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IT WOULD TAKE, at the very least, an earthquake on top of a tsunami to wake Minami Chizue from her slumber; Or, one disgruntled Minami Takeo, whose slap could move mountains if he so wanted it to. Chizue never considered herself to hate her older brother, but there were days when she wished that someone had eaten the boy in the womb before he could unleash the horror of his existence to the poor, unready world.
She was sure that anyone in her position — That is, with morning breath fogging up her breathing area and the face of her ape of a brother an inch away from her own — would wish the same, no doubt.
"Ugh, you stink." She muttered, palm stretching out instinctively to push her brother away.
"You have school, get up." Takeo was quick to assume the role of leader of the family as soon as their mother was gone for work, flaunting his privilege as though he was all that intimidating strutting around the house in nothing but pokémon shorts and the remains of a bad tan line.
"It's so early." Chizue yawned, sitting up from her bed of mussed sheets and mountain of plushies. Her head of practically untamable bed hair sat awkwardly to one side, a trophy of her good night's sleep. Althought for Chizue, whether her sleep was good or bad, her morning hair never discriminated.
"Gotta lock up and drop the keys off with the neighbors." The older Minami raised his set of keys, complete with an Edgeshot keychain, to dangle in Chizue's face, a reminder of their daily routine to entrust their elderly grandmother to their caretaker neighbors.
The woman could hardly move with the help of her two grandchildren, let alone by herself. Chizue understood the dwindling threads of life, and even so she continued to hold onto them tightly in hopes that her grandmother would remain a forever engraving in her life, and not just a dwindling name on a decaying tombstone.
The Minami siblings did not have the privilege (or curse, as Chizue so lovingly called it) of attending the same school, and therefore home was the only place where Takeo and his infuriatingly loud voice and weird sense of humor could bother her. Shiketsu High School was where Minami Takeo received his education as a third year, along with some fellow friends that Chizue has grown (ugh) fond of over the years of incessant pleas and late night hangouts at their family home.
"Give me 10 minutes." Chizue kicked her older brother out of the room, crumpling his ironed uniform in her haste to get him out of her line of sight.
Chizue took the most of seven short minutes to shower, ten more minutes to change, and another three minutes just for good measure in front of her mirror, scrutinizing whether to wear her stockings or not.
