Chapter 3: Sisters & Notes

People liked to say that his sister -well, stepsister, really- is a pretty girl but Shiro would like to object. Misato wasn’t pretty -Misato hadn’t been pretty in four years- She was beautiful.

She looked so similar to him, but at the same time she was everything he wasn’t. Her ebony, straight hair shyly touched the tip of her shoulders, unlike his which grew so long and so fast he had to tie it to a bun or a ponytail or have it cut short every few weeks or so. While his skin was too pale, Misato’s was just the right paste of fair to pass for a princess. Her body was the golden proportion made flesh while his was so skinny and short people could not mistake which of them is the eldest and, in some unfortunate cases, mistakes their relationship for a more filial one.

The only small consolation he had was his eyes. He inherited his mother’s mismatched grey and green, something that always drew attention towards him, while his sister had to make due with a rather, in his opinion, common pair of blue skies. Ironically people said that her eyes were the prettiest thing about her but Shiro disagreed. That certainly wasn’t the case right now.

Admittedly, perhaps, he was a bit biased on his thoughts. She has, after all, caught him with his head at the edges of the cookie jar and the glint in her eyes reminded him of a cat looming over the shivering figure of a very small and very frightened mouse.

“So are you just going to stand there until I say otherwise or something?” She asked, flashing him a smile that did not reach her eyes.

“S-Sorry!” He nearly shouted the last part. He walked towards her, placing down the umbrella and putting off his boots and raincoat.

Stay there and don’t draw any attention, Shiro commanded as he drew himself a chair and sat right opposite to Misato.

They settled into a somber and, in Shiro’s part at least, uncomfortable silence that stretched on and on and on. Misato seemed content to just sit there and smile at him as the storm washed over their house. She smiled as lightning and thunder flashed and rhymed outside of the kitchen. She smiled like a patient old wolf, content in knowing its prey could never escape from its grasps.

She sat there, smiling at him. Though it was not voiced, he could feel the accusation spoken against him.

Some people would, in this situation, liken her to a wolf hiding behind the cloth of a friendly, smiling sheep. Oh if only that was true, Shiro wailed. For it was not a wolf that now hid behind his sister’s sweet smile and sugary words. It was the Crawling Chaos itself, The Haunter of the Dark, the Howler in the Night, Blind, The Faceless One borne in the Outer Space and mentioned only in frightful, frantic passings found in the deepest and darkest parts of the Mad Arab’s writings.

Finally when he could hold it no longer, he raised his head and spoke, a mistake he should have known not to make.

“S-so I thin-”

Misato spoke at the same time. “Where have you been Shiro-kun?”

Shiro winced. That was her tactic. Let her opponents speak first and interrupt them as early as possible. It threw them off-balance and negated any sense of confidence they may have had. Shiro had seen firsthand the effectiveness of such methods in the occasions when he had a chance (read:forced) to bore witness to his sister’s (in)famous conversational skill. It worked against confident bachelors of the business world like modern guns to 11th century mail armor. Someone like Shiro never stood a chance in the first place.

“I-I Was-” Shiro coughed and caught himself. To stammer in the face of his sister’s onslaught would be akin to cutting off one’s hands while surrounded by a pack hungry, big white sharks. He took a deep breath and composed himself. “I left a note, Nee-chan.”

“A pretty vague note if you ask me.” Misato held out a piece of yellow sticky note. It read:

Misato, I have a business to attend to. Will probably be back after dinner. Please prepare some food - Shiro

“Quite strange, don’t you think?” She asked of him.

Shiro coughed and looked to an empty corner in the room. “A-and why is that?” Shiro asked.

“It’s rather short for one,” Misato pointed out. “No clue on where you’re going. No precise time on when you’ll go or when you’ll return. No specific reason outside some vague business attendance. It’s almost as if you don’t want me to know where you’re going and what you’re doing.”

Shiro gaped. “A-and my other notes are different?”

“I don’t know,” Misato shrugged. “Why don’t you read them yourself?”

She reached beneath the desk and from it held out a yellow sticky note. The letters were smaller and more closely lined with little space in between. It read:

Dear Misato

I have some research I wish to conduct in the nearby library concerning the history and the old layout of the city. I will be out of the house from 10:00 a.m. to 03.00 p.m. I have brought within my person a considerable sum of money so you need not concern yourself on matters of my lunch. Despite this, it would please me most greatly if you do not eat the last slice of pizza found in the second section of the fridge, inside the purple Tupperware as I plan to have it for my evening meal.

P.S. Tanaka-san have been giving me weird looks ever since I met him last Tuesday.

