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When Mom and Dad say that they’re going to split up, Kris doesn’t really understand why. Maybe things weren’t exactly as they used to be—Mom wouldn’t water the flowers Dad gave her anymore, they would sit far apart at the dinner table, and sometimes Mom would snap at Dad for the smaller things. Kris understood that maybe they weren’t as… in love as they used to be. But it’s not like Kris would know. They’re only nine.
Everyone was telling them that they’d understand better when they were older, but when was older ? When did it come? It didn’t seem like anything made sense.
Not long after it’s announced, Mom and Dad have their first fight. Maybe it’s not really their first fight, but their first fight in front of Asriel and Kris. Kris doesn’t really know what it’s about, because before anyone realized what was happening Mom began raising her voice. It was Asriel who lead Kris to their shared bedroom, away from the conflict.
Once they’re in an area away from their parents, they don’t talk about the fight. Instead, Asriel asks, “Do you want to play some games?”
They end up playing Super Smashing Fighters. Asriel plays as Yoshi. Asriel always plays as Yoshi. Kris likes to switch it up every often, but they have trouble figuring out who to play as, because they can still hear Mom’s voice echo down the hallway.
“Pick for me,” Kris tells Asriel, not really looking at him.
“Hm,” Asriel hums, “Bowser?”
Kris wrinkles their nose. “I don’t like Bowser.”
Asriel laughs, and it’s calming, in a sense. “You’re the one who asked me to pick, Kris.”
Kris ends up playing as Bower, even if they hate it every time he makes a sound. They end up winning, too. It’s so fun that it feels like they’re in an entirely different world—one where there’s no school, no homework, no fights, and just having fun. It’s not until the game is over that they realize that Mom and Dad stopped fighting.
“Awh, you beat me,” Asriel complains. “I’ll get you next time.”
Kris swells with pride. They must be really good at Super Smashing Fighters since they keep beating their brother when he’s older than them by five years. Kris stares at their controller, gripping it tight in their hand.
“I don’t think so,” Kris counters. “I win a lot. Do you think it’s because you keep picking Yoshi?”
“No way,” Asriel argues. “Yoshi’s my good luck charm, Kris. I could never give him up. He helps me.”
Asriel is fourteen now. He’s an entire five years older than Kris, but sometimes he feels like the younger sibling with how attached to Yoshi he is. Kris wonders who he would play as in a world where Yoshi didn’t exist.
“Sure,” Kris replies, allowing exhaustion to seep into their voice.
Asriel is only sitting a few feet away from them, so it’s no surprise when he notices. “It’s getting late, Kris. You should go to bed.” It’s good advice, and Kris knows that they should, but...
“Can we play one more round?” Kris begs.
Asriel sighs, shaking his head. “Fine. Only because I’m the greatest brother in the world. But after this it’s definitely time for bed.” Kris nods.
Usually Mom would always be at their door at exactly the right time to tell them when it was time to sleep, but tonight she doesn’t come. For the first time Kris stays up past their bedtime.
.
When Kris is ten, they realize that there aren’t ever going to any family outings again. At least, not as a family. It’s either Mom or Dad, and Kris just wants both. They just want them to love each other as much as they both love Kris and Asriel. Maybe it’s unfair to ask for two people to love each other again, but nothing really feels fair anymore.
“I miss when we used to go to the diner,” Kris confesses one day after school to Asriel. Maybe it’s because they’re feeling lonely, or maybe it’s because Asriel is just easy to talk to. Maybe it’s both. “All together, I mean. It’s not the same when Mom and Dad aren’t both there.”
“Kris,” Asriel says, frowning, “it would probably be better to forget about that. It’s just… complicated, now.” Kris mirrors Asriel’s frown. Why does everyone think that Kris can’t understand whatever’s happening? Why does Asriel think that? Is it because he’s older than Kris? Kris can handle whatever it is people say they’re too young to understand.
“I don’t see why it has to be,” Kris mutters, scowling. For the first time ever, they feel like talking to Asriel might’ve been a mistake. They kick their shoes off their feet and don’t bother to arrange them neatly. They know that Mom would freak out about it if she was here right now.
