"Brotherly Heartbreak"
By: Hellvonvanity @GO
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Shou casually strolled down the street, trying to keep his temper in place. Everyone was staring at him and whispering. There was a nervous twitch in his cheek, and he really wanted to just beat up everyone who wouldn’t quit staring. But, what can you do? Why are they all staring at me? That just makes me want to hit everyone. What Shou didn’t know, was that they were all staring and whispering because he had a cute little bunny plushy hanging from his bag, and that was something that most boys did not carry around. A group of guys were standing not too far away, in a loose cluster. At the first glance, Shou could instantly tell that these guys were part of a gang, and him being the gang leader for his own local gang, realized that they weren’t part of his. Which made them easy pickings for Shou. Smiling a little, and cracking his knuckles, he sauntered up to the group, the pride evident in the way he walked. The gang of guys just looked at Shou like he wasn’t worth their time. One of them noticed the cute little bunny plushy, and began to laugh at Shou.
“Hey boys, look at this. Isn’t this cute? A cute little bunny to match his cute little personality. I’ll bet that you have a little sis that gave this to you, huh? How gay. I hope you realize how ******** gay you look. Do you dye your hair too? Look at this guys, isn’t he such a pretty boy?” A blonde haired boy walked up to Shou, and began to pull at Shou’s hair. Needless to say, this made Shou’s temper boil, and well, usually Shou had a REALLY bad temper.
“Get your hands off of me.” The blonde haired boy didn’t move away, instead he just grinned, and pulled the bunny plushy off Shou’s bag. That was the turning point for Shou, instantly he lashed out with a punch hitting the blonde boy square in the face. The rest of his gang wasn’t quite sure how to react to this. They stood there staring, all of them slack jawed, and unsure of what to do. The blonde boy attempted to straighten up again, but Shou just kicked him straight in the kneecaps, sending him right back to the ground. Tilting the boy’s chin upward roughly, forcing him to stare at Shou, he just brought his fist down, and broke his nose with a sickening crack. Shou smiled with slight amusement, and let go of the squirming boy, who was whimpering like a little boy.
“And I’m the gay little wimp? Look at yourself. Crying over something as simple as a broken nose. Would you rather I had broken both of your kneecaps? Completely crippling yourself for the next little while?” The blonde boy just whimpered, and looked to his gang for assistance, they looked at him with disgust.
“If you couldn’t beat that guy, you aren’t worth our time.” One of them nodded at Shou, and stuck his hand out, almost as if he wanted Shou to shake it. Shou just glanced at it coolly, but made no attempt to reach for it. “Sorry dude, are we cool? Gavin is just a retard. He does stuff like this sometimes.” Shou just shrugged, bent over to retrieve the bunny plushy. Brushing off the dirt, he raised a hand in farewell, and slowly strolled the rest of the way back to his house. Well, the house that he shared with his mom, his step dad, and his little step sister. Chise, she was a cute little middle school girl that seemed to take a liking to Shou. There wasn’t much he could do for her except protect her from the upperclassmen that bullied her, but apparently that was enough for her.
Standing outside of the house, Shou stood there and ruffled his blue hair. Ah, hell. I forgot. Their gone. Again. He sighed in frustration. His mom and step dad were almost never home, they were always out on some sort of holiday, leaving him alone to take care of Chise. Not that he minded much, he really cared for Chise. She was just so innocent, it was something that you had to protect. Glancing at his watch, he realized that Chise would have been home for a good hour at this point. Swearing lightly, he unlocked the door, and shuffled into the house. “Chise? Where are you?” Light footsteps suddenly began to approach the spot where Shou was standing, and Chise appeared around the corner. Her red hair was pulled into it’s usual style, tied up with four blue ribbons. She had this enormous smile on her face, and it warmed Shou’s heart a little bit.
“Shou! I hope you don’t mind... Kiyou is here... Again.” She made a bit of a face at Shou. “He’s almost always here, but I mean, I thought you might want to know!” Chise was dressed in her middle school uniform, she really liked wearing it for some reason. Shou just chuckled, and messed up her hair a little. Chise just shot him an annoyed look, and pouted.
