It will be a fruitful period, I promise. Don't be surprised if I will suddenly start posting more, all of a sudden, after a period of a bit of cold, I guess…? Writing a thesis and writing fanfics hasn't always been an activity my mind wanted to in the same day, so I respected its pace and listened, drew, which is still a bless for the mind ahaha.

I published the first chapter of this fic in September? August? Gah, I let so much time pass, but Tempestosa sucked me in like MTTCI and the Blitzmon fic did last year XD. I think the best thing of wanting to own so many fics is that I will never get bored (and you won't as well, I promise again!).

So, without adding anything else, here is it another chapter about my Junzumi kids. ~. Enjoy!

XXX

He reminded himself turning at the occasional toing and froing of shadows on the wall should have never made him forget not resisting to that temptation, being impatient like his sister was well-known for, getting what he wanted by taking shortcuts would imply he would surrender to a truth that wasn't such.

Certainly, in a situation in which he had had no choice but to convince himself the warped universe plasmed by others' words had more consistency than one created by his own, the urge to jump and hug his mother, hiding his face in her lap to beg for her forgiveness, felt like the most real sensation around and within him.

But he wasn't going to do that, not that time…For now. Actually, judging from the way his plan, -it was supposed to give him more confidence to call that series of nonsense actions that,- was proceeding, he might have to reconsider that option.

Looking at that door, that door he had been acquainted with for months by now, was enough to suddenly make his hands twitch, navigate through the stripes of his hoody in search for his pocket and, successively, his inhaler, loyal companion at those moments of anxiety.

But what was he exactly nervous about, when it came to a door he had opened uncountable times? One he knew well what it was guarding, because he had been spending entire afternoons down there, down those stairs, into the darkness someone had forced upon that sort of basement, by placing coloumns of boxes and old chairs in front of its windows?

Per davvero, this is so stupid, He almost groaned at himself, at his fingers refusing to leave a sea coloured of both the blue of the clear expanse above it and the warm orange of the Sun. He had never behaved like that in front of a silly door, not even when on some blessed day he had managed to open that shutter waiting for him at the back of his mother's restaurant, that persiana whose padlock and its chains would make him grow purple and eventually spit all the most disparate curses he could come up with in those instants.

Even back then, he had actually been already aware of what kind of place would stretch itself before his eyes, after he pushed those leaves. Nevertheless, when, for once in his life, he had heard heavy metal loosening in his palm, his heart had fluttered twice.

He had a vague hunch about why it had skipped those beats, and it wasn't because he had still been expecting a familiar fuss of dialect and italian to make itself heard from one moment to the next, approaching while blabbing about a Sunday lasagna some kid had succeeded in exchanging for a bunch of keys.

Oh, but he had also mopped up his plate with bread without ceremony, quel Don Abbondio di un Marcello!

Anyway, those were memories from his life in Venice, weird as it sounded to him, because labelling those in that way made him feel like they were as far as the sky he couldn't touch, which he wasn't sure he liked. Actually, recently, he had started imagining some kind of...Instrument shaped as a little suitcase. One into which it was possible to stick entire buildings and all those dear recollections tied to them…Yeah, he guessed, snitches disguised as waiters included. Like that, he was sure being able to bring along such a thing wherever you went would help you suffer from less nostalgia. Or, maybe there would be none at all.

Still, such technology didn't exist. On top of that, to make things worse for him like always, after having opened the drawer of his desk with renewed disappointment so many times, it had also become enough blatant a Doraemon pulling solutions to any problem out of his pouch would only appear in his dreams. So, the only piecies of the venetian Brezzo Petalo that had followed Kou to Tokyo were his mother's frown, her glares and her glances of eloquent disapproval.

They were identical to how they would look like at those times she would discover he had bribed the waiters again, in order to be the one finding an alternative football pitch for his friends, a round square floating on a canal. It was just that now they would be reserved to those occasions she would receive calls from the library, because he had happened to forget to return a novel in time; or, much more concerning, from his new Sensei, who wanted to point out he had been too distracted during lessons, though his grades were fine, -except for his maths one, but that wasn't really a surprise to both his parents-; or from…

Well, he could sum each of those stories up with a shrug: his mother would receive calls by many people, and then his father would receive calls from her about the ones she had received. Simply.