Asriel sighs. “I’m sorry, Kris, but…” Kris waits for him to finish his sentence.
Asriel doesn’t, though. Maybe he realizes that there was no good way to end it. “Hey,” he tries instead, “we can still go to the diner, you know. Just the two of us. Now’s a good time for hot chocolate.”
Kris’s eyes widen. “Can we really go by ourselves?”
As it turns out, they can.
Two hot chocolates sit on the table. One is in a plain mug, and another is in a slightly smaller mug with way too many marshmallows and a bendy straw. Kris knows that the latter is for them.
Asriel takes a sip almost immediately, and smiles. “It’s just as good as ever.”
Kris tries to take a sip, too, but it scorches their tongue as soon as they feel it. They hiss in a sound of pain, pressing their tongue against the roof of their mouth in an attempt to relieve the pain. “Hot,” they explain when Asriel gives them a quizzical look. They regret trying to drink it too fast, because now their tongue hurts so bad they doubt they’ll be able to drink ever again.
“You do this all the time,” Asriel says, rolling his eyes. “Sometimes it feels like you’ll never learn.”
Kris shrugs. “It was worth a try, I think.”
When it’s finally cool enough for Kris to drink, they take a bug slurp out of their straw. It’s exactly as sweet as it should be, and Kris sighs. It tastes really, really good. Maybe this is what they’ve been missing all along. Just the homey feeling of hot chocolate.
“We can do this every Sunday,” Asriel suggests. “Just like we used to, except without Mom and Dad. It’ll be the same, though, because it’s still a family outing. Just… some of the family isn’t here.”
“That doesn’t feel like a family outing,” Kris admits.
Asriel smiles. “Some things we’ll just have to get used to, Kris, even if we don’t like it. But no matter what, we’ll always help each other out, right? If we do that, then everything will be fine.” From the look in Asriel’s eyes, Kris knows that things will never be the same. They feel like they can finally come to terms with that, as long as things will turn out fine.
“Thank you,” Kris whispers, because it feels weird to thank Asriel for some reason. It’s always so simple to thank a neighbor, to thank a friend, to thank their parents, but with their sibling it feels unnatural to thank them.
“There’s no need to,” Asriel brushes off, and Kris is glad, because they doubt they’ll ever do it again. “It’s almost five, so we should be heading home, though. I don’t want Mom to be angry with me if you start your homework late.”
Kris nods, taking one last sip of their hot chocolate. There’s still a tiny bit left at the bottom, but Kris is full anyway. When they get home, Kris can still taste the hot chocolate in their mouth.
.
When Kris turns eleven, they develop their love of pranks. It’s harmless, really—and people usually seem to find it funny, so what’s the harm? It’s usually small things, like whoopie cushions and shouting boo when people are distracted. Mom is wary of Kris’s pranks, but Dad doesn’t really mind. Dad lives in a different house now. Kris doesn’t see him as often, but when they do they love to prank him, because he loves it, too.
It’s usually just funny. However, one day when Kris decides to pour ketchup over themselves and act like it’s blood, Mom draws the line. She tells them that pranks are fine as long as they don’t take it too far. How far is too far? Where is Kris supposed to stop? It wasn’t even a big deal, anyway. It was just some ketchup.
Asriel is sixteen now. He doesn’t have as much time for Kris as he used to. Now he’s busy with homework, friends, and anything besides Kris. They still go get hot chocolate on Sundays, though, so it isn’t as if they don’t see each other. And they still share the same room, even if Asriel doesn’t even get in the room to sleep until a few hours after Kris has already dozed off.
Maybe now that he’s older he doesn’t like hanging out with Kris as much as he used to.
