Work Text:
It wasn't fair.
It was the beginning of the Golden Week, a week during which there were almost no school days. Her friend was out on a date with one of their classmates, and Gou was stuck inside her stuffy room, trying to concentrate on getting her homework done so she could have a moment's peace from her mother's pestering. Why did she expect so much from her daughter? It was her brother who was the genius, not her! He had good grades, was great at what he did, and looked absolutely amazing while doing it.
Whereas Gou? She was an average student, and wasn't involved in any school activities other than the swimming club - but only as a manager, so that didn't count, according to her mother. Out of her family, Gou was the only one who didn't.. or hadn't.. have any sporty hobbies.
"Not everyone can be like my onii-chan", Gou huffed to herself. After deciding that she could absolutely not work in the heat of her room, she rose from her writing desk to open the window on the other side of it. She let out a sigh of gratification when a cool breeze flew in, tousling her hair all over her face.
Yeah, why hadn't she opened the window earlier? Pouting at her past self, she plopped down on her chair once more.
It turned out the fresh air did not make it easier for her to study, but actually distracted her. Strong wind just made all her notes and papers fly everywhere, whereas a gentle breeze just felt like someone was petting her hair.
It was distracting (because nobody had done that in such an agonizingly long time), and it made her wonder what Chigusa was up to at that exact moment. Was she giggling at her new date, twirling a lock of fallen-out-of-place hair with her finger? Or perhaps she was sharing a cold drink with him, and they were only given one straw, and -
'Okay, stop it!' Gou scolded herself while frowning at her thoughts. If she really was that curious, she could always ask Chigusa later. Now was a time for a more pressing matters, namely her homework.
"But it's English", she sighed out loud in desperation, and let herself slide halfway down her chair.
'But you're going to need it if you want to become onii-chan's manager', she tried to motivate herself. And for a while, it worked - until it was time to go through her homework to check for any mistakes.
'.. I don't understand anything I've written down..'
"Gou-chan, come have dinner after you're done with your homework!" her mother yelled from downstairs.
"I'll be right down!" Gou answered, and after giving a final, desperate glance at the printout on her table, stuffed it into her schoolbag.
'Well, I did finish it', she justified her decision to herself, closed the irritating window and half-jogged out of her room. Food was calling, after all, and you should never let food wait lest it gets cold!
What she didn't expect was that her older brother was sitting at the dining table and helping himself to the food.
"O-onii-chan! What are you doing here?" Gou asked, taken aback at the unexpected sight, earning a "Gou-chan, that's rude!" from their mother.
"I can't come home anymore? Cruel, sis." he let out a fake exaggerated sigh. Gou studied him for a few seconds, noticing that he was taking more food than he normally would. Well, yes he did eat like a horse because he spent so much energy swimming every day, but today's plate was a bit too overwhelmingly full.
"Onii-chan", she began seriously while taking a seat opposite him, "you used up all your food allowance on snacks, didn't you?"
For a millisecond he stopped chewing, then continued on like nothing had happened, but a faint coloration of the tip of his ears gave the truth away.
"A-ha, I knew it!"
"Gou-chan", their mother said, this time sounding reproachful, "your brother came home just a moment ago to see us. Give him room to eat in peace”.
"Yes, mom" she answered obediently, but still stuck her tongue out at him when their mother's back was turned.
--
"So, uh... how's school?" Rin asked her while scrubbing some sticky rice off from a dinner plate under soapy water.
He had probably tried to sound casual, but he trying to be social was very much out of the ordinary. Gou took the plate from him, rinsed it in the sink next to his, then dried if off and placed it in the pile of clean dishes on the table. She tried not to snicker at the forced conversation starter, and to her surprise, actually did succeed.
"It's okay.. I just finished all my homework for the week!" but as soon as the words escaped from her mouth, she remembered her English printout. Her brother heard her groan in agony and turned to look at her, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"So you managed to slip by mum even though you still hav-"
"Shh!" Gou hushed him, and looked around to see if the aforementioned person happened to be in the hearing distance.
"I did do them, but I can't understand anything I wrote down.." a frown appeared on Rin's face.
"How the hell does that happen?"
Gou would have been happy that he was worried about her any other time (and he was worried, she had no doubt about that, but he could be only worried that she had bumped her head somewhere and lost all brain capacity), but the particular topic embarrassed her.
She was his younger sister after all! She should have the same English-learning genes as he did!
'... but of course he doesn't know I can't speak English', Gou thought to herself, disappointed, 'he was away for so long...'.
She felt an elbow nudge her in the ribcage.
"Ouch!" she exclaimed, "what was that for?"
"You took too long." He had stopped doing the dishes mid-cup, and was giving his full attention to her.
Gou gulped. She could feel his searching gaze on her face, and was sure that he was reading her thoughts that very moment.