The consequences were pretty much the same. Simple in the sense that they would be extremely predictable, with him apologizing to the woman after the two adults' sonorous scold, her raising an eyebrow to put on display her, absolutely fair-, skepticism, him trying again with his hands gathered in prayer and his bouncing tongue ready to launch the same promise of eleven years of life. His mother's trust didn't lie beyond a mere door. Like some inestimable gem, it was concealed in the core of a peculiar wall made of layers of spinning winds, owning neither keys to retrieve nor chains to break. Modestly speaking, he could state he had been the first and only one in the family finding a way to breach it. He was sure about it.

"Ti prometto che non lo faccio più!"

A sweaty palm on his chest, brave eyes overflowing with honey while staring in the eyes of a cyclone that hadn't abated in the least, some days before he had sworn to himself that would be the last time he would repeat those words to her. Enough with making her angry, so angry wrinkles would form on her beautiful face: he was risking to get her to consider him as the least reliable child she had and, for certain, he couldn't allow that to happen since he was the eldest and knew the fact he was came with the responsibility to also be the wisest between his sibilings.

Thus…So it had been: the absolute last time. Such it had been and still was in his fresh recollections, -which were what was supposed to matter the most, -right…?-, whereas in his mother's, in his father's, in his uncle's too, mannaggia niente, it had been the last of a concluding cycle and the first of another one that had just started. Whether he liked it or not, he had kept his promise, his oath, only in his mind. Outside of it, where other people's thoughts and memories are shaped according to what they see with their own eyes, he was just a kid who had made a mess and had misbehaved again. Again and again. And he would continue being one unless he brought himself to open that door, kick on it, smash it, if it was what it would actually take for him to set things in motion.

It should be that easy, shouldn't it be? A matter of force of will exclusively depending on his mind, just like it would be when it came to pretty much everything else: his distractions, his promises, his breath and, all over again, his anxiety.

"O la va o la spacca!" He exclaimed, his hand slipping in his pocket almost on its own and tightening its prompt grip on his inhaler. Reinvigorated by his silly convictions, he gained so much momentum he grew afraid his impetuous jump would lead him to a collision with hard wood, -outcome that, at least, would have made his bandaids look less ridiculous on an actual, broken nose-.

But then, after all that fuss,- that stupid, useless fuss, he scolded his cowardice-, his palm successfully got right where it was supposed to, where it would have been supposed to stay if suddenly, unexplainably, he hadn't got seized by the urging, uncontrollable impulse of jerking away from there, which resulted in him falling on his backside at that first, almost imperceptible,- due to how short it had lasted- contact.

As distant as he could get from the doorknob and that jolt he could swear he had felt climbing on his hand.

"Ma…Ma che…Ma che," His voice reduced to a jumble of screeches, he pointed at the gap he had left between him and the door, his finger suspended in the air, trembling and missing the detestable objective by drawing invisible arches. Shrinking and enlarging like his wheezing mouth, once they reached the peak of their exstension in both width and height, they collapsed in the middle of their swinging, before they could trace a big slope above a meadow of golden.

The shock laced with the immediate realization made him gasp and drop his index, now in the company of someone else who was visibily looking as scared as he was, if not more, wide-eyed and unable to speak unless he did so for first

Of course, that fall and its ruckus had startled her by catching her off guard, though he had no idea why she would pass by that zone of the restaurant, which it was necessary to cross to get neither to the kitchen nor to the toilet. Indeed, -what was he racking his brain about?!-, he didn't have the foggiest idea why she would be at the restaurant and not at home, playing with her fairies or sleeping: that is what you would expect someone to do after a couple of intercontinental flights, wouldn't you?

Curious as he had grown to be, and suspicious, most of all, he told himself other types of priorities came first.

He got his apron rid of dust and dirt only he could see and pulled himself on his feet, wincing at how weak and unsteady his legs were still feeling.