“As long as you guys stay out of my room, and don’t annoy me, it’s fine. Have you had something to eat yet?” Chise nodded, a little too enthusiastically... Shou just shrugged. “Alright. Call me when you get hungry, and I’ll make some dinner.” With that, he disappeared into his room. Chise couldn’t help but notice that the bunny plushy she had made him wasn’t in it’s usual place. Pressing her lips together, she decided not to worry that much about it, and she bounced back up the stairs to go see Kiyou. Closing the door gently behind her, she noticed how Kiyou was still sitting in the exact same position he was when Chise had left, exactly how she had instructed him to.
“Alright. Sorry about that, you know how Shou is. Anyways, have you checked on Cheri lately? We have to make sure she doesn’t get near Shou again. No one is good enough for Shou. No one can ever love him like I do!” Kiyou just obediently nodded his head. The thing was, Kiyou and Chise were involved with why Cheri had suddenly stopped talking to Shou. They had... well, quite bluntly, threatened her. Chise and Kiyou could be extremely scary when they felt like. Chise was so sure that Cheri could never be good enough for Shou, that she didn’t notice that Shou had become a little more withdrawn after that. He also got in a lot more fights to get his temper out of his system.
“I’ve talked to Cheri lately, she was shivering in her designer boots. Which were hideous.” Kiyou looked at Chise expectantly, almost as if he was waiting for a pat on the head.
“That’s great.” Chise was sure that the only person ever fit to love Shou was herself, and no one else would ever be good enough. The age difference was nothing to her, and she didn’t care that they were step siblings. All she cared about was that Shou could only ever love her. Chise toyed around with some of the craft supplies on her desk, she was working on another bunny plushy for Shou. Since Shou loved the first one so much, she figured that he would like another one. This one was slightly bigger, and was meant to be used like a stuffed animal. To be loved by him, and to have it sleep with him. She shivered in delight at the very thought of Shou sleeping with something that she had made. Sometimes Chise would pretend to have a nightmare that she was scared of so Shou would let her sleep with him in his bed. He obviously didn’t think anything indecent about that exchange, but Chise couldn’t help but think that because of that they were destined to be together.
“Chise... Why are you doing this? I mean... I know he’s your brother, and you only want the best for him. But don’t you think this is a little much? Although you know that I support your every decision without ever needing to question it...” Chise’s eyes narrowed, and she glared at Kiyou with enough intensity to make the phrase ‘If looks could kill’, come to mind.
“If you don’t question any of my decisions, what are you doing right now? It looks like your questioning me now. And I’ll let you know, I don’t enjoy being questioned Kiyou. Do you want me to replace you with one of my OTHER followers? I mean, you usually follow my every demand without questioning it, but if you keep this up...” In a panicked state, Kiyou instantly jumped up, tears evident in his eyes.
“Please don’t Chise! I’m sorry! I won’t ever question you again!” Smiling, Chise pet Kiyou’s head, brushing his brown hair out of his face.
“As long as you don’t ever do it again...” Pacing around her small bedroom, Chise nervously bit her thumb nail. “Why do you think Shou liked Cheri so much? She wasn’t THAT pretty, at least, not as pretty as me, right?” Chise strided over to the full length mirror in the corner of her bed room, and examined herself. She had extremely pale skin, and her red hair was a stark contrast against it. Chise had stunning blue eyes, and she had an extremely tiny frame.
“Well, I personally think that your much prettier than Cheri...” If Chise had looked over at Kiyou right then, she would have noticed the bright blush that colored the pale boy’s face.
“I know I am.” Chise brushed the compliment off, not even acknowledging it. “It’s probably because she’s taller than me, older, and has more sex appeal right?” She turned on her heel to look at Kiyou. Kiyou stumbled for words, it was true that Cheri was incredibly beautiful and had a bit of a sexy edge, and the fact that Cheri was also in the proper age group as Shou was probably helped. Shou and Cheri also shared common interests, Cheri had a thing for street fighting. She loved the adrenaline rush she got from it, that was where Shou had met Cheri, at a street fighting event. Cheri was actually rather good at it as well, she had a tiny frame, but that made her a swift opponent.
