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When Kyouichi’s grounding is finally up, the first thing he does is bike to Touga’s house. When he gets there, he sees an unfamiliar car.
It’s bright red, obnoxiously so. And its steering wheel is on the left side- Kyouichi can practically hear his father muttering something derogatory about foreigners. Do the Kiryuus have a guest over, or is Touga’s father having some sort of midlife crisis?
Well, whatever. It makes no difference to him. He heads to the yard, where he finds Touga, a kitten, Touga’s very temperamental baby sister, and… somebody else.
A girl. She doesn’t look Japanese, but she’s also definitely not old enough to drive, so it can’t be her car out front. Nanami’s age, if he had to guess.
“Who is that?” He calls.
Nanami jumps, the unknown girl turns to fix a gentle but surprisingly intense gaze on him, and Touga turns around and smiles at him.
“I haven’t named him yet,” Touga says, holding up the kitten.
“The girl, Touga,” Kyouichi says, rolling his eyes.
Touga laughs. “I know, I know. This,” he gestures to the girl, “is Anthy. Anthy, this is Saionji.”
“Nice to meet you,” she says, briefly bowing her head.
Kyouichi nods. “Nice to meet you too, I suppose. I didn’t realize there would be other kids here.”
“This wouldn’t happen if you called,” Nanami huffs. “Why do you never call? It’s rude to show up unannounced, you know!”
“It’s also rude to pull people’s hair, and I don’t see that stopping you,” Kyouichi snorts, half-joking. Nanami is a pest sometimes, but the fact that she’s approximately half his size makes it difficult to build lasting resentment towards her.
“Ughhhhh,” Nanami groans. “That was one time! Get over it, you big baby!”
“That’s not the kind of thing people just get over, you little baby.”
“I’m not little, I’m normal-sized!”
“I could put you in my pocket.”
“No you couldn’t!”
Anthy glances over at Touga. “Are they always like this?” she whispers.
“No, they used to be worse,” Touga says, trying not to laugh.
“Can you prove I couldn’t put you in my pocket?” Kyouichi asks, now holding Nanami at arm’s length away by the forehead as she tries to charge at him, kicking up grass and dirt in the process.
Nanami backs off for just a second, then dives for his ankles and succeeds in knocking him over. Kyouichi groans, sprawled out on the grass.
Nanami, evidently satisfied with her success, backs off. Touga attempts a disapproving look, but gives up, turning his attention back to the kitten so he can pretend that’s what he’s laughing at. Anthy goes over to Kyouichi and crouches, leaning over him.
“Are you hurt?” She asks. She’s obviously inspecting him, and he’s not sure how he feels about it.
“I’m fine. Bruised, at worst.” It’s true, but the fact that Nanami can do even that much to him is a bit embarrassing. He prays she never figures out how to aim for the groin.
“Do you want help up, or do you want to stay there?”
Kyouichi squints at her. “Why would I want to stay down?”
Anthy offers her hand. “I wouldn’t know. Maybe it’s comfortable.”
Kyouichi takes her hand but stands up mostly on his own. She’s small, and he doesn’t want to pull her over. “So, why are you here? Where did these two find you?”
“The woods,” Anthy says. “In a ring of mushrooms. I don’t remember how I got there.”
Touga snorts, and Kyouichi sighs, trying not to let on that this girl’s perfectly straight-faced delivery nearly fooled him for a moment. “There’s no way that’s true.”
“Of course not, that was a joke. I hatched from an egg like everyone else.”
Nanami, who had been tentatively scratching the kitten behind one ear, makes an outraged noise. “Liar! Mammals don’t lay eggs, everyone knows that!”
“Platypuses do,” Anthy says, grinning a little. “Have I not told you about platypuses yet? They’re fascinating.”
“Platypi,” Touga corrects.
“Wrong,” Anthy says, expression completely unchanged, which gives her smile a sense of rigidity that Kyouichi finds somewhat unsettling. “That’s a Latin pluralization. The word ‘platypus’ is of Greek origin.”
Touga reddens slightly, and Kyouichi stifles a laugh. He also thought it was “platypi”, but it’s fun to see Touga be wrong.
“Alright, but seriously, where did you come from?” Kyouichi asks again. Surely she’ll run out of insane lies eventually.
“I grew from a rose bush and was raised in a barn,” Anthy says, proving him wrong immediately. “Nanami, did you know platypuses are venomous?”
“I don’t trust you, I’m going to look it up in a book when I get the chance,” Nanami huffs.
“Writers can lie, you know,” Kyouichi says.
Nanami squints at him. “No they can’t. Not fact writers, at least. You can’t just write things that aren’t true in a book and say they’re true. That’s illegal.”
“No it’s not,” says Anthy, waving a plucked dandelion back and forth in front of the kitten, watching him follow it with his eyes. “If you lie about a specific person, they can sue you, but you can claim dinosaurs live in the mantle of the earth and not go to jail.”