"I.. I just think I need some tutoring, that's all", she tried to dismiss the topic, and swatted the drying towel in her hand in his direction.
"We're never going to get out of here if you don't do your part, onii-chan!"
--
That had been a close call.
No matter how hard Gou wanted to get back the close relationship they used to have, she didn't want him to know everything. She didn't feel like he... deserved to know everything, at least not at this point.
Which must have been a stupid thought, but Gou was known for her stubbornness, and if she got an idea into her head, she would stick to it until the end.
She sighed heavily, and then threw dirty looks at her school bag.
Finally, what felt like an hour (but had probably been only seven minutes), Gou stood up from the floor where she had slumped down after hurrying back to her room, and headed to her writing desk.
'Might as well take another look at it', she decided, but agreed in her head to only focus on the first exercise. She would have time to look at the rest of the handout some other night.
Somebody knocked on her door and without waiting for an answer, her mother opened it.
”Gou, I’m going to the neighbours’ to have some tea, I’ll be back later in the evening. Why won’t you and Rin go for a jog or something, it’s not good for you to stay still for too long. Especially after having so much to eat”, she said, her tone implying an order rather than a suggestion.
“Yes, mum”, Gou diligently agreed.
“What’s that on your table?” her mother had noticed the printout. Gou felt blood drain from her face. No, no, her mum couldn’t see that paper! She would scorn her and keep her locked up until she got the whole paper done perfectly!
“A jog sounds like a good idea”, Rin had appeared behind their mother and saved his sister’s ass, “and that’s just my old training regime, Gou wanted to borrow it to get ideas for her club.”
‘Onii-chan, I love you’, she mouthed to him when her mother’s back was turned to her. Her brother gave a small nod back. ‘Yes, I know, why wouldn’t you.’
Hmph, he was such a stuck-up ass. A gorgeous one, but still an ass.
“Well then, I’ll be off then. I’ll see you later!” and with that, the she-devil was gone.
Rin stepped into her room and closed the door behind her.
“Is that the illegible homework?” he asked, trying to get a closer look at the paper. Gou mirrored his moves, to the left, and to the right, to keep him from seeing the damn piece of ex-wood. But when she saw a smirk on his face, she knew she had lost. And indeed, just a second after that thought her brother was able to snatch the printout from behind her. His eyes widened, then narrowed as he kept reading on. When he was done, he burst out laughing and handed the paper back to her.
“You were right, nobody would understand your answers. Geez, when did you become so bad at English?” Gou looked down, bright red from embarrassment and shame.
“When you left for Australia”, she answered his hypothetical question.
Rin forcefully stopped his laughter.
“Well, you do need a tutor”, he stated, straightening up.
“You don’t need to rub it in my face”, Gou muttered to herself and stuffed the printout back into her school bag, not caring if it got wrinkled or not.
“Geez, you’ve gotten oversensitive while I’ve been gone.” Gou huffed,, crossing her arms. Maybe she had, but it was none of his business, just like her English skills.
“... fine, I’ll tutor you”, Rin sighed and put a hand on her head. He ruffled her hair despite her protests that he was messing up her ponytail, then turned to leave the room.
“Wanna go for a jog first?”
--
He was impressed. She could keep up with him quite well, even though they had been running for a while now. Gou noticed the surprised look on his face and stuck her tongue at him – why she always felt like that was the right way to respond to him, neither of them knew.
“I train with the club, onii-chan. I’m not just sitting next to the pool and drooling after muscles!” She was sounding to be quite out of breath, even though one wouldn’t outwardly notice her fatigue.
“... or you join them just to see their muscles more often and from a closer distance”, Rin countered, earning an annoyed groan from her.
“Let’s stop here.”
Gou slowed down and came to a stop next to her brother. She had never gone this way, and realized what a mistake it had been. After a winding, rising path through the forest they had come to an opening on top of a mountain.
“Is this an apology for being an ass?” Gou asked, but couldn’t help the huge smile that took over her face. The view was absolutely breathtaking. Rin ignored her, changing the subject instead.
“I actually wanted to talk about something,” he began. Gou turned to look at him, cocking her head to the side.
“What is it?” He took a deep breath, and looked away from her.
“Do you talk with captain Mikoshiba?”
Wh-what?
“Umm, we do e-mail each other from time to time while setting up joint practices”, Gou answered, confused about where this conversation was going.
“What about his brother?” Gou had to think for a while before she remembered who he was talking about.
“No, I don’t even have his address.”
“Good.”
A heavy silence fell between them. Was that it? That’s what he wanted to know? He could have asked her at home, why bother coming all the way up here?
“Umm, is there something else?” she asked.
“What about Makoto?”
This was getting ridiculous. Was he going to go through every male she knew?