“Well, she has the same type of interests as Shou?”
“And what would that be exactly? She didn’t exactly put up a fight when we went to threaten her.”
“Well...” Kiyou bit her lip, wanting badly to tell Chise that it was probably because Cheri hadn’t wanted to hurt a middle school girl. As much as Kiyou supported Chise, sometimes she got a little out of control. She was always so obsessed over getting Shou to like her, and Chise didn’t seem to notice that it was probably never going to happen.
“I think I need some time to think on my own. Leave Kiyou.” Feeling a little wounded by the swift dismissal, Kiyou obediently left. He was almost like a loyal dog, there wasn’t anything that he wouldn’t do for Chise. The moment Kiyou left Chise’s room, and the front door banged shut, Chise returned to her craft table, looking at the half completed bunny plushy. Banging her little fist against the table, she yelped in pain, and noticed that there was a little cut. There was a sewing pin embedded into her hand. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she hurried out of her room, banging on Shou’s door with her unwounded hand. Shou, who was taking a nap at the time, was shocked out of his dream state by hurried knocking on his door. Shaking the drowsiness from his head, he stumbled out of bed to open the door. His hair was sticking out at strange angles, and he clearly looked like a disorientated bear. Shou instantly woke up when he saw teary Chise standing outside of his door.
“What’s wrong Chise?” Shou instantly gave her a once over, making sure that she wasn’t bleeding from a large wound. Chise sniffed, and held up her hand. Shou’s eyes widened when he caught sight of the pin, but it wasn’t overly alarming. It wasn’t embedded into her skin too deep, he bit his lip carefully. “I’ll have to pull that pin out, and it might hurt.” She nodded, trying to fight back tears. Carefully, Shou cradled her hand, and tried to think about ways he could pull out the pin without majorly hurting her. In the end he figured that one swift pull would be the fastest way. Shou was too concentrated on managing to pull the pin out without making Chise cry loudly, he didn’t notice how she had a faint smile on her lips. Chise’s heart was pounding fast and loudly, but anyone else would have figured that she was just concerned with the pin. Of course, Chise had much darker and forbidden desires deep in her heart. How could you love someone to this extent? She didn’t understand it, and it made it worse that Shou was her brother. With a swift pull, he managed to get the pin out, and he smiled at Chise from under his thick lashes.
“There, that didn’t hurt too much did it?” She just whimpered a little bit. “Let’s go get this disinfected and get a bandage on it.” Chise just followed Shou like a little puppy, too obedient and loyal to do anything but what Shou wanted. Chise was in a daze for the rest of that night. It was almost as if she was on a cloud, disconnected from the world. She couldn’t help but giggle over every single thought about Shou. It was so wrong, but for her it was right.
Chise stayed in this daze for most of her morning classes the next day. Kiyou couldn’t help but be worried for his friend. There were some confusing feelings in between the two, but Kiyou couldn’t stand how Chise was completely obsessed with Shou. Chise may not have noticed Shou’s withdrawal after the Cheri incident, but Kiyou sure did. Biting his fingernails, he decided that he would have to fix this. Whether Chise would like him after this, Kiyou just couldn’t let this go on any further. Verbally making Cheri back off was one thing, but eventually this would spiral into something uncontrollable, and Chise would never return to the innocent state that she was currently in.
At lunch Kiyou carefully snuck away from Chise and her group of followers, and headed to the high school she knew Shou attended. The high school was also on their lunch break, and Shou was easy to pick out of the crowd. He was the only one with blue hair, and was surrounded by his gang members. Kiyou shivered at the thought of having to go talk to him around these scary guys, but he sucked in a deep breath, and convinced himself that it was for the good of Chise. Sneaking up behind Shou, he gently tugged on the back of his shirt. Shou turned around, and seemed genuinely surprised when he saw Kiyou standing there.