"Sto bene, Ran! Sto bene, see? Nothing broken," In spite of his balance, he flashed her a jovial grin, with the addition of some sheepish chuckles at the end to hopefully make her relax even more: such a noble effort just to get a pair of rolling green spheres in token of gratitude.

La mia solita sorellina, He slowly shook his head at the inquisitive look that ensued, one that also took Ran closer to him, so she could probably assure his statement wasn't a lie. Inspecting him from head to toe, she seemed to mimic what he would do whenever she herself fell like a pear, -which, for the record, wasn't that rare-. He decided not to interrupt her and endured the mix of embarrassment and annoyance she had instilled in him, because, after all, he was glad it had taken so little to make her toss away that pale veil she had been entangled in some seconds before, cascading on her features and robbing her of the healthy rose of her cheeks.

Speaking of those, once she was done, they puffed up a little at the first words she pronounced, as she took some steps backwards, averting her irises from him too. Judging from their firmness, their clarity, their incisiveness, the way they pushed Kou to hang his head now, he was glad to announce to himself he had officially managed to ward off her scare.

"Of course you're fine: you fell on your big butt."

"H-Hey, hey…"

"What? It's what it is. It's like that for me too. È così e basta."

"Well…" She was an expert in making him regret his compassionate choices due to that wild tongue of hers. "Big butt or not, I know you're still worried for me; otherwise, you wouldn't have stayed here with me."

With a sudden twist of her petite figure, Ran spun on herself further. The lilac petals of her skirt spread and flew along with her to an angle of that pirouette where she could safely hide her blush. Against all odds, -her odds-, though, the twirl had also caused her strands to scatter around, leaving the round contours of her red ears exposed to Kou's careful observation and smug smirk.

"E, invece, ti sbagli."

"No, I'm not wrong," Nonplussed, he swiftly sent her failing objection, for which she hadn't even tried providing a single argument, back, a nimble tennis player striking the ball darting from the other side of the court, as soon as it gets over the net…Effortlessly. Still, -needless to specify it-, the ball in question isn't supposed to whizz right towards the opponent, hitting them straight in their face, their flushed, irritated face at high speed.

He instinctively raised his hands in front of his chin when she unpredictably came back, a foot wriggling out of its slipper as his left leg tried slithering away. His jugular felt like contracting, as he counted the instants her big-strided march took to bring her back before him, so she could stomp on that millimeter parting them, jump on those inches dividing their heights and plant a sonorous slap on his little, strained smile.

But that was what Ran only did in the form of a very simplified sketch animating a black canva, long, spiky wisps of straw standing on end and flickering like a skein of contorted lightnings, while she knocked out the messy drawing of a poor Kou.

If anything, what she attempted to do in their motley real life was to give him a moral slap.

"Of course, I got worried when I saw you falling like that!" She spat, staying up on her tiptoes for not longer than a second, just enough to get to his taller perspective and make him gulp at the illusion of two eyes fused in one; in a crystalline lake that had stopped concealing its bottom below the penumbra of swollen clouds. Then, she landed back on the floor and crossed her arms with a snarfle, never allowing her hammering tone to totter.

"But the truth is that I had come here because I wanted to tell you something."

"Let's hear, then."

"I wanted to. Now there's no longer need to do so," She whispered in a hiss remaining where she was, wearing the same, unpersuasive indifference, while showing no sign of wanting to leave. If Nature had intended humans for such a marvel, she would have gone as far as making her head turn of almost 360 degrees to dissimulate her interest. And even so, Kou had no doubts the living contradiction she was would incredibly find a way to betray herself.

In those circumstances there was nothing else he could do but wait for that couple of seconds to flow. Her signature impatience wouldn't help her resist for longer than those, not even allowing him to lean against the doorjamb and freezing his quiet descent in its middle.

"Fine…" As punctual as a Swiss clock, -the kind of efficiency their father seeked for in an old pendulum he had been trying repairing for months-, a huff bursted out of her pout. "Since I didn't make it in time, I'm telling you as a reminder for a next occasion."

Her arm extended towards him, her index aiming at his perplexity similarly to the way his had at her frail terror, she sealed her lips and gave him an intense stare, loading all the noises coming from the restaurant with a sense of suspence.

