Marionette

Skies, Chapter Seventeen - Torikago [鳥かご]

A sleepless night was what met Amaya, even though in reality she should have collapsed already.

Reiko understandably was exhausted, so she didn't really spend a lot of time awake, and Yuta was silent the whole time. There were three times where Amaya had wandered into Reiko's room to check on her as instructed by the hospital, only to find that Yuta had wandered in already and was asleep along with her.

The unfortunate thing was that Yuta was a restless sleeper, and had a tendency to kick and thrash around when he wasn't emotionally balanced.

Twice she had pried the boy from his twin and dragged him out of the room kicking and screaming, but the third time she didn't have a chance to do anything before a frustrated Karma stormed in and dragged Yuta out of the room himself. That in and of itself was saying something, considering that Karma had been asleep on one of the couches.

After having to face Karma's wrath for the first time in his entire life, Yuta got the message and left Reiko alone to rest.

But that didn't mean he wasn't throwing the biggest tantrum in retaliation.

He slammed doors on his way to sulk in his room, spitting words that Amaya was actually astonished to hear come from a normally prim and proper acting boy as he did so.

But he didn't re-emerge from his room, even when Amaya had gone to wake him up in preparation for school.

He just shoved Amaya out of the room and slammed the door in her face with a petulant yell of defiance, leaving her at a loss of what to actually do.

The double-standards that Yuta had when it came to his two siblings never ceased to amaze Amaya, but in a twisted way, she wasn't all that surprised.

Whenever Amaya would get hurt, he'd be a nagging pain in the ass and complain about every little thing she'd do that bothered him.

Whenever Reiko would get hurt, he'd either go silent or burst into tears, and then he would cling to her like he was terrified she was going to be spirited away the very second he looked away for five seconds. To add to that, he'd drop his nagging tendencies he'd have for day-to-day things entirely and coddle the girl so much that she would almost run away crying.

And for Reiko of all people to get so overwhelmed from TLC that she'd contemplate fleeing was saying something.

Amaya didn't understand the connection that twins apparently had, but she couldn't help but admit that the contrast in Yuta's actions irked her just a little.

But at the same time, it was probably because he subconsciously knew that Amaya was only their half-sibling.

The twins were very obviously siblings with the same parents, to anyone who'd look at them, even at a glance.

Amaya was the one that looked very different from them, from the structure of her face to the colour of her features.

Of late, even her eyes seemed to look a little more different from theirs.

And it scared her to think that maybe she wasn't even their half-sister like she'd always believed.

Somewhere just after Yuta had made his stand on the situation and slammed the door in Amaya's face, Karma had disappeared without a word, as he did sometimes.

She'd shrugged it off, guessing that he might have had something to do, or he was going to school.

Class was understandably more fun than listening to Yuta throw a tantrum because he was an over-emotional kid who hasn't got his way.