“Oh, Kiyou. Is Chise okay? What’s going on?” He seemed worried about Chise, and that only made Kiyou even angrier at Chise. How could Chise be so heartless and do this to her own step brother? Whether or not she loved him. Wouldn’t she want Shou to be happy?
“It’s about Chise... She’s alright, I actually came to find you... But, it’s about Cheri more than it is about Chise.” He seemed suddenly shocked at the mention of Cheri.
“What do you mean?” Kiyou looked up, and realized that all of Shou’s friends were staring at them. She blushed deeply, and covered her face with her hands.
“Can we talk somewhere else? You might not want people to hear this, and well, Chise has done something wrong... And... I may have helped her with it.” Kiyou blinked tears away, and walked a certain distance away, and waited for Shou to follow her.
“Alright, what’s going on?” Kiyou took a deep breath, preparing herself for what was about to happen.
“First, you have to promise me that you will never tell Chise that I was the one that told you. Claim that Cheri told one of her friends, and your friends found out and told you. Please.” Shou nodded at the boy, clearly confused at what was going on. The poor boy didn’t realize that his step sister had purposely ruined his relationship for her own selfish reasons. “Well, a couple weeks ago, Chise wanted to get rid of Cheri... She claimed that she wasn’t good enough for you, and that the only one that could love you was herself. I somehow got caught up in this... And we went to threaten Cheri. We told her that if she got close to you... There would be some serious consequences.” Kiyou didn’t share the details that would seriously get them in trouble, like how they had black mailed Cheri by telling her that they would go to the cops and tell them that she illegally street fought. They had the evidence too, the night before they had followed Cheri and taken photos of her street fighting, and they took copies to prove that they could indeed get Cheri in some serious trouble. Shou’s face was extremely grim, and suddenly Kiyou was scared that Shou’s temper would get out of hand and he would hit him.
“Is that it? Why would you just tell me this now?” Kiyou hid his face behind her thick curtain of brown hair.
“Well... Lately, Chise has gotten... Worse. She’s completely obsessed with making you love her. I think she’s not going to stop until she gets you to completely love her, and only her. She’s going a little crazy...” Shou stiffened in his seat, and calmly stood up.
“Alright. Thanks for telling me Kiyou. I’ll be sure to confront Chise about this later tonight. I promise you this will be resolved.” Kiyou sat there watching Shou as he strode back to his friends, his jaw taut. Kiyou couldn’t help but think that she may have done something wrong by betraying her friend’s trust.
That day Chise skipped home, obviously overjoyed with herself. For some reason Kiyou hadn’t wanted to go home with her that day, which gave her a precious hour to herself. She could finally finish the blue bunny plushy that she had been working on. Slamming the front door behind herself, she skipped up the stairs to her craft table. After yesterday’s accident, Chise had gotten around to putting all of her pins in a pin cushion. Stitch after stitch she sewed the bunny’s separate parts together. Smiling when the bunny was finished, she held it up to inspect it. The front door suddenly opened, and was slammed shut. Shou must not be in a very good mood... Chise thought to herself, hiding the blue bunny plushy behind her back, she skipped down the stairs to meet him. Shou had a very scary aura around him. His jaw was taut, and he kept repeatedly running his hand through his hair.”What’s... wrong?”