But Kris has more friends now, too. There’s Noelle—the pretty, friendly deer. She’s everyone’s friend, but it seems like she’s closer to Kris than she is to most people. Once at a slumber party she scared Noelle by pretending to be the “human from under the bed.” Noelle was scared, but she laughed it off afterwards. There’s Monster Kid, who almost always wants to buy food after school and almost always doesn’t have the money to do it. He’s nice, though. He always wants to hang out, it seems, and it’s not like Kris ever has anything better to do.
But Kris misses playing Super Smashing Fighters. It’s not a game that Noelle would like, and Monster Kid doesn’t exactly have arms. There are some things that don’t ever come back once they’re gone, Kris guesses.
Maybe it’s Kris’s loneliness that compels them to pull a prank on Asriel. Kris finds a nice, yellow sponge lying by the sink. They grab frosting from the fridge and slather it all across the sponge, hiding any evidence that it’s a sponge at all. Asriel will have no idea. Just for extra measure, Kris adds some sprinkles. Kris smiles at their creation.
When Asriel gets home, Kris is already sitting at the dining room table, ready.
“Hi,” Kris greets, and Kris realizes it’s the first thing they’ve said to him in a few days.
“Oh, hi, Kris,” Asriel returns, smiling and dropping his bag on the ground near the door. “Hey, if Mom asks tell her I’m at the library, okay? See you later, Kris.”
“Wait!” Kris shouts, a bit too loud. Asriel halts from where he was turning to open the door. “Um… I made something for you.” They hold out the plate with the fake cake on it for Asriel to see. They then cut into it and take off a piece. They add as much frosting to it as they can so that Asriel won’t be able to tell that it’s a sponge rather than a sponge cake. They hold out the fork, and Asriel takes it.
“Oh,” he says. “Thank you, Kris!” Kris has to hold in a laugh. When Asriel actually takes the bite, they burst out with laughter, almost falling to the ground. He really, really fell for it.
“Kris!” Asriel exclaims, wincing, mouth full of sponge. He goes to the trash can to spit it out, and Kris just keeps laughing.
“Ugh!” he shouts when it’s out of his mouth. “Really, Kris? I can’t believe you wasted a sponge just for this.” Kris is wiping a tear from their eye from how hard they’re laughing. They feel happy.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Asriel mutters, still wiping at his mouth. He makes a move to the sink to get a cup of water.
“Haha,” Kris finishes, finally done. “I really can’t believe you fell for that.”
“Well,” Asriel says from where he is at the sink, “excuse me for wanting to believe that my sibling made me a cake. I would’ve made you a cake if I had the time, you know. And yet you give me a sponge.”
“Sorry,” Kris apologizes, not really meaning it. “I just missed you, so I wanted to prank you,” they blurt, and they don’t really realize what they said until after they said it. Is that really how they feel? Probably. No matter how they look at it, life isn’t the same without Asriel always around. It feels like the longer they go on, the more people they start to lose. It doesn’t feel fair, but they can’t say that, because it’ll make them sound like a kid—which they’re not.
Asriel frowns. “I’m sorry, Kris. I know I’ve been distant lately, but…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, and Kris wonders if there’s any real way to end it.
“It’s okay,” they say. “It’s not a big deal.” Maybe if they brush it off then Asriel will forget all about it and they can both carry on as they usually do. Kris doesn’t like the idea of being open… it’s not that they’re scared, but they’re embarrassed. It’s just weird to do.
“It is a big deal,” Asriel argues. “I… I just don’t have the time to do the things I want to do anymore. And it’s not just that, but other people take up my time, too. I should try to be around you more. But I can only do that on one condition.”
“What?” they ask, blinking.
“Don’t ever do this again. Ugh, the taste is still in my mouth…”
They snort. “No promises.”
Talking to Asriel feels nice. When he leaves for the library with the promise of coming home early to play Super Smashing Fighters, Kris is actually sort of happy.
.
Kris wakes up late more often than not. Mom can’t always remind them exactly when she should, because Mom has her own things to do now that Dad isn’t around to help her with them. And some days Mom has to get to the school early for meetings and other things that Kris doesn’t really understand, and she can’t drive Kris at all. Kris hates walking to school, so that leaves Asriel to help them out. And like the good brother he is, he always does.
