Sparrow Truman: April 28th, 20XX

I could only dodge my older brother as he barreled past me while I scarfed down the last bite of the elaborate breakfast he’d gotten up early to make for me. I didn’t know why he hadn’t just left and taken the car with him, but from the disarray of his hair, I could tell that he had likely fallen asleep after completing the meal.

Of course, I could also have left the meal and dashed out of the house as soon as I was done getting dressed for school, but he knew how much I hated wasting food. I tied up my hair at the same time I slid my shoes onto my feet. Unlike Will’s stiff office shoes, my loose sandals gave me a major time advantage.

Will noticed, and full out sprinted toward me. He didn’t even bother putting the shoes on and grabbed them with one hand while he reached for the keys with the other.

I got there slightly faster though and managed to get a firm gasp on the other half of the keys before he could snatch them away from me.

“Come on, I’m late!”

He took the time to tighten his tie with his free hand and dropped his shoes to the ground so he could put them on.

“So am I!”

I didn’t have anything as convenient as to put on with one hand, but I could stand my ground. Thanks to our shared poor sleeping habits and subsequent habits of hurling clocks onto the floor in our grogginess, we sorely lacked in things to wake us up in the morning.

Neither of us bothered sleeping with our phones close by since we couldn’t afford to replace phones as often as we could to replace the cheap alarm clocks that we used.

“I’ll pick up some more alarms after school, so can you please just let go of my keys? Why don’t you take the company car today?”

“Its under repair. Come on, it’s only one day and I have a lot of driving around to do. Can’t you just take the bus and ask a friend to take you around?”

Ordinarily I’d accept his alternatives, but I had a lot of materials for the showcase in my car. My ability to work would be hindered if I had to go without them.

“Not an option, Will.”

As I prepared to head off his sharp retort, a sharp and whimsical song broke the tension. His phone was ringing. My brother contorted his body to reach into his back pocket without letting go of my keys.

“William Truman.”

The voice on the phone buzzed through the cheap speakers on the phone and reminded me to save up to buy him a new one for his birthday. He would deny it anytime I mentioned it, but he hated spending money on himself. I’d once asked exactly what he did with it all since he had a good job, but he’d ended up taking me to the back and having me lock up most of my money in savings and investments.

I guessed he got information on a lot of the stocks from his job, which was probably what they called insider trading… but well. I wasn’t an insider, and I wouldn’t tell anyone.

But back to the call; I assumed it was probably his boss, considering how long it had been since I’d heard Will pick up the phone so quickly.

“Ah, yes, that’s fine. Is everything alright?”

I could never get over how informally he spoke to that legendary boss of his, but then again, Will was older than him, so I guessed it made sense. The boss must have said something worrying because Will responded with concern.

“Yeah, but are you sure everything’s okay? Remember that if you’re feeling any type of way, you could call either Nik or I, or that your friend. You have resources you can use if times are dire. Don’t try to handle everything on your own and put me out of a job, you hear?”

Instead of giving Will an answer, the person on the other side of the call hung up. It seemed like that was the pace of their usual interaction since Will didn’t immediately call back, but the worried expression remained.

I looked at the clock and exhaled heavily.

Well, I was already this late.

“Is everything alright? You look worried.”

Instead of directly answering my question, he randomly deflected and asked me about something else we were both interested in.

“Hey, you and Finn are at the same school, right?”

My head wheeled a bit from the sudden topic switch and my mind sparked as I put together that Will had likely been talking to Finn and not to his boss. But then, why would Finn know Nikolas? Had Will introduced the two?

“Yeah, did something happen to him?”

Will shook his head but kept the worried expression on his face and continued to beat around the point.

“How’s he doing… at school, I mean. But also, how is he doing in general? It’s been a while since he’s been over, right? I’m worried about him.”

Well, it was true he hadn’t dropped by to visit for a while, but I’d figured that was because Will usually took him out to lunch at least once a week. But beyond that, I figured Finn hadn’t told Will about the thing with Alice and how her minions harassed him on campus.

Since he wanted to keep it a secret, then I wouldn’t be the one to break the bubble. For one, the isolation and harassment stayed at a benign level since Jake was still his friend and none of the people in my department ostracized him. Really, it was only parts of the music department and the acting department that did it, and Finn didn’t really associate with them.

Yeah. Will tended to overreact when it came to either Finn or I. For now it would be best to let Finn tell Will about it when he was ready.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“He’s fine. Why? Did you hear anything?”

Ahh. That expression on his face made me think he knew something that I didn’t, but since he didn’t give any more details, I wouldn’t pry.

“There’s nothing…. But Sparrow, you know that Finn’s all alone, right? As sad as it is, us two are really all he has. I’m not saying you have to babysit him or anything but try to look out for him a bit more carefully, yeah? And if anything happens, don’t play fixer upper. Just call me to deal with it.”

I’d initially planned on approaching him at school anyway, but Will’s reminder made me worry as well. It wasn’t like I just ignored him at school, but he was rarely there, and even when he was, we didn’t run in the same circles.

To think of it, he had missed school for a week without so much of a message to me or Will, and I didn’t have any details, but I also knew that he’d been hospitalized recently. Will had assured me he was okay and Jake, who spent the most time with him, had told me he was fine as well, but I still hadn’t seen him in person for so long.

But then again, what if he’d tried something with himself? Between skipping school for extended amounts of time and the bullying around him… I really had been too casual about the whole thing.

What if he only skipped school because he found it too hard to be on campus?

After a few more minutes of squabbling I finally agreed to drop Will off at work before heading over to school. I only made it a few minutes before my second period class ended but my overall attendance was good enough that it likely wouldnt drag me down too much.

