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“Do you ever think about dying, Fuuta?” a small voice said, breaking the silence.
Fuuta jumped, almost having forgotten that Amane Momose was sharing a room with him, for the night. Mahiru had insisted on the two getting some quality time together, saying “Oh, it’ll be just like a sleepover! It’ll be fun!”. Fuuta had resisted initially, but he changed his mind in the end, thinking It’s only one night, what could go wrong?
Apparently, nothing going wrong could be worse than everything collapsing. The younger girl was oddly compliant with everything, didn’t ask for anything, and was virtually nonexistent. Any question Fuuta asked her was met with some vague response. What does she want for dinner? “Whatever you’ve made, I’ll eat.” He asked her what she wanted to play, and she only stared at the controller with a befuddled expression. What kind of 9 year old doesn’t play any games? What the fuck is wrong with this girl… Clearly, she had gone through some kind of abuse at home.
Fuuta turned to Amane, blinking the drowsiness out of his eyes. “Do I ever think about what.” he mumbled, sure he had misheard her. She sat up and stared at him, posture picture perfect. “Dying. Not being alive anymore. I think about it a lot, and I was wondering if you had, too. I was hoping we might have something in common.” Well, he couldn’t deny that he hadn’t found anything to relate to the kid with. Kazui, the old son of a bitch, had basically adopted both Fuuta and Amane, but the two had barely acted like anything more than acquaintances.
“I mean, not particularly…Why do you think about dying? You’re like, five, for God’s sake.” He laughed off her comment and started to lay back down, when he spotted Amane’s shoulders slump. “I’m nine.” she said with her signature stubbornness, but it sounded more lackluster, and half-hearted than usual. Fuuta sat up again, looking at her. “Alright, nine, then, my bad.” he amended. “Still, my question stands.” Amane waved her hand at him dismissively, starting to lie back down, a frown tugging at her lips. So suddenly full of energy, she seemed to deflate just as quickly. Fuuta thought nothing of it, and turned back around to go back to daydreaming, until he heard a quiet sniffle.
Followed by another. And another.
He turned back around at lightning speed, and saw Amane shaking and wiping her face, obviously trying (and failing) to conceal her crying. “Hey, hey what's- uh- what's wrong??” he reached out to touch her shoulder but drew back, unsure of how to proceed. How do you comfort a kid, crying? That would require emotional intelligence, maybe even having interacted with kids before…clearly not in Fuuta’s wheelhouse. Still, he supposed, he'd try his best. “Amane?” he said, trying to make his normally brash voice sound softer and kinder in an effort to be more comforting. He decided on resting his hand on her shoulder, after all, and patted her a couple times.
Amane sniffled one more time, loudly, and then said, “Wha- What do you need, Fuuta?”. She stumbled over her first word, for her voice cracked just the slightest, but kept trying to keep up her stoic appearance. “I need…Ah- I want to know why you're crying, Amane. Did I say something wrong?” the older male said, moving his hand off of her shoulder and sitting so that he could better see Amane’s face.
Oh, shit.
Her face was red and puffy, and as she noticed him watching her, she rushed to wipe her face faster. This only resulted in her tears coming faster and faster, and she seemed to just give up at that crying harder and freely (albeit still quietly). “I just wanted to…to…” Amane started out, still hiccuping lightly, before turning back into her pillow and sobbing fully. Fuuta’s heart jumped into his throat at this; after all, this was just some poor nine year old. He had made her cry, although inadvertently, and he needed to help her now. Fuuta reached forward, and gathered up Amane into his arms. She gladly hugged him back, and the two sat there for a while, older comforting younger.
After a couple minutes, Amane moved her head away from Fuuta’s shoulder, and sniffled in a sort of final way. “I'm sorry. I just..was very excited to get to bond with you tonight. I was worried that…that I had done something wrong, that I was just messing up again. I didn't mean to get all…crying and going crazy.” She said all of this rather quickly, as if she was trying to say everything before Fuuta was going to jump in and hit her or something. The older sighed and brought Amane closer to him again, processing how the fuck this small child could be so fucked up emotionally. He wasn't exactly the best at showing off how he felt, sure, but to the point of having a breakdown purely because you can't find any common interests with anyone?
With a bit of a resigned face, he stood up, still holding Amane to him. “I tried all night to show things that I like. Maybe…maybe you can show me something you like?” he trailed off, suddenly unsure. He needn't have worried, though, as Amane seemed to perk her ears up instantly. “Do you really mean it? You want to hear something I like?” she said somewhat hesitantly, and for a moment, the two stood in a silent camaraderie of awkwardness. Fuuta nodded, and gave a somewhat comforting smile and set Amane down. She almost instantly grabbed his hand, going to the kitchen and looking around. “Do you like chocolate chip pancakes, Fuuta?”
They cooked, and talked, free of the former uncomfortableness that had bound them, and it turned out they had a lot more in common than they thought. Fuuta agreed to show Amane some games that she might like, and Amane…well, she didn't have much to show him, but that night of cooking gave her a chance to tell Fuuta her life story and open up, maybe for the first time since she started this new life.
Dishes forgotten, the two took their combined mountain of pancakes to the shitty little living room, and Fuuta put on some mindless show in the background (something about a family of cartoon dogs? he wasn't sure, but it wasn't very important.) They kept talking as they ate, and far into the morning, finding more in common and bonding as a duo.
At some point in between conversations, Fuuta realized Amane was dozing off, her head drooping consistently lower with every nod. He smiled in a fond sort of way, and set both their dishes aside and made room for himself on the couch. He moved in closer to Amane, and she almost instantly curled into him, completely relaxing and fully asleep at this point. Running a hand through her hair, he settled back and started drifting off himself. Somewhere in the real world, before he lost consciousness fully, he heard Amane mutter in her sleep, “...Big brother…” and mumble contentedly, and fuck if that didn't make his barely-awake heart swell. Fuuta decided then and there that he'd do anything for this girl.
He'd be damned if he was the reason his sister cried ever again.
And if Mahiru came in in the morning, to see Fuuta cradling Amane as the two slept, well, that would be her little secret.