“C’mon, Kris,” he calls as Kris finally gets out of bed. “You have school in twenty minutes! You’re twelve, now, and you still can’t seem to wake up on time…”
Kris just shrugs, stretching. “I can get ready in time.”
Asriel huffs. “Just because you can wait this long and still make it on time doesn’t mean you should , Kris.” Kris just grins at him and grabs their clothes for changing and heads to the bathroom. Once they’ve changed, brushed their teeth, and combed their hair they make finger guns in the bathroom mirror. They’re looking good.
Then they run out into the living room where Asriel is waiting. Despite the fact that they love waking up late, they hate the idea of getting to school late. It’s not because of Mom, because she knows that Ms. Alphys wouldn’t tell. But rather it’s because every time they do manage to get to school late Berdly has no problem running his mouth off. He’s annoying, to say the least.
“Let’s go,” Asriel tells them, stepping outside, holding the door open for Kris. When Kris makes no move to walk, he raises an eyebrow. “What’s wrong, Kris?”
Kris just looks up at him. “You know what I want.”
Asriel sighs, overdramatic. “I am not carrying you again. My back is already killing me from this backpack…”
Kris doesn’t say anything in response.
“Kris,” Asriel says again, as if it would make any difference.
Asriel ends up carrying them. “Sometimes I think you’re waiting for the day my back will finally break,” Asriel mumbles, still bitter, even though he could’ve very easily chosen to not carry Kris, even if Kris would complain. “And if things keep going like this, it’ll be soon.”
“I don’t think so,” Kris disagrees. “And if your back does break, then I’ll be the one to carry you.” Asriel just laughs.
“Do you really think you could carry me?” Asriel questions, fondness in his voice.
“No,” Kris admits. “Maybe not. I’m not strong enough. You’re stronger than me in real life. But in Super Smashing Fighters I’m way stronger than you. But in Super Smashing Fighters there’s no school, so…”
“Oh, be quiet,” Asriel silences them. “I let you win all those times.”
“You used to let me win,” Kris agrees. “But now I win because you’re just bad.”
“Hey!”
They end up getting to school a few minutes late, anyway. Berdly says something that’s probably arrogant, but Kris can’t tell because Monster Kid is already telling them about what he had for dinner last night.
.
Kris is thirteen now, and Asriel is going to university. They’re not going to be all alone, but it’s definitely going to be lonely without him. They kind of feel like crying when they think about how they’ll never have someone to play Super Smashing Fighters with, and how no one will be around to eat their fake sponge cakes. But it’s going to be alright, because they have other friends, and even though it’s not the same as having a brother, it’s alright.
“I’m going to miss you, Kris,” Asriel says as Mom is practically sobbing in the background. “I’ll still come home for the holidays, okay?”
“I’m going to be lonely,” they confess.
Asriel just smiles. “I’ll be lonely without you, too, Kris. But everyone in this town loves you, and you can always fall back on them.”
“Not as much as they love you,” Kris tells him. “Everyone’s going to be upset with you gone.”
“It’s going to be fine, though,” Asriel assures them. “Everything’s going to be fine. Kris… if something ever happens while I’m away, and things feel hard to handle, just remember to be strong. Always be strong.”
Kris nods. “Okay.”
“Do you promise?” Asriel asks, his words holding a strange weight to them.
“I promise,” Kris replies, serious. Life won’t be easy without him.
“Alright, then. See you later, alligator.” Asriel is smiling, but he looks like he might cry. At least he and Kris are in the same boat on that.
“In a while, crocodile.” They’re really trying now to hold their tears back.
Mom and Asriel hug, Mom cries some more, and then Asriel is gone. Dad is dropping him off at his university, and then it’s going to be a long time before they see Asriel again. Kris may love pranks, they may be weird to some people, and they may be very quiet around most people, but they won’t break a promise. So they’ll stay strong for Asriel. Maybe that’s the only reason they won’t cry.
They’ll probably have to get used to playing against the system in Super Smashing Fighters.