P.S.S. The printer is running low on ink. I advise buying from Tanaka-san who also possesses a computer shop right beside his internet café.

-Your brother, Shiro Torrington-Amaya

Shiro stared at the note.

“What about this one?” Misato asked, taking out another note written in smaller letters and tighter space between them.

Dear Misato

There is an assortment of digital files in my possession I desire to put on print. Unfortunately, our printer seems to have run out of ink. For this reason, you’ll be able to find me in Tanaka-san’s internet café between 1200 Hours and 1300 Hours. After that I will take myself on a tour around the town and will be back at home in the 1700 Hours at the latest. Like my previous ventures, I have within the contents of my wallet a hefty sum of Japanese Yen from my allowances so you need not be distressed about my well-being.

P.S. It would be very much to my delight if you do not eat the piece of cake lying on the table. I have taken a bite out of it and found that it has not... aged well. In fact, I think it better if it is thrown to the garbage bin lest others be put on mortal peril.

P.S.S. What’s a chuunibyou? Tanaka-san seems to be in the belief that I am one. The rough translation I found is Middle School Second Year Syndrome. I will be most thankful if you would enlighten me on this subject.

-Your brother, Shiro Torrington-Amaya

She never did actually tell him what it means now that he remembered.

“How about this-” Misato’s hand was barely moving before Shiro’s hands clung to them.

“Okay! I get it!” Shiro shouted. He just knew that if she were to take out more he’ll be here until morning at the very least.

“My point is that it’s all just very secretive, you know?” Misato asked, still maintaining that saccharine tone to her voice. “Ne, you were never this secretive before, Shiro-kun. It’s as if you have something to hide. Something you don’t want people to find out.”

She held out her hand and placed it on his cheek, gently stroking it. “Not even your dearest onee-chan.”

“Eep!” He withdrew himself almost immediately, blushing furiously all the while.

“In fact,” His sister continued on as if nothing had happened. “I would go on to say that you’ve been pretty effy lately, Shiro-kun.”

“W-what do you mean by that?” Shiro asked fearfully, holding his cheek. He could still feel his sister’s skin brushing against his.

“Hmm? You didn’t notice? Ever since you moved to Japan you’ve always been cooped up in the house, Shiro-kun, doing nothing but reading your books, playing your video games. and browsing through the internet. You never go outside the house unless it's a family trip or unless told to and you barely even leave your room except for meals and the bathroom and to buy books in the bookshop. I almost thought that my cute otouto had been turned into a NEET.”

“What’s a NE-”

“And then, two months ago everything changed. You started going out more. At first only to a library and around the old town but soon you would go on tours around the city for hours, to the point where you started missing your meals. You’d asked about the town and its history as if you had not been living here for almost half a year. And when I told you about the many cool places they have, you’re actually paying attention instead dozing off like you used to six months ago.”

Scary. Has his sister always been so observant? He held back a shiver from running down his spine.

Time. He needed time. He needed to distract his sister until he could come up with a believable story.

“Was I really that bad?” He asked.

“Oh, definitely.” His sister nodded vigorously. “Before you were always like-” Misato dropped her trademark smile and settled for a more sombre, tired expression. The lid of her eyes were half-closed and she looked as if she had taken an overtime shift and when she spoke, the tone was not dissimilar to an overworked office worker. Shiro would even go as far as to say that it reminded him of his mother back in the early years of his life.

“‘Ugh, why must nee-chan talk about that new shopping mall or that spring festival? I don’t care about any of those things. I don’t want to go there, anyway. I want to barricade myself in my room and spend my day with books and my old laptop. God, I wish I could be back on the old mansion at least there I don’t have to deal with so many new people.’” She dropped the act and smiled at him. “By the way that’s very sneaky of you, Shiro-kun, trying to make me go off topic so you can come up with something to placate me.”

Gah! She’d seen through that?!

“Of course, I did. I am heiress to the family business after all. It’s my duty to pick up things like these.” She said. “Back on track. For Shiro-kun to employ such uncharacteristic deception means that he has a secret he really doesn't want others to know about. The question is what could it be?” She stood and began circling about the room.

“Hmm... for Shiro to leave with such a short notice means that it must’ve been abrupt,” Shiro shifted uncomfortably in his chair as she walked behind him. She’s not entirely wrong, the ritual had demanded that it be done under certain nights and under certain conditions.

