Worlds Away

CHAPTER ONE

dedicated to HER because of her amazing poetry and her support for every single book that i've written so far! xx

CHAPTER ONE

"So this is what you meant by 'working at home'." Great. It's the brother - with his neatly combed hair and raccoon-eyes, and a tie-pin snug on the pinstriped fabric. In one swift motion, I cross out the tab and spin around in the swivelly chair - a girl's gotta pivot when her arse wants to - and clasp my hands on my knees, painting on the most promising employee expression on my face I can muster.

"Yes, brother-dear?"

Derek rolls his eyes, black as bowling balls, the ones we happen to share, and clucks his tongue at me. "I thought the middle-aged men like me were supposed to be the rotten one. But look at this family", he lets out a harsh chuckle, "you're a terrible sister."

"I know. And would you mind? I kind of just graduated, like, yesterday at - " I hold up my wrist to indicate the absence of a watch, "five past freckle-on-wrist o'clock. Seems pretty rushed for me to get started and kicking into a business corporation like you."

"I recall someone saying that they were utterly sick of school and no way in hell would She get a place in college and so she was going to Work From Home to contribute to this family's finances that are currently only being paid by me!"

I swear he said moi. Seriously, whenever my brother goes all French on me, I know he's spitting mad at a spitting image of our late mother when she was pissed with us. All my life, Derek has been the picture-perfect Chinese son, with his tidy appearance and behavior starkly in contrast to my rowdy one. He brought home A's, he brought home the pots of gold in the end, he was the one who paid for the final hospitals my parents went to - me? I was just there. A mere shell of himself. Clearly, the Chinese-Family-Hardworking genes had skipped me, the youngest.

Wait, I actually did have one gene - I could chopstick up some rice and noodles faster than you could slurp down a chocolate pudding at Judy's, and that says something. Her puddings her as sweet as they are slinky down your throat.

But that was the problem. Eating too much and too often gave me body-confidence issues, not being able to make honor roll like the rest of my Chinese comrades still gave me overall confidence issues.

Anyways, who said that I wasn't working? I was simply working from home - just because he'd caught me during a writing break, re-watching Ouran High School Host Club and wishing for a season 2, didn't mean that all was lost. I had, in fact, been tying up the loose ends of chapter twelve and a half - chapters and a halves were more romantic than anything, and considering I was trying to write a darned romance cliche novel with predictable make out/kiss scenes, I had to get in the mood.

Thus, Ouran.

"Are you even listening?"

"No." I reply honestly. "Honesty is the best policy", I add chirpily, for good measure.