“Well, Chise. Today, I found out why Cheri just suddenly stopped talking to me. And I also found out how you BLACK MAILED my girlfriend to never talk to me again. Please, just withdraw yourself from my life. I really don’t want you to involve yourself any further. I’ll be turning 18 soon, and I’m taking that opportunity to move out of here. Stop bugging Cheri.” With a bit of an air of finality, he stormed down the hall and slammed the door to his bedroom. Chise’s eyes instantly filled with tears, her whole body was numb. Numb with the pain that meant she had immensely screwed up, and pain that Shou would never treat her the same ever again. The blue bunny plushy slipped out of her hands, and landed with a dull thud to the floor. Chise wasn’t going to pick it up. Who was left to pick up the pieces left behind?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Shou casually strolled down the street, trying to keep his temper in place. Everyone was staring at him and whispering. There was a nervous twitch in his cheek, and he really wanted to just beat up everyone who wouldn’t quit staring. But, what can you do? Why are they all staring at me? That just makes me want to hit everyone. What Shou didn’t know, was that they were all staring and whispering because he had a cute little bunny plushy hanging from his bag, and that was something that most boys did not carry around. A group of guys were standing not too far away, in a loose cluster. At the first glance, Shou could instantly tell that these guys were part of a gang, and him being the gang leader for his own local gang, realized that they weren’t part of his. Which made them easy pickings for Shou. Smiling a little, and cracking his knuckles, he sauntered up to the group, the pride evident in the way he walked. The gang of guys just looked at Shou like he wasn’t worth their time. One of them noticed the cute little bunny plushy, and began to laugh at Shou.
“Hey boys, look at this. Isn’t this cute? A cute little bunny to match his cute little personality. I’ll bet that you have a little sis that gave this to you, huh? How gay. I hope you realize how ******** gay you look. Do you dye your hair too? Look at this guys, isn’t he such a pretty boy?” A blonde haired boy walked up to Shou, and began to pull at Shou’s hair. Needless to say, this made Shou’s temper boil, and well, usually Shou had a REALLY bad temper.
“Get your hands off of me.” The blonde haired boy didn’t move away, instead he just grinned, and pulled the bunny plushy off Shou’s bag. That was the turning point for Shou, instantly he lashed out with a punch hitting the blonde boy square in the face. The rest of his gang wasn’t quite sure how to react to this. They stood there staring, all of them slack jawed, and unsure of what to do. The blonde boy attempted to straighten up again, but Shou just kicked him straight in the kneecaps, sending him right back to the ground. Tilting the boy’s chin upward roughly, forcing him to stare at Shou, he just brought his fist down, and broke his nose with a sickening crack. Shou smiled with slight amusement, and let go of the squirming boy, who was whimpering like a little boy.
“And I’m the gay little wimp? Look at yourself. Crying over something as simple as a broken nose. Would you rather I had broken both of your kneecaps? Completely crippling yourself for the next little while?” The blonde boy just whimpered, and looked to his gang for assistance, they looked at him with disgust.
“If you couldn’t beat that guy, you aren’t worth our time.” One of them nodded at Shou, and stuck his hand out, almost as if he wanted Shou to shake it. Shou just glanced at it coolly, but made no attempt to reach for it. “Sorry dude, are we cool? Gavin is just a retard. He does stuff like this sometimes.” Shou just shrugged, bent over to retrieve the bunny plushy. Brushing off the dirt, he raised a hand in farewell, and slowly strolled the rest of the way back to his house. Well, the house that he shared with his mom, his step dad, and his little step sister. Chise, she was a cute little middle school girl that seemed to take a liking to Shou. There wasn’t much he could do for her except protect her from the upperclassmen that bullied her, but apparently that was enough for her.
Standing outside of the house, Shou stood there and ruffled his blue hair. Ah, hell. I forgot. Their gone. Again. He sighed in frustration. His mom and step dad were almost never home, they were always out on some sort of holiday, leaving him alone to take care of Chise. Not that he minded much, he really cared for Chise. She was just so innocent, it was something that you had to protect. Glancing at his watch, he realized that Chise would have been home for a good hour at this point. Swearing lightly, he unlocked the door, and shuffled into the house. “Chise? Where are you?” Light footsteps suddenly began to approach the spot where Shou was standing, and Chise appeared around the corner. Her red hair was pulled into it’s usual style, tied up with four blue ribbons. She had this enormous smile on her face, and it warmed Shou’s heart a little bit.
“Shou! I hope you don’t mind... Kiyou is here... Again.” She made a bit of a face at Shou. “He’s almost always here, but I mean, I thought you might want to know!” Chise was dressed in her middle school uniform, she really liked wearing it for some reason. Shou just chuckled, and messed up her hair a little. Chise just shot him an annoyed look, and pouted.
