rather than my house. These people were strangers after all but at the same time I didn't think that I could go back on what I was saying.
The boy didn't seem that eager to follow us in but he seemed to oblige given his sister really wanted to go in. Shindo of course was as confused as I was, and the only thing was that I was at least somewhat glad that we had somewhat cleaned up after Raphtalia had left yesterday.
Otherwise my apartment would have been in a far more sorry state than it was right now.
I motioned to Shino. "Would you guys like anything to eat or drink?" even though I had no idea who they were it did make sense at least ask that question from them.
Both of them shook their heads. Well, I think it would have been natural to ask again but I sort of kind of didn't feel like it. Not to mention I really had a limited assortment of beverages that I could even offer them so it was best to not push my luck now that they'd refused. "Right so I think we should start with introductions first. My name is Iwatani Naofumi and this is my brother, Shindo.
The boy spoke up. "My name is Fohl, this is my younger sister Atla."
Atla was looking around the room. 'Where are your rewards? The ones that you got from TwitchTube? And your room looks a bit different from what I remember..."
"Okay, how do you know me just by my username?" I asked her again.
"Because- I'm your biggest fan!"