The lethargic oscillations of that pendulum hanging on the other side of the wall pulsed against Kou's back like bradycardic palpitations, against his that had suddenly accelerated their pace, stopping only for a frightening instant when ,finally, Ran inhaled. She did so deeply, her body, from her sternum upwards, got pulled along by the climb of the suction.

"The Great Detective Orimoto- Shibayama, season 1, episode 4: the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime."

… Uh…?

The pendulum's swings and the uninterrupted ticking of another, much more modern-looking clock, -his beloved wristwatch, which he could faintly hear pounding against his wrist, if he focused on the awkward silence enough-, spoke in the dumbfounded Kou's stead, in his thoughts' as well.

Meanwhile, imperturbable, Ran just persisted in pointing her index at him, like the detectives from her fantasies, -about whom Kou didn't really care about-, tended to do in the shows she loved watching with their father, whenever he was at home. And again, Kou had never felt minimally intrigued about those, not even feeling like stopping on the stairs just to peep at what kind of thrilling scene the duo would comment so vivaciously about, and they would go on until the following morning, engrossed in a world they just shared in two.

Then, however, like a bolt barging into the still air packed with a sinister sense of expectation, the realization hit home full force. And what should have come out as a sigh of affectionate exasperation, accompanied by an incredulous, "Seriously, Ran…?", got stuck in an angered grimace.

"Wait a second…!"

"Wait a second?" If Ran's finger hadn't receded autonomously, joining the others on her hips, he would have been the one forcing it to do so. Such was the indignation that had conquered his soul: first, his uncle, who hadn't even tried making it sound like he might believe his story, after all; now his sister too, his sorellina he would correct on the spot, if she ever happened to tell him no fairy protected their garden! "Is it all you can say? Wait a second?"

"What else do you want me to say?" He saw her flinching at the glare he shot at her, fleeting yet heavy, laden with all the negativity she had poured on him through that offence. It lasted as long as it took for him to detach his back from the wall. He gave a nonchalant kick on it to propel himself forward and start to leave, his hands, indeed, his fists in the pockets of his baggy apron even when he got past a very baffled Ran.

"What else?" Stumped, chasing him with only her gaze, she could only spread her arms as he got further from her. "This is a problem concerning you and only you. You are the one who should know. Not me."

Since it wasn't in his style to abandon people without a shred of explanation, and he had been taught it was fundamental to be frank in any form of relationship, he reluctantly throttled down to let her get another glimpse of his displeased mump. However, wanting to put as much emphasis as he could on his message for her, he actually ended up transforming that into an arrogant sneer.

"Cara Detective, don't you know true criminals have got the right to speak only in the presence of their lawyers?"

Considering it was more than enough, he told himself he could finally begin ignoring her for real, despite how hard it immediately resulted to be to put up with the kludge of italian she took with her. Because, -to no one's surprise, especially his-, she eventually decided to scamper after him.

"Oh, ma sempre così deve fare! Si arrabbia per niente, questo polentone! Anche quando la gente vuole semplicemente aiutarlo. E che barba che è!"

Not even a whole minute had passed, and yet, there was he, falling into the trap of whatever flaw of his personality he was supposed to blame for making him vacillate in his resolutions every single time: whether they consisted in him promising he would sit at his desk and do his maths homework, or in him repeating to himself he needed to give a book back to the library before the day came to a close; or again, whether they consisted in him intending to return into the core of a basement, or in him, -always him!-, wanting to pretend nobody was walking and babbling behind him at the moment, following every movement of his like a shadow.

Yet, was he at fault if she had the tendency to speak too much, out of turn? He surely wasn't, but he was also aware there was no one else but him, her older brother, who had the responsibility to make her realize she could spit so much nonsense in just of a couple of instants.

"What is it that you want to do? I didn't hear you," Restoring the situation from before, with their eyes fighting against each other like rain pounding against the ground, he felt the urge to give himself the slap she hadn't given him, as soon as he realized it had never changed that much in a first place. His steps hadn't been as fast as he wished they had been and he unfortunately happened to be a clever and self-conscious kid, who could have never fooled himself into believing they had suddenly conformed to the dozed engines of that clunker.