“As long as you guys stay out of my room, and don’t annoy me, it’s fine. Have you had something to eat yet?” Chise nodded, a little too enthusiastically... Shou just shrugged. “Alright. Call me when you get hungry, and I’ll make some dinner.” With that, he disappeared into his room. Chise couldn’t help but notice that the bunny plushy she had made him wasn’t in it’s usual place. Pressing her lips together, she decided not to worry that much about it, and she bounced back up the stairs to go see Kiyou. Closing the door gently behind her, she noticed how Kiyou was still sitting in the exact same position he was when Chise had left, exactly how she had instructed him to.
“Alright. Sorry about that, you know how Shou is. Anyways, have you checked on Cheri lately? We have to make sure she doesn’t get near Shou again. No one is good enough for Shou. No one can ever love him like I do!” Kiyou just obediently nodded his head. The thing was, Kiyou and Chise were involved with why Cheri had suddenly stopped talking to Shou. They had... well, quite bluntly, threatened her. Chise and Kiyou could be extremely scary when they felt like. Chise was so sure that Cheri could never be good enough for Shou, that she didn’t notice that Shou had become a little more withdrawn after that. He also got in a lot more fights to get his temper out of his system.
“I’ve talked to Cheri lately, she was shivering in her designer boots. Which were hideous.” Kiyou looked at Chise expectantly, almost as if he was waiting for a pat on the head.
“That’s great.” Chise was sure that the only person ever fit to love Shou was herself, and no one else would ever be good enough. The age difference was nothing to her, and she didn’t care that they were step siblings. All she cared about was that Shou could only ever love her. Chise toyed around with some of the craft supplies on her desk, she was working on another bunny plushy for Shou. Since Shou loved the first one so much, she figured that he would like another one. This one was slightly bigger, and was meant to be used like a stuffed animal. To be loved by him, and to have it sleep with him. She shivered in delight at the very thought of Shou sleeping with something that she had made. Sometimes Chise would pretend to have a nightmare that she was scared of so Shou would let her sleep with him in his bed. He obviously didn’t think anything indecent about that exchange, but Chise couldn’t help but think that because of that they were destined to be together.
“Chise... Why are you doing this? I mean... I know he’s your brother, and you only want the best for him. But don’t you think this is a little much? Although you know that I support your every decision without ever needing to question it...” Chise’s eyes narrowed, and she glared at Kiyou with enough intensity to make the phrase ‘If looks could kill’, come to mind.
“If you don’t question any of my decisions, what are you doing right now? It looks like your questioning me now. And I’ll let you know, I don’t enjoy being questioned Kiyou. Do you want me to replace you with one of my OTHER followers? I mean, you usually follow my every demand without questioning it, but if you keep this up...” In a panicked state, Kiyou instantly jumped up, tears evident in his eyes.
“Please don’t Chise! I’m sorry! I won’t ever question you again!” Smiling, Chise pet Kiyou’s head, brushing his brown hair out of his face.
“As long as you don’t ever do it again...” Pacing around her small bedroom, Chise nervously bit her thumb nail. “Why do you think Shou liked Cheri so much? She wasn’t THAT pretty, at least, not as pretty as me, right?” Chise strided over to the full length mirror in the corner of her bed room, and examined herself. She had extremely pale skin, and her red hair was a stark contrast against it. Chise had stunning blue eyes, and she had an extremely tiny frame.
“Well, I personally think that your much prettier than Cheri...” If Chise had looked over at Kiyou right then, she would have noticed the bright blush that colored the pale boy’s face.
“I know I am.” Chise brushed the compliment off, not even acknowledging it. “It’s probably because she’s taller than me, older, and has more sex appeal right?” She turned on her heel to look at Kiyou. Kiyou stumbled for words, it was true that Cheri was incredibly beautiful and had a bit of a sexy edge, and the fact that Cheri was also in the proper age group as Shou was probably helped. Shou and Cheri also shared common interests, Cheri had a thing for street fighting. She loved the adrenaline rush she got from it, that was where Shou had met Cheri, at a street fighting event. Cheri was actually rather good at it as well, she had a tiny frame, but that made her a swift opponent.