“I just said I don’t trust you,” Nanami says, rolling her eyes dramatically. “And how do I know dinosaurs don’t live in the mantle of the earth? I’ve never been to the mantle of the earth.”
She tiptoes over to Touga and whispers something in his ear that Kyouichi strongly suspects is “what’s the mantle of the earth?”
“Who’s our new guest?” Says an unfamiliar male voice with an audible smug smile.
Kyouichi turns around to see what could only be the driver of the car. He looks to be Anthy’s father- same brown skin and eerily bright green eyes. He’s wearing a shirt that’s almost, but not quite, the same obnoxious, eye-searing red as the car itself. He has an inscrutable haircut and the stupidest ponytail holder/hair ornament/mysterious orb Kyouichi has ever seen. He is, in fact, smiling smugly. Kyouichi has never felt such an immediate, powerful urge to enact physical violence on someone upon meeting them. This man has a face that begs for a fist.
“Kyouichi Saionji,” he answers, in a tone of voice that says I am a normal and polite individual who does not want to knock your teeth out, because his gut reaction is obviously inappropriate.
“Ah, Saionji! Touga, this is your friend from kendo lessons, correct?” Says the man, casting a warm, oily smile directly at Kyouichi’s best and only friend.
Touga accepts it with a smile of his own. “Yes. Saionji, this is Akio. He’s friends with our parents, he’s the one who brings Anthy.”
“I see,” Kyouichi says, normally, digging his nails into his palms a normal amount. “Nice to meet you.”
“I’m given to understand you visit a lot too,” Akio says. “So we’ll likely be seeing more of each other.”
“Awesome,” Kyouichi says, in roughly the same tone of voice one uses when accepting they’ll have to get a vaccine. He actually sees Touga’s lips twitch at his abysmal poker face.
“I’m sure we’re all going to be great friends,” says Touga, grinning, because he has an awful inclination towards needling and mockery that has probably taken years off Kyouichi’s life at this point.
“Hopefully. You seem like a lovely young man,” Akio says, smiling like Kyouichi is an adorably aggressive chihuahua, or Nanami. Kyouichi does want to bite him, so the comparison might not be entirely unwarranted. “Well, I’ll leave you all to have your fun for a while longer, I just wanted to check on you. Anthy, be good, remember?”
“I’ll be good,” Anthy responds, automatically.
Akio walks over to give her a kiss on the top of her head. “Of course you will, my sun.”
“You mean your daughter, right?” In that moment, Kyouichi doesn’t even care how rude it is. If they’ve all just been letting him think Anthy is a girl, mistakenly so, he’s going to deck someone. Probably Akio.
Akio laughs. “Oh, no, she’s my little sister. But I’m the one who takes care of her. As far as I’m concerned, she’s the center of the universe. My sun,” he says, pointing upwards at the actual sun.
Nanami is looking at him with stars in her eyes, and casting occasional glances at Touga. Kyouichi feels like there’s something wrong with what was just said, but he can’t pin down what.
As soon as Akio leaves, Touga is giving Kyouichi an insufferable smirk. “What was that about? You looked like you wanted to skin him.”
“…The sun is the center of the solar system,” Kyouichi mutters.
Touga snorts. “Yes, and?”
“No, no, you don’t get- the sun is the center of the solar system, not the universe-“ Kyouichi says, feeling a little like a madman but also completely sure he’s right.
“It was a metaphor,” Touga laughs, rolling his eyes. “The details don’t matter, he got the point across.”
“He could have gotten it across without saying something that’s just… factually wrong. He could have just said she’s… wait, what’s the actual center of the universe?” Kyouichi says, suddenly side-tracked.
“I don’t know and I don’t care, go find a book on astronomy if it really matters to you,” Touga says, waving a hand dismissively.
Nanami materializes right next to Kyouichi, apparently having moved in his blind spot, and scares the shit out of him when she speaks. “Take me to the library when you go,” she demands. “I need to know if the platypus thing is true or if Anthy is lying to me for fun again. I can ride on the back of your bike.”
“That is, cannot stress this enough, literally illegal,” Kyouichi sighs. He’ll do it, but damn can Nanami be annoying.
“You might have some trouble finding the right book without my help,” says Anthy. “The librarians can only do so much if you don’t even know what you should be asking for.”
“Fine, you come too. You can ride in the bike basket,” Nanami declares.
“Illegal and impossible, I don’t think I can take you both,” Kyouichi protests.
Touga laughs. “Fine, I’ll come too. Anthy can ride on the back of my bike. We don’t have time for this trip now, though, Anthy won’t be here much longer.”
“Next time, then,” Anthy says, gently petting the kitten.
Kyouichi, despite everything, is looking forward to next time.