“For him to leave with such vague explanation means that it's something he doesn’t want to be found out and doesn’t want to be disturbed from, not even by his dear sister.” From the corner of his eyes Shiro could see her as she closed her eyes and rubbed her chin. “Then there’s the deception and the distraction. Shiro’s definitely involved in something fishy,” She opened her eyes and looked straight towards him. “But it’s also something that makes Shiro-kun very happy, isn’t it?”

He felt the instinctual urge to sink into his chair.

“Six months ago Shiro-kun was a NEET who could barely leave his room, let alone the house for more than an hour.” Now she was standing right in front of him, a mad, dangerous gleam visible in her eyes. “Now though? Shiro would go on trips and ‘sightseeing’ across the town for hours. Sometimes from morning to dusk. He would even miss one or two meals at home. And Shiro-kun would never miss a meal at home before. And when he came back it was always with a tired but still excited glint in his eyes. It must’ve been something fun to make Shiro enjoy himself like this. The question is what is it?”

She slammed the table in front of Shiro and closed the distance between their two faces. “What kind of activity could Shiro-kun be doing that would make him so excited and happy in such a short amount of time?”

Their faces were an inch away from each other.

“Is it possible that…?” Misato whispered and suddenly her face took a harder, sterner expression. Shiro wanted to look away but he forced himself to stare back at her. He’s a Torrington, dammit! The honor of his family demands that he face this situation with as much courage and bravery as he could muster. He will not falter. Not in front of his sister, no less. He brave himself against whatever accusation she may have-

“Shiro-kun could it be that you are doing drugs?!”

…

The human brain is one of the most remarkable and, perhaps, the most important tool of mankind. It has many different, vital functions essential to our survival from long term memory storage to fast-paced decision making done in the split of a second. It could operate even under severe stress and pressure to help us in gathering and processing information and getting us through troubled times. Despite this, it’s worth remembering that it’s not invulnerable, nor, even, infallible.

Indeed, there have been well-recorded cases of the human brain’s failure to function in certain moments where extreme levels of stress and pressure are suddenly applied in such a short amount of time that the brain simply cannot properly process it. In cases such as these, it’s not unlikely for humans to fall back on more baser and instinctual response. These could range from direct physical response, like jumping away and running in circles all over the place, to more verbal ones, from the more coherent, understandable, and comprehensible ones like ‘What the hell?’, ‘What the fudge?’, ‘What are you talking about?, ‘What.’, to the more incoherent, intangible, and incomprehensible like ‘Huh?’, ‘Hah?’ ‘Wha-?’, and of course;

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Eh?”

“Was it heroin? Perhaps it was coke? LSD?” Misato’s stare became harder.

“W-wha-” Shiro tried to compose his scattered thoughts. Whatever accusation he expected from his sister, it was most certainly not that. “Wh-what are you saying?!”

“Ah it's true then that you’re doing drugs?”

“I- c-ca- wha-” Shiro threw his hands into the air and in the loudest, clearest volume his voice box could muster he shouted. “O-OF COURSE NOT NEE-SAN! WHAT KIND OF PERSON DO YOU THINK I AM?!”

“So you’re not doing drugs?”

“NO!” His sister’s face fell back and he held a tiny bit of hope that that was perhaps, wishfully, with a freshly taken red strawberry on top, the end of it .

It died a miserable, lonely death in the alley when his sister asked again. “What about alcohol then?”

“I- Wh-?” He was about to retort when his sister’s face inched closer towards him. For a few moments her nose sniffed all over his face like a tracking hound before she pulled away and shook her head. “Nah, Shiro doesn’t smell like alcohol,” She said. “but then what could it be?”

Shiro’s opened mouth was ready to answer, but his hands held it back. No matter how much he wanted to say it, he did not think that raising dead bodies in the graveyard is a good answer. No, actually it wasn’t a good answer at all no matter the circumstances now that he thought about it. You don’t just say ‘Hey sis, I had just raised a zombie with what is a forbidden dark magic ritual found online. You wanna to see it?’. It’s not something you say to your sister for normal conversation material. Also, he’s pretty sure there was a grammar mistake in there. Somewhere.

His sister’s gasp shook him from his reverie. “Could it be…?”

She placed both hands on her mouth, closed her eyes, and shook her head.

“No, no, no. Shiro-kun can’t be doing that? Could he?” She whispered. Once again, she rose from her chair and began pacing about the room, this time lacking the composure she previously had. “That doesn’t make sense. It’s too early for this kind of thing right? Right?!”

Shiro just knew that whatever it is she’s thinking about won’t bode well for him. Part of him wished that she would just say dark magic ritual so this could all be over with. He steeled himself for whatever would fly from her lips, truth or no, he braced his mind, readied his nerve, and-

“Could it be that Shiro-kun has finally found the perfect and ideal woman to be his wife?!”

