I Have How Many New Brothers?! (Brothers Conflict fanfiction)

Chapter 26 - My Best Friend: Part 1

Sora and I sat in the trees in silence as we watched the neighbourhood come to life. The mailman shuffled through his bag, and in each house's mailbox he deposited a wad of envelopes. Some occupants of these houses came out in their robes and slippers to greet the mailman, before extracting their mail, looking at each individual envelope with a sigh, smile or shrug. 

The birds began to chirp and caw, mothers flying away to find food for their hatchlings, while still waking birds nestled on their branches contently. Flowers opened their buds to the sun, basking in its light gratefully. Bees buzzed around dutifully, carrying out their daily rituals.

I soaked all this in as the tranquil atmosphere began to fade into a somehow organised chaos.

The sun was now at full shine and I yawned. I looked at Sora and he continued to stare off into the distance. I poked his cheek and he jumped a little.

"Something wrong?" I asked, peering at him worriedly. He seemed a bit out of it today.

The soft smile he'd been sporting faded and he looked down, frowning. "Okay, so, part of it is... It's been a while and I miss hanging out together. It's a little lonely without you...," I put my hand on his arm to comfort him while I waited for him to continue. "And the other part is my parents... They're, well, being my parents again and something happened which I'd rather not talk about quite yet..."

"You can talk when you're ready. I'm here for you always."

He gave a grateful smile. When I first met Sora, he wasn't really an open person. He kept a lot bottled inside. In that respect, we were quite similar. We both thought that it would be best if we just kept these things to ourself because it wasn't like telling anybody would change anything. But we started telling each other about the things that were bothering us and found massive comfort in the bond of mutual trust we'd formed between each other. All I can say is I'm very glad that we did learn to trust each other, because he's helped me through so much that I wouldn't have been able to get through on my own.

"Sora... I... also have something I have to tell you... but not yet." He nodded and we were both silent for a while.

I stood up, assuming Ukyo would be preparing breakfast by now, and began to climb down the tree, Sora followed soon after. I hopped down onto the ground and Sora dropped beside me. He ran to a bunch of bushes and extracted a bag very carefullly, so as not to destroy the plants. I considered what Iori's reaction would have been if Sora had ruined his plants and smiled to myself, picturing Sora's panic and Iori's anger.

As we began to walk to the house, Tsubaki appeared at the doorway. "Oh, I was just about to call you... Who's he?" His attitude switched from bubbly to wary when he saw Sora.

Sora grinned and ran up to him, shaking his hand. "I'm Sora. You must be Tsubaki-san. It's a pleasure to meet you. Yui's told me a lot about you."

"Yui talks about me?!" Tsubaki's face lit up. He put his arm around Sora's shoulder and they turned their backs to me.

I managed to catch some of their muffled whispers. "What does she say?" "She told me that... And that you're..." "Really?! I can't believe... think highly of me?"

Sora's charisma never ceases to surprise me. I walked up behind them and gave them both a gentle push. "Let's introduce Sora to everyone, Tsubaki."

It felt like the two of them had been friends for years. Tsubaki agreed and the three of us entered the kitchen.

Ukyo was preparing breakfast. Azusa, Iori, Wataru and Kaname were sitting at the table. "Ohayou everyone!" They all greeted me with curious glances at Sora.