“Well, she has the same type of interests as Shou?”
“And what would that be exactly? She didn’t exactly put up a fight when we went to threaten her.”
“Well...” Kiyou bit her lip, wanting badly to tell Chise that it was probably because Cheri hadn’t wanted to hurt a middle school girl. As much as Kiyou supported Chise, sometimes she got a little out of control. She was always so obsessed over getting Shou to like her, and Chise didn’t seem to notice that it was probably never going to happen.
“I think I need some time to think on my own. Leave Kiyou.” Feeling a little wounded by the swift dismissal, Kiyou obediently left. He was almost like a loyal dog, there wasn’t anything that he wouldn’t do for Chise. The moment Kiyou left Chise’s room, and the front door banged shut, Chise returned to her craft table, looking at the half completed bunny plushy. Banging her little fist against the table, she yelped in pain, and noticed that there was a little cut. There was a sewing pin embedded into her hand. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she hurried out of her room, banging on Shou’s door with her unwounded hand. Shou, who was taking a nap at the time, was shocked out of his dream state by hurried knocking on his door. Shaking the drowsiness from his head, he stumbled out of bed to open the door. His hair was sticking out at strange angles, and he clearly looked like a disorientated bear. Shou instantly woke up when he saw teary Chise standing outside of his door.
“What’s wrong Chise?” Shou instantly gave her a once over, making sure that she wasn’t bleeding from a large wound. Chise sniffed, and held up her hand. Shou’s eyes widened when he caught sight of the pin, but it wasn’t overly alarming. It wasn’t embedded into her skin too deep, he bit his lip carefully. “I’ll have to pull that pin out, and it might hurt.” She nodded, trying to fight back tears. Carefully, Shou cradled her hand, and tried to think about ways he could pull out the pin without majorly hurting her. In the end he figured that one swift pull would be the fastest way. Shou was too concentrated on managing to pull the pin out without making Chise cry loudly, he didn’t notice how she had a faint smile on her lips. Chise’s heart was pounding fast and loudly, but anyone else would have figured that she was just concerned with the pin. Of course, Chise had much darker and forbidden desires deep in her heart. How could you love someone to this extent? She didn’t understand it, and it made it worse that Shou was her brother. With a swift pull, he managed to get the pin out, and he smiled at Chise from under his thick lashes.
“There, that didn’t hurt too much did it?” She just whimpered a little bit. “Let’s go get this disinfected and get a bandage on it.” Chise just followed Shou like a little puppy, too obedient and loyal to do anything but what Shou wanted. Chise was in a daze for the rest of that night. It was almost as if she was on a cloud, disconnected from the world. She couldn’t help but giggle over every single thought about Shou. It was so wrong, but for her it was right.
Chise stayed in this daze for most of her morning classes the next day. Kiyou couldn’t help but be worried for his friend. There were some confusing feelings in between the two, but Kiyou couldn’t stand how Chise was completely obsessed with Shou. Chise may not have noticed Shou’s withdrawal after the Cheri incident, but Kiyou sure did. Biting his fingernails, he decided that he would have to fix this. Whether Chise would like him after this, Kiyou just couldn’t let this go on any further. Verbally making Cheri back off was one thing, but eventually this would spiral into something uncontrollable, and Chise would never return to the innocent state that she was currently in.
At lunch Kiyou carefully snuck away from Chise and her group of followers, and headed to the high school she knew Shou attended. The high school was also on their lunch break, and Shou was easy to pick out of the crowd. He was the only one with blue hair, and was surrounded by his gang members. Kiyou shivered at the thought of having to go talk to him around these scary guys, but he sucked in a deep breath, and convinced himself that it was for the good of Chise. Sneaking up behind Shou, he gently tugged on the back of his shirt. Shou turned around, and seemed genuinely surprised when he saw Kiyou standing there.
