"Good morning." I snibbled a few as I creaked my Eyes open, "Eh? Cily...?"

Oh right, she's probably already getting ready downstairs. We have a big day today, so she probably wanted to get things started properly and let me sleep in. In any case, she's not in the room right now, which means I'm waking up alone in bed today.

"How sad... Just kidding." I said, "Yaaaawn~! Welp, guess it's finally time, then."

Today we're leaving with Beth to go to the dock. If all goes well, we should make it there sometime in the afternoon. I imagine before sundown at least, but you never know what might hold us up during the journey. Even still, the moment we set off on the ship, we're practically done already, since from then on we're not in any form of rush to make it before our ride leaves. From then on and until we make it to Cardina, all we gotta focus on is not getting seasick... hopefully.

"Oh right, Latham said he had a gift for us." I recalled as I put on my comfiest fit I'll be traveling in for the day, "I better go down and check in with him soon."

Opening the door to the hallway, I decided to take in one final view of this house I grew up in. Obviously, I've spent the last few days here nonstop, so it's not like I'm getting emotional or nostalgic over it, but I'd still like to have a clear image of all its nooks and crannies in my head before we leave. Next time, we should definitely come here with Nelly as well. I have a feeling dad's gonna get along swell with her.

"Ack!" I stepped back after seeing something fall from the ceiling, "What the...?"

A bag? No, more like a potato sack, but... elongated? Ah, it fell from the attic doors above me, how odd. But then, potato sacks aren't usually this big... This one almost looks big enough to fit a human in it.

"Shit, you weren't supposed to-! Ugh..." Latham could be seen cussing from the attic above, "Just, ignore that and leave, okay? Come back in a few."

"What're you doing up there?" I asked, "Is this something to do with the aforementioned gift?"

"Shut up and come back later!" He got fussy, "Hey, don't open-!"

"Red hair?" I inspected the end that could be opened, "Ah, it's just a mannequin. Man, you really got Cecily's color down pat. Was the gift a prank where you made me believe you did something to her?"

"Ugh, dammit!" He fumed, "I told you not to ruin it prematurely, idiot!"

"Ah, there's a baby mannequin for Cene in here as well." I ignored his rage as I inspected the inside of the sack further, "Man, this really is something. If I looked at it from just a bit further away, I'd definitely be fooled into thinking it's really them. You did good, bro."

"I spent so much time and effort on this..." He dropped down to where I was before forcefully taking the sack from me, "I wanted to get one up on you, just one..."

For a second, I felt something was off. His Eyes, if even for a second, shone a scarily bright amethyst Purple, and his sullen, empty gaze into a random spot in space made me kind of wary. I guess he really did spend a lot of time preparing this awesome prank just for it to all get ruined by me prematurely opening it up. A shame, but I doubt it's anything to get too fussy over.

"I'm a failure." He began talking about himself, "I can't do anything right!"

"Whoa, calm down there. I'm sure you can still continue the prank."

"It's not about the prank, dammit. It's about me proving myself." He shot back, "Sigh, I was... a good prankster. It was what I was known for in Whitehood."

"You're still pretty infamous for it."

"But then you came by." He weakly pointed to me with the hand that held up the sack, "You, someone who just came here out of thin air, easily proved to me just how harmless I really am. All this time, what I considered to be my very best to become who I am just turned out to be child's play to an adult like you."

"Well duh, you're still a child." I shrugged, "Once you're older, you'll understand more about this world, and then you'll..."

"I already know enough!" He shouted, "I'm not a kid, dammit! I know all sorts of things that not even the adults here understand!"

"Oh yeah?" I folded my arms in an amused motion, "Like what?"

"Like how this world has no meaning." He slumped forward.

"Eh?"

"Yep, absolutely zilch." He put his other hand in the sack, "I've witnessed so much in just 13 years, I've already seen all there is to see. Even still, the adults keep treating me like I'm someone important, someone with promise, when in reality I just know they're snickering behind those fake smiles."

That's a rather harsh view of the world the kid's got. Befitting of a Purple Iro, but just until recently he was always Blue. What the hell, did I just witness a terrible conversion? The prank failing must've been his breaking point that set all these emotions off in him. Dammit, I can't just let him be like this. He might do something drastic.

"Whoa, whoa!" I put my hands up with a shout as he pulled out an AFP out of the sack, "Where'd you get that!?"

"I found it on the road a few weeks back." He tossed the sack away after seeing no more use in it, "Don't know who it belonged to, but I took it the moment I saw it. Turns out it still had two or three bullets in the magazine, so lucky me."

"Do mom and dad know you have it?" I instinctively stuck my hand out, "Hand it over, you can't be carrying something as dangerous as that around."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"Why not? If I didn't take it with me, someone more dangerous could have." He reasoned as he fiddled with the gun's trigger, "But I'm different. I won't shoot anyone with this. I'm just keeping it."