“We talk about swimming. He’s the captain for god’s sake!”
“Has anyone asked you out for coffee or –“
“Onii-chan!” Gou exploded, “No! And even if they did, it’s not any of your business!”
“But it is my business! I’m your brother!” Rin shouted back, clenching his fists. Gou let out a frustrated groan and stomped further away from him.
“You don’t get it, do you?!” Gou shouted to the scenery, knowing she would hit him if he were in her reach. “You lost the right to have a say in my business the day you left! You left me, onii-chan, you left me all alone, and didn’t even contact me!” She turned around, tears freely running down her face, “We’ve talked today, but that’s just one day. What about last week? How many times did you contact me? What about last month?”
Rin gritted his teeth, but chose not to answer her questions. Instead, he turned to look back at the path they had jogged up.
“Let’s head back before you use all your energy by shouting. You can let off some steam while running.”
Her mouth fell open. He was just going to ignore her, after he had started the shouting match? No, no way. She didn’t wan to deal with his attitude right now.
“I’ll stay, you go.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
He disappeared into the forest, and Gou took a deep breath. Maybe she had been too harsh, but she wasn’t going to admit it to him any day soon. He had been prying into her private life when he had nothing to do with it. Hell, even Haruka-sempai had more of a reason to ask those kinds of questions!
...but he was trying. Well, had been today, at least.
Gou sighed, and stood up.
“Maybe I should head back before mum gets hone.”
---
“I’m home”, Gou announced when she stepped inside. She got no answer, but muffled music was playing somewhere upstairs.
“A-ah, onii-chan’s still angry”, she sighed to herself and took off her shoes at the entrance. She tiptoed into the kitchen, hoping to find a consolation snack stashed somewhere.
The fridge was full, but full of fruits and vegetables. Gou frowned. ‘Mum has learned that I snack and has changed everything to bananas and shit’. There was one stash Gou had started into a cupboard above the fridge, where her mother rarely looked into, and which was mostly full with old pans and kettles. She hopped onto the counter next to the fridge and reached for the cupboard. After a while of rummaging around and almost falling a couple of times, she found what she was looking for.
‘A chocolate bar. Bingo!’ she cheered and sat down onto the counter. She happily munched away on her snack, humming an opening theme of one of her favourite anime at the same time.
Her brother must have left his room for a while, because the music sounded clearer for a minute, as if he had left his door open. As the sound became muffled again, Gou hopped off the counter. Her sweet treat already gone, she decided to drink a glass of water and head back up to her room.
She had that paper to finish, and she was damned if she didn’t at least try to get it done properly.
Gou plopped down in front of her desk, and stared at the ceiling for a while.
‘Do it, do it, just do it you goddamn lazy bum!’
She sighed at the bad motivational speech, and then looked down.
There was a paper on her desk all right, but it was a different paper. It was completely handwritten in neat cursive, and it had green and red highlights all over the text. Picking up the paper, she read aloud some parts of it.
“This means that the thing has happened in the past... blah, blah... This can also mean that the people were all included...” It was all explanations to the English printout and tips on how to fill it out.
Gou’s eyes widened.
“Onii-chan!” she yelled, jumping up. She ran out of her room and barged into her brother’s. Rin was laying on his bed with his eyes closed, music blasting loudly from the stereos on his bedside table.
“Onii-chan!” Gou yelled again, and this time her brother heard her. Surprised, he rolled on his bed to turn the music down.
“What is it?”
“I... eh, did you make this?” Gou asked, holding out the mystery paper to him. Rin didn’t even need to look at it to answer: he nodded once.
“As an... apology?” she asked hopefully. Her brother turned to look away from her.
“You said you needed a tutor”, he muttered, tips of his ears turning red. Inside, Gou was giggling at how cute he looked then.
“Thank you, onii-chan. And...” she hesitated, “I did go to a café with captain Mikoshiba a few weeks back.” Rin shot up, his embarrassment long forgotten.
“You did what?!” Gou sighed, and closed the door she had forgotten to close behind her.
This would take a while.
-
“...so. You didn’t do anything” Rin still seemed to suspect some foul play, but decided that arguing about it for more than the half-hour they had already spent was probably not going to help him gain back his sister’s trust.
“That’s correct.”
“Are you going to meet again?” Gou rolled her eyes.
“He’s really busy studying nowadays, so probably not soon. He’s really nice, but I need to get to know him better before I can really say anything”, she explained, and for some reason Rin seemed relieved. Gou raised her eyebrows. That... really wasn’t like him at all.
“I’m just... glad you’re not rushing into things.”
A small smile rose up to her face.
“I love you, onii-chan” she said without thinking, then realized what she had just done. Her face went red, as did his.
“Ah, uh, I mean – “
“I know what you mean, Gou. I... love you too.”