“Oh, Kiyou. Is Chise okay? What’s going on?” He seemed worried about Chise, and that only made Kiyou even angrier at Chise. How could Chise be so heartless and do this to her own step brother? Whether or not she loved him. Wouldn’t she want Shou to be happy?
“It’s about Chise... She’s alright, I actually came to find you... But, it’s about Cheri more than it is about Chise.” He seemed suddenly shocked at the mention of Cheri.
“What do you mean?” Kiyou looked up, and realized that all of Shou’s friends were staring at them. She blushed deeply, and covered her face with her hands.
“Can we talk somewhere else? You might not want people to hear this, and well, Chise has done something wrong... And... I may have helped her with it.” Kiyou blinked tears away, and walked a certain distance away, and waited for Shou to follow her.
“Alright, what’s going on?” Kiyou took a deep breath, preparing herself for what was about to happen.
“First, you have to promise me that you will never tell Chise that I was the one that told you. Claim that Cheri told one of her friends, and your friends found out and told you. Please.” Shou nodded at the boy, clearly confused at what was going on. The poor boy didn’t realize that his step sister had purposely ruined his relationship for her own selfish reasons. “Well, a couple weeks ago, Chise wanted to get rid of Cheri... She claimed that she wasn’t good enough for you, and that the only one that could love you was herself. I somehow got caught up in this... And we went to threaten Cheri. We told her that if she got close to you... There would be some serious consequences.” Kiyou didn’t share the details that would seriously get them in trouble, like how they had black mailed Cheri by telling her that they would go to the cops and tell them that she illegally street fought. They had the evidence too, the night before they had followed Cheri and taken photos of her street fighting, and they took copies to prove that they could indeed get Cheri in some serious trouble. Shou’s face was extremely grim, and suddenly Kiyou was scared that Shou’s temper would get out of hand and he would hit him.
“Is that it? Why would you just tell me this now?” Kiyou hid his face behind her thick curtain of brown hair.
“Well... Lately, Chise has gotten... Worse. She’s completely obsessed with making you love her. I think she’s not going to stop until she gets you to completely love her, and only her. She’s going a little crazy...” Shou stiffened in his seat, and calmly stood up.
“Alright. Thanks for telling me Kiyou. I’ll be sure to confront Chise about this later tonight. I promise you this will be resolved.” Kiyou sat there watching Shou as he strode back to his friends, his jaw taut. Kiyou couldn’t help but think that she may have done something wrong by betraying her friend’s trust.
That day Chise skipped home, obviously overjoyed with herself. For some reason Kiyou hadn’t wanted to go home with her that day, which gave her a precious hour to herself. She could finally finish the blue bunny plushy that she had been working on. Slamming the front door behind herself, she skipped up the stairs to her craft table. After yesterday’s accident, Chise had gotten around to putting all of her pins in a pin cushion. Stitch after stitch she sewed the bunny’s separate parts together. Smiling when the bunny was finished, she held it up to inspect it. The front door suddenly opened, and was slammed shut. Shou must not be in a very good mood... Chise thought to herself, hiding the blue bunny plushy behind her back, she skipped down the stairs to meet him. Shou had a very scary aura around him. His jaw was taut, and he kept repeatedly running his hand through his hair.”What’s... wrong?”
“Well, Chise. Today, I found out why Cheri just suddenly stopped talking to me. And I also found out how you BLACK MAILED my girlfriend to never talk to me again. Please, just withdraw yourself from my life. I really don’t want you to involve yourself any further. I’ll be turning 18 soon, and I’m taking that opportunity to move out of here. Stop bugging Cheri.” With a bit of an air of finality, he stormed down the hall and slammed the door to his bedroom. Chise’s eyes instantly filled with tears, her whole body was numb. Numb with the pain that meant she had immensely screwed up, and pain that Shou would never treat her the same ever again. The blue bunny plushy slipped out of her hands, and landed with a dull thud to the floor. Chise wasn’t going to pick it up. Who was left to pick up the pieces left behind?