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She locks eyes with Gabe as they reach the kitchen doorway at the same time. They both glance over at the open spot on the counter next to the fruit bowl, the one where Gabe likes to perch when he eats his breakfast, and the one that Natalie likes to steal out from under his nose, just to hear him whine.
Dad sees the two of them from his spot next to the coffeemaker and sighs. "Guys—"
Before he can get a word out, Gabe's foot twitches and Natalie knows the game they're playing. She bolts for the counter at the same time he does, the two of them fighting to get through a doorway not meant to fit two warring teenagers at the same time. She beats him through the doorway by sticking her foot in front of his and nearly tripping him, but Gabe makes up the lost step with his longer legs and panicked desperation not to lose his perching spot to her for the third time this week.
"Once is on me," she told him the other day. "Two is on you. Three is worth embarrassing you to everyone at school for a week."
Needless to say, there's a lot on the line.
They reach the counter at the same time, and it becomes a shoving match on the ground as they try to keep the other from hopping up without actually causing physical damage.
One would assume that Gabe, with his five inches of extra height and experience playing a contact sport, would always have the upper hand in these encounters. He would, if Natalie wasn't well-versed in sibling psychological warfare.
For two weeks now, she's had an ace up her sleeve—a twitter post that popped up on her feed and sent her into a coughing fit when she initially found it.
It was a simple one, really: an edit of the thus-dubbed Timouxi Cha Le Mei, adorned with a smoothing filter and the hands of some sort of pink creature wrapped around him.
It's bizarre enough that she might've done a double take at it regardless, but what got to her is the fact that it bears an uncanny resemblance to one Gabe Goodman.
She'd been about to immediately send it to him, when this exact application had occurred to her; in her hands, she had the equivalent of a Gabe kill switch. She just needed to use it properly.
Which brings her back to this moment: Gabe braces his hands on the counter, preparing to jump. Instead of trying to tackle him back, she yells, "You look like Timouxi Cha Le Mei!"
He gives her a baffled look. "How did you say the spelling difference aloud like that? and who is Timouxi Cha Le Mei?" he says, as Natalie elbows past him and secures the counter seat with a triumphant grin. She folds her feet up so she's sitting crosslegged.
Natalie giggles and pulls out her phone, scrolling through her camera roll until the aforementioned Timouxi Cha Le Mei has been presented to Gabe in all his glory.
Gabe chokes on nothing at the sight. Natalie says, "This is Timouxi Cha Le Mei."
"I do not look like that!" Gabe squawks.
Natalie gives him a pointed look. "You've got the same eyebrows," she says.
"So do Dad and I!" he argues. "You wouldn't say he looks like Timouxi Cha Le Mei!"
At the mention, Dad raises an eyebrow. Natalie gleefully tilts the screen in his direction, and says, "Dad, tell me I'm wrong."
"Dad, tell her she's wrong," Gabe pleads.
Dad stares at the image like a man conflicted, and Natalie knows that Gabe knows that she's won just from the length of the pause alone.
"Dad," Gabe whines. Natalie snickers.
"You look great, kiddo," Dad says, and Natalie has to catch herself on the counter to keep from laughing herself off of it.
Gabe deadpans, "This is the worst day of my life."
"It could be worse," Natalie says with a coy smile, another idea popping into her mind. "It could be in your not-boyfriend's camera roll in—oh, ten seconds?"
The speed at which Gabe practically throws the fruit bowl to the side and leaps up onto the counter to wrestle her down to it is probably a new record. Mostly because she doubts 'wrestling on the kitchen counter' is a common record to try to beat, but also because her brother is capable of many things when he's living in fear. She knows this because she's had to chase down a terrified Gabe more than once in her life, in order to save him from his own stupidity.
Fortunately for Natalie, this is the point when Dad sighs and decides to intervene. "Gabe, you're gonna make both of you fall like that," he says.
"Maybe the brain damage will erase this from both our heads!" Gabe exclaims, though he stops trying to push her as much.
Natalie cackles as she sits back up, phone still in hand. "You're gonna be haunted by this forever. Admit it."
"How could I not be?" he retorts. "Have you seen that thing?"
"Clearly, since it's been in my camera roll for, like, two weeks."
He balks. "You've been saving that?"
"Like fine wine," she quips back, slanting him a shit-eating grin.
Dad pinches the bridge of his nose. "Natalie, maybe don't psychologically torture your brother, please."
"Too late," Gabe grumbles. "I need a lobotomy at this rate."
"You should ask Timouxi Cha Le Mei to pay for it," she says.
Gabe wrinkles his nose. "If anything, we should take it out of your college fund."
"My college fund does not have enough money to fix what's wrong with your brain," she says with a snort.
He makes a show of rolling his eyes. "Rude."
"Gabe, Nat, the bus leaves in ten minutes," Dad reminds them, nodding at the time displayed on the microwave. "Put your Tim—whatever to the side while you actually eat breakfast."
Gabe raises an eyebrow at her. She shrugs.
"Truce?" she offers, holding out a hand for him to shake.
"Every time I close my eyes I see that face," he deadpans, but he shakes it anyway.
Natalie grins and hops off the counter. "Last one to the cereal has to set it as their desktop wallpaper for a week," she says, bolting for the pantry.
Gabe sputters. "Wait—"