"I want to help you, perhaps? Isn't it clear enough? I swear…" Staring down at Ran and her lively gestures, his sterness softened, but he surpirsed himself promptly catching that sensation of mellowing, that need to let it all go, and regaining control on himself. Still, his rage never returned in its original severity and allowed other types emotions, holding a different kind of intensity within themselves, to come to the surface. They molded his features in the appearance they had always been meant to have, made him look the way he was actually supposed to: disappointed and also hurt.

"No, it obviously isn't. What is clear to me is that you think I have been able to make a stupid microwave explode!"

"And instead, you're wrong!"

"No, I'm not! You are! This time as well!" If he allowed her combative shouts to push him backwards, there definitely was something else that had lost strength in him, all of a sudden.

Now that she had got so near to his broad nose for a second time and he could feel his eardrums vibrating, he mused he was kinda glad they still were where everything had begun : how would have the restaurant diners reacted in front of the spectacle of that tempest they both were, which their parents themselves still struggled taming? They all would have run away into the real storm that was going to burst outside and, maybe, they would have still preferred trudging through raindrops and lightning to staying there.

"Va bene, I agree with you."

"Finalmente!" He couldn't help crying out at the top of his lungs: his turn to open his arms wide had eventually arrived. But then, he remembered a microwave actively deciding to spoil his life was a more credibly tale than one about his sister giving up in an argument, and he brought himself to raise the shield in time, before she could resume the bickering with even more fervour .

"Yes, finally, because you are not wrong," She started, nodding at herself with a calm that was not to be trusted. Actually, she jumped towards him and Kou showed himself unprepared despite anything, flinching like she had due to his glare from before. "You are dead wrong! So, so, so wrong! I had rushed here to tell you not to go down there, because it would have been suspicious! Why would you go to that place, if you didn't have anything to check, to hide?"

"You…You…" The weight his body carried lost an additional burden whose lumbering presence he had come to acknowledge only at that moment. "You have put so much thought in this. I must say I'm surprised."

"O-Of course, I have! Nobody likes getting unfairly scolded," Her frame relaxing with a shuddering sigh, she gave him the impression the big pockets of her skirt had just dropped a kilo of stones. Her tongue sticking out of her pout would have fit better as a response to his light teasing, but that passing cloud rapidly got out of his hair. After all, there was a group of cumulonimbus requiring more attention, -and worry-, from him the thicker they would get.

"Ok, ok, ok! Fine! You are right and I'm admittedly an idiot, a polentone, whatever you want!"

"A pirla too," She grasped the chance to add, her spheres narrowing as they glimmered of malicious satisfaction.

"Yes, a pirla to-" Having started slurring at that point, walking from a side to the other of the darker corridor their squabble had led them back into, he had risked to let his sister call him that way, with that insult she had learnt from a friend from Milan and had refused to forget, like he had requested. "No, a pirla, no ! I forbid you to use that word. If you do, I'll tell Mamma, indeed, Papà."

"You're in no position to tell them anything, but I don't want to risk. Meglio prevenire che curare," She shrugged, action that conflicted with her lingering grin, but didn't mess with Kou's focus like it would have on other uneventful days. If on a hand he was glad somebody on Earth, -his sister, luckily-, was willing to support his version of the facts, on the other Ran's observation had also presented a new, uninvited problem he could have done without. "But if you don't want me to call you pirla, then stop walking like that. It's giving me seasickness."

"I know, but I can't help it."

"This is right the answer a real pirla would give. If you want to stop, your body will, duh! It's not like you're a clock."

"Ran! I'm thinking! And if I am, it's all your fault in a certain sense. I needed to go down there, but now…Uh, who will? Not me any more. I won't."

"And not me, either," They simultaneously shook their head for the same, identical reason, similar hues of blonde floating before their vision before falling back at their place. "I don't even think it's necessary for you to go. The best thing to do is to say you're sorry to Mamma and Papà. If you asked me, I might also go and convince them to put an end to your detention. But if I do, will you come with me outside, searching for snails, because I want to see if japanese snails come out on rainy days as well?"