I had wrapped up most of my curriculum, and I only had one or two more exams to complete before I could file for graduation. Missing those two classes would push that back by a week, but I’d just have to suck it up.

But I needed to do something about Finn. I didn’t even know if he’d taken his exams already, but I would feel so guilty if Alice’s goon’s shenanigans had made it hard for him to focus and he ended up having to spend an extra year here.

As soon as I reached the club room. The very subject of my worries popped up behind me and gently tugged at my blazer to catch my attention.

“…Sparrow”

I frowned at the address and pretended not to hear him until he fixed it. Especially considering the scene Alice staged the other day; I wanted him to get more used to thinking of Will and me as family.

“..S..Sis.”

He was very awkward with it, but that only made it that much more adorable. I ruffled his undone hair and pulled him by the ear into the room. The quads weren’t here yet, so I could only style it myself.

I expected him to be stiff and uncomfortable as I messed around with his dry hair, but he somehow relaxed quickly and naturally moved his body as was needed. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought he was used to having others shape his hair into complex styles, but aside from myself and maybe Will, I couldn’t think of anyone else he had around him that would do that for him.

His hair really was dry though, and somewhat stiff. It was easy enough to manipulate it as I willed but it its slippery and inflexible nature made it hard to hold a style. The hairspray and gels completely refused to take hold and left me at the mercy of hair pins and ties.

I didn’t let him turn around and face me until I had wrestled it into a decent shape, but I could still see his innocent and large eyes desperately trying to catch my attention.

“Hey.. Sp-Sis?”

Thankfully, this time he caught himself and fixed it before I could pull at his ear.

“Yeah?”

He tweedled his thumbs in his lap and slightly shifted around in the chair, but quickly remembered himself and froze as still as a statue. I could only watch as he closed his eyes and mouthed a count down for five seconds before widening his eyes even further and whipping around to face me.

“I-if its not too much of an issue. I was hoping that you could-”

Before he could finish his request, the quadruplets entered the room like a whirlwind of noise and movement. They each completely unpacked their matching suitcases and set up in different corners of the room.

It took a few minutes for them to notice the guest in the chair, but when they did, they attacked me like a flock of vultures. They usually used their intensity against others, so I’d forgotten how overwhelming they could be.

“Ack! Sparrow, what are you doing to his hair?!”

Well… I’d thought I was styling it. But I guessed in Rin’s eyes I was just messing around. She had asked me multiple times before to get Finn back so she could fix his hair up properly and even out the ends, but I hadn’t even thought to call her this time.

She would probably hold a bit of a grudge against me for this.

Well, there wasn’t much I could do about that right now. I stepped away and let the quads get at him.

I stood to the side and prepared to hold them back if Finn looked too uncomfortable, but right up to letting Mori paint his nails over with a nice blue pearl polish he didn’t complain even once. The four stood back and looked over their finished product with varying levels of satisfaction, from the pleased expressions from Mori and Rin, to the unresolved expressions of the other two Yuko and Airi.

I mean, Finn was a very pretty boy and the makeup and hairstyles that had been sprung on him suited him well, but he wasn’t one of our models. I couldn’t promise the quads any more time with him and we just had to wait for days like this when he wandered into our work space on his own.

But seeing him with the sparkles all around his person and something about the way he looked at the moment; the cross between panic and tolerance made me remember someone. But I couldn’t for the life of me remember who.

The Quads finally dispersed with warnings from all of them to take better care of himself or to frequent the studio more often and Finn finally felt that he could speak again. This time, he didn’t bother meandering around the point and simply got straight to it.

“Can I work with you for the Showcase? I’ve wanted to ask for a while, but I could never quite find the time.”

I was hit with the shocking realization that although I’d been acting like Finn was already a part of us, I’d never officially asked him. No wonder there had been so many gaps in our communications with everyone and our collaborations with outside sources. Although Melissa was trying her best, that didn’t change the fact that we needed a student that had spent most of their student careers building up to do things like this.

At his question, the room lulled to a pause as everyone realized the same thing as I had, but thankfully no one said anything.

But jeez, his name had flown around so often that I was sure everyone was shocked. I took the blame onto myself and prioritized answering my increasingly adorable younger brother.

“Of course! Melissa!”

I didn’t know when she had arrived, but I’d seen her signature curly hair poking out from a few corners of the space. She popped up quicker than I could actually call her and stared at me with a wronged expression as I finally realized how much I’d pushed onto her.

It wasn’t until I muttered an apology that she got to work coordinating all the information with Finn.

“Bring out your tablet or a laptop if you have it. I’ll send you all the information we currently have and all we’d like to accomplish. There is also a list of all the people we have on the team and the people we’d want to join us if you could handle that.”

In the end, she was still a senior and disliked having to take time out of her contributions to the final project to organize everyone.

Finn dug out a laptop case from his backpack but then startled at the sight of the bright blue case and switched to a black case. It was weird that he was carrying around two whole laptops, but he offered no explanations.

As the two worked together and traded contacts, a bright lightbulb went off in my head. This was perfect!

With the efforts Finn would need to put into the showcase, he would need to be at school regularly and winning against Alice’s group would probably help in offsetting the negative effects of all they had done at school. As well, I could keep a closer eye on him like Will had asked me to. As an added bonus, he would hopefully make a few more friends through this.

Honestly, the more I thought about it, the greater it felt.

I patted him on the shoulder and grinned brightly.

“Welcome to the team, Finn! I’m sure you’ll fit in fine with the rest of the team!”

I pretended not to see the flash of panic in his eyes and let him get overrun by the eager people in the room that had waited for my confirmation to introduce themselves. In fact, seeing him all made up gave me another, more dangerous but more fun idea.

Finn wouldn’t like it.

No, he definitely wouldn’t, but I had ways to make sure that he played along.