"For what?!" I kind of got scared, so I shouted without any real reason, "No one just keeps a gun around without any intent to fire it off! I can understand sort of why you wanted to add to the scare factor by putting it in with the mannequins because you thought it'd sell it better, but even then, what if something went wrong and it fired off on accident? You could get shot."

"So be it." He shrugged before putting the gun up to his head, "The world wouldn't lose all that much..."

"Latham, no-!"

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"Bang." He stuck his tongue out cheekily as the not at all loud gun whipped out a Red flag out of its tip, "Blood splatter, brains on the wall, was that perhaps what you expected, bro?"

"W-What?" I said as the shock drove my knees into giving in, "A-A... fake AFP?"

"Yeah, I found it in a toy shop in Haggles." He waved the damned thing around, "It's made of wood, but from afar you can hardly tell the difference between it and a real one. Only thing is, this one just pops out this little flag instead of using lethal bullets. Pretty nifty prank tool, wouldn't you say?"

"Ha..." I felt my face slowly begin to chuckle, then laugh, then cackle, "Ha! Hahaha! Hahahahahahaha! You got me!"

"Heh, I gotcha."

"I thought you were about to kill yourself in front of me, moron!" I shouted, tears of joy and relief trickling down my cheeks, "What the hell, that scared the crap out of me!"

"You did the same to me, playing with my fears and all." He smugly replied, "I knew that the only way to get back at you properly was to give you the scare of a lifetime, so I opted to botch a fake prank and initiate this one."

"So the sack was just...?" I inspected it lying on the ground over there.

"A distraction for the real deal." He finished the sentence, "I made it look like you really made me depressed after completely winning the prank war, so I faked an emotional breakdown that led to me pulling the trigger."

"You faked it all? B-But, your Iro..."

"Oh, these?" He literally took his Pupils off in front of me, revealing his regular shining Blue ones underneath, "Contacts, a prankster's best friend. Honestly, I'm surprised you've never seen them in use before, judging by that look on your face."

It's... a fake? A fake gun, huh? That's... wow. Haaaaaah, that made me die inside way too much, dammit. This damned brother of mine, he just shaved off 50 years off my lifespan, what the hell! Geez, I nearly died a second time right here right now, that's not cool, man! I don't remember scaring him by making him think I was gonna kill myself! Oh wait, I did technically make him think I wanted to kill my son though, so I guess that counts. Damn, I'm angry and all, but when all's said and done, this kid actually managed to get one over on me.

"I see. I take it this was the gift you wanted to send me off with, then?" I chuckled, "To show me who's the boss when it comes to the art of pranks?"

"Nah, we're even now." He cackled, "This war, I don't feel right leaving it so early, regardless of who won. I wanted to let you know I plan on continuing it the next time we meet again."

"Is that the case... Tch, my younger brother's a real pain in the ass, it seems."

"Yeah, so's my older brother." I once again shot the prank gun jokingly, this time pointed at me though, "But what's there to do? We're stuck with each other."

"And I wouldn't have it any other way." I laughed before putting my hands out to him, "Goodbye hug?"

"Hmm..." He thought about it, scratching his chin with the toy gun as if he knew it made me anxious just seeing that, "Nah, enemies in a war don't hug. High five instead."

"A high five? I'll take it." I said, putting my arm out and swinging it before intentionally pulling it back, "Sike!"

"Sike! Huh?" He looked bewildered after doing the same thing himself, "Heh, looks like we both thought the same thing."

"Yeah, maybe we're more similar than we originally thought..." I glanced into his Eyes before we both started laughing like idiots, "Yeah, right!"

And so the prank war came to a temporary truce. Well, more like a temporary hiatus. Who knows when the next season will air in this thrilling and ongoing saga of back and forth charades, but one thing's for certain.

"I definitely won't lose!" We both said in unison before getting annoyed, "Hey, stop copying me! I'm copying you?! You're copying me, idiot! Hey, I said stop it!"

"You boys seem lively." Dad interrupted us with a cup of coffee in hand, "Is this some sort of game where you keep repeating after one another?"

"You wish." We both snarkily replied again, "Dammit!"

Looks like Latham and I accidentally managed to synchronize our thoughts and speech. How strange, almost fascinating even. Could it be something to do with our shared blood? Or did our bonds just grow so strong in such a short timespan that we managed something no one else has ever done before? Don't get me wrong, there are times when Ed and I sometimes give the exact same reply when asked a question aimed at the both of us, but nothing to this degree. I wonder if Meil knows anything about this? No, he's researching math related stuff, not the human brain, so I doubt he knows anything about it. In any case, it's annoying, and it needs to stop.