"No, on the contrary, it is strictly necessary," Because apologizing to Mamma would make me burst into tears in her lap, you can't understand. Lending an ear to that internal voice, the voice of the harsh truth, he grew abashed, slowing down the rhythm of his legs, which had become as quick as the dash of his wristwatch. The switch to a more placid rhythm was announced by a pat of his foot on the floor "And what kind of nonsense idea is to go out in the rain?! Today you all want to play out there with that pandemonium."

"Pandemonium…Ma dai. The Sun is still out there and it will be like that for a while, uff. You had said it would start by the time you got changed, but it's still hot and just cloudy."

For just a little bit, he let those words, whatever else she said, blend in the background, in the discordant duet of the clocks; in the ruckus of the restaurant it was so easy to subdue in that corner and its advancing obscurity; in the chaos of the thunderstorm that Ran claimed it hadn't blasted yet, just because she had been fortunate enough not to live in his mind.

"And why is it strictly necessary?"

Or to be able to read it.

"È così e basta," It was a feat for him himself interpret his own reasoning, so there were no doubts if she had had that skill, she would have got bored of it very soon. For example, in that case, there wasn't a valid explanation about why his reply had shrunk and faded in his jugular. The day before, while waiting for Ran and his father to arrive from Venice, his excitement had mentally written a list of all the activities he would like to do with her, once she was back at home: show her his new bedroom, paint and decorate hers together, take her to that pet shop from whose windows you could coo at kittens playing in their boxes and also talk about this and that, as he had a lot to tell her.

A lot.

"Ehhh, ti stai ancora facendo la cascia. I see. Then, I won't come."

"Hadn't you told me you wouldn't come?" He found it quite ridiculous she was averting her gaze right when his repetitive stroll through the corridor had come to a so-longed halt.

"A-And hadn't you told me you wouldn't go?"

He guessed some doors would need a combination of a key and chains to open, others a simple hand and a pinch of bravery, possibly equipped with some special gloves resistant to imaginary electric charges. A remaining half of them, instead, would either require to be a despaired momma boy or to be in company of a petulant sister.

Of a younger sister he had missed more than he had thought.

XXX

Ahh, I'm so happy to have run into my Muse, finally. It makes me feel disgruntled not to be able to write fics because I'm too mentally tired and I want to do something else (* cough * drawing). Surely, I'm ALWAYS thinking about Junzumi but there's no comparison with the act of actually materializing your ideas that will stand against it.

I've dedicated this chapter to fleshing out Ran's and Kou's' relationship more because I think it's necessary to do so, if I want to work more on them, -my own main characters ahah-, not only in this fic but also in others (and comics too!). They bicker a lot for Junpei's and Izumi's joy, they are little tempests and if Toto joins, it will just be the end of the world. Let's say that Junpei and Izumi never get bored of their life. I look forward to telling more about my babies and slowly build all the world around them!

Italian notes and this time there are ton because, ah, these kids are italian XD.

• Per davvero: For real.

• Don Abbondio: He is a character from Manzoni's "Promessi Sposi". He's a priest who has become symbol of cowardice. When you call someone a Don Abbondio, you are telling him he's got no courage XD.

• O la va o la spacca; I think there's nothing similar in english lol. It's also pretty bizarre to translate it literally. Let's say it's just an exclamation to give yourself a boost of courage.

• Sto bene: I'm fine.

• La mia solita sorellina: My little sister who never changes.

• È così e basta: It's like this, only like this.

• Oh, ma sempre così deve fare! Si arrabbia per niente, questo polentone! Anche quando la gente vuole semplicemente aiutarlo. E che barba che è!: This is one of those random italian speeches Ran throws in conversations *for reasons*. They're not that relevant and if they are Kou will translate the most important parts of theirs' for you. Anyway: " Oh, but he always has to act like this! He gets angry over nothing, this polentone! Even when people just want to help him. He's so annoying!"

• Va bene: Fine.

• Finalmente: Finally.

• Meglio prevenire che curare: Better to be safe than being sorry.

• Ehhh, ti stai ancora facendo la cascia: You are still upset (idiomatic sentence).