-He was still caught off guard despite all of that.

Shiro was not floored. At all. Because that wouldn’t be the appropriate reaction. No. The appropriate reaction would be crashing himself to the ground and banging his head multiple times on the wood just to make sure that this wasn’t some elaborate lucid nightmare his occult-addled mind had conjured up in the middle of the night. But that wouldn’t solve anything, would it?

“N-Nee-san,” He said, deliberately dropping the affectionate for the honorific. His voice sounded more sombre than usual. Sue him, he was dead tired at his sister’s antics. “That’s also not it.” It was more of a plea rather than a statement. A plea for her to stop this line of dangerous thought before it could hit the cliff and explode into a thousand tiny pieces.

“But it would make sense, wouldn’t it?” His sister asked back. “Think about it for a while. Shiro-kun had been a cooped up, lethargic, attic NEET ever since he arrived in Japan. He barely got out of his room, let alone the house, and spent most of his time reading books and playing video games on his PS3. One day, perhaps through online contact or perhaps in the rare occasion when he did go out of the house, he met a lovely girl who caught his interests. He began talking and chatting to her and found her to be a great person whose company he greatly enjoys. One thing led to another and suddenly their relationship blossomed and Shiro realized that he has feelings for her. And just now he had left the house with only a vague note to give a heartfelt, teary-eyed confession to her!”

Good God, did she even breathe?! Shiro wondered.

“Nee-san… ” He said, mustering his strength. “It’s not a girl.”

His sister’s gasp told him what a mistake it was. “Hah? Was it a boy then? Shiro-kun you know you can tell your nee-chan any-”

“It’s not a boy either.” He said, raising his hand before she could finish. “I’m not dating anyone, Nee-san.”

“But it makes sense!”

Shiro coughed. “B-be that as it may. It’s not what happened.”

“But what is it then?” His sister asked. “What could happen to Shiro-kun or what could Shiro-kun be doing that would warrant such drastic changes?”

Shiro sighed. It wasn’t that he couldn’t lie but simply that he couldn’t lie well enough to deceive his sister. Misato has lived with him for almost her entire life. It is impossible to come up with any believable lie, she knows him too well to fall for any of his tricks. Telling her the entire truth was unthinkable and even telling her half and bits of truths would only sparked her curiosity further than before and he could only deceive her for so long.

His mind began to race. No matter which path he chose there doesn’t seem to be any smooth ones. Tell a lie and she’ll call him out on it, try a half truth and she’ll double down on him, say the complete truth and it will end in disaster. There’s not a single good option in there… so…

Shiro’s eyes widened and the gears inside his head began to turn.

There was a flaw in that plan. Many flaws in fact, but he couldn’t see any other way he could go about it. At worst he’d probably buy himself a second or two.

“It’s… a secret Nee-san.” Not a lie nor a half truth but an entire truth. It really was a secret and he really wished to keep it so. He expected his sister to protest, to assault him with a barrage of questions that would blacken the sun, he expected her to cry or plead or beg him for a more complete answer. He expected threats and blackmails, interrogations and trap questions where he is doomed no matter how he answers.

He did not expect Misato to lift her face up and say. “Oh, Okay then.”

…

A palpable silence reigned over the air accompanied by a cacophony of other things. Surprise. Disbelief.

“…What?” Shiro’s ears must’ve heard wrong. It was the only thing that makes sense.

His sister turned to face him. “You said it was a secret right?”

It took Shiro more than a second to register the question. “I- yes?”

“Well then, we’ll leave it at that,” Misato said, straightening herself abruptly. “It’s your secret to keep. You can do anything you want with it. I have no right over it.” She stood up from the chair she was sitting on.

I-It worked?!

“I- aren’t you going to-“ Shiro caught his tongue before it could say anymore.

“What? Interrogate you for hours on end until you give in your secrets? Attack you with a series of questions until you slip up? Blackmail you until you tell the truth?”

Shiro nodded numbly.

“I suppose I could do that,” Misato admitted easily enough. “But what would be the point? Sure, finding out about my cute ototou’s secret is probably fun, but then you’d probably hate me for it if I did it in this case.”

“Not hate…” Shiro said lamely.

“Then it would upset you, not in a cute kind of way, and make things awkward between us for a while. And that wouldn’t be fun at all wouldn’t it?” Misato stretched a hand. Shiro did not protest as she patted his hair back and forth. “There’s teasing and then there’s that. Please Shiro-kun, I’m mature enough to know when lines are drawn and when to stop. Have some faith in your nee-chan will you?”

Shiro could only answer with a nod.

“Just uhm-” She looked at him in the eyes and the first time in their whole conversation she seemed hesitant. “Just… promise me you’re not going to do anything dangerous at all? Like drugs or underage sex.”

“Y-yes Mii-chan.” He managed to say using the nickname he’d invented back when he was a child.

“Shiro-kun just used his nickname for me! Wah! I’m so happy!” Before Shiro could shout or scream or cry or do anything of the sort, Misato had already enveloped him in a hug that could’ve crushed his spine.

“Gah-” The attack was sudden, delivered with neither warning nor mercy. Shiro knew Misato had a black belt in Aikido but this kind of strength is downright ridiculous!

“Air!” He gasped, struggling to make himself be heard. “Air, nee-chan. I need air!”

“Whoops.” His sister said, releasing him instantly. “Sorry. Didn’t think it would be that tight.”

He dropped unceremoniously unto the chair.

The motion, though small and insignificant, was enough for something to slip from one of his eyes. One of his visions turned blurry for a moment before the tiny sound of a glass colliding on the wooden floor made him realize what had happened.

“Shoot!” He cursed, immediately lowering himself unto the floor.

“Eh? Shiro, what are you doing?”

“My contact lens,” He said as his hands probed at the wooden floor guided with half his usual eyesight. “I must’ve dropped it some-There!”

He grasped a small, curved, thin piece of plastic with his index finger, placed it on the table, and lifted himself off the ground.

“Contact lens…?” Misato trailed off for a moment before snapping her fingers. “Ah! that reminds me!”

She reached into the insides of her coat. Shiro realized that she was wearing her favorite tan-colored coat. She must’ve been fresh from the university if she was still wearing it.

“Where could it be- Aha!” Misato pulled out a small black case and placed it in front of Shiro. “There, your new prescription glasses.”

She opened the box to reveal a pair of glasses framed in black. Shiro reached in and placed it near his lensless eyes, checking to see if it was the right prescription. He saw his sister, standing clearly in front. He looked about the room, satisfied that he could see them as clear as always

“You know, I think you should keep the contact lenses though. You look much better in them than with your glasses.” Misato said.

Shiro snorted as he placed the new glasses down and reached towards the lens still held in his other eye. Not a chance for that to happen. No offence to his sister, but he would pick glasses over contact lenses at every single chance he got. They weren’t a bother to attach and detach and are much, much easier to clean whenever they got dirty. After a few seconds of struggling Shiro managed to lay a finger on the contact lens and release it from his eye.

The familiar feeling of the glasses frame on his face was a welcomed old friend.

“Thanks nee-chan,” Shiro said.

“Your welcome, Shiro-kun.” She looked towards the clock hanging on the other side of the wall. “Oh, look at the time. It’s almost curfew we should lock-”

“I’ll lock the doors, nee-chan,” Shiro said quickly. “besides, you look quite tired. You’ve just been from the university by the looks of it haven’t you? You’re still wearing your coat.”

“Hmm?” Misato looked down towards the coat she was wearing. “Ah yes, of course. There was a group assignment yesterday. I’ve just arrived from our meeting to discuss how we should approach it.”

“Sounds interesting. What’s it about?” Misato was a college student who majored in Business Management at a nearby university.

“Something about certain business practices and theories of someone I couldn’t pronounce the name of. You know? the usual.”

Shiro nodded.

“Oh! By the way, there’s some leftover sushi in the fridge and a bowl of Miso Soup for dinner. I could heat the last one up if you want?”

Shiro shook his head. “No. It’s okay. I can do it myself.” He said. “By the way is mom and dad…?”

Misato shook her head. “No. They left this evening for a business trip. Probably won’t be back until tomorrow at the very least.”

“I see…” Shiro said.

“Well, I’ll retire to my room then,” Misato said, stepping towards the door leading to the corridors. “Good night, Shiro-kun.”

“Good night and uhm nee-chan…” Shiro hesitated. Misato halted just a foot from the door. She looked at him curiously. “...Thank you.”

Misato nodded. “You’re welcome, Shiro-kun.” And then she left. Leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Shiro looked at the door for a few long seconds.

He sighed.

Even after all these years, his sister is still an enigma he couldn’t solve. He shrugged.

'Please Shiro-kun, I’m mature enough to know when lines are drawn and when to stop. Have some faith in your nee-chan will you?'

The memory of those word brought a smile to Shiro's face.

His good mood lasted until he was hit by a car.

_______________