"Huh..." Kai looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes no longer drowsy, though he still felt a bit weak. His body was slightly getting better. Luckily he got sick near the weekend, so the chances of he getting behinds by other are low as he'd only missed a little bit of school days.
"Brother, you're awake?"
Risa's voice was heard as the door opened without a knock. Kai turned to her as she walked toward him, stopping by his side. Risa stood on her tiptoes to press her forehead against Kai's.
"Hmmm... fever's gone, that's good." She said before lowering her head, her hands helping to straighten Kai's tie and smoothing out the slightly wrinkled part on her brother's shoulder.
"Okay, you look handsome again. Let's go."
Kai turned around, grabbed his school bag from his desk, and made sure to put in the envelope containing his part-time job application.
Leaving their house, the siblings walked to the bus stop. The weather today was really nice, and it seemed like this neighborhood was starting to become more lively.
"..."
Kai looked at Risa, a little surprised because usually Risa would try chirping about random things and start to get clingy on him.
Well... she's still nice to me, but it's weird.
Distant. Maybe that was the word Kai could feel. But there's no way Risa and Kai's relationship could become distant just like that. Besides, their relationship was already fine because Kai had made up with Risa.
Right, no way everything would go back to square one.
"You've been pretty quiet since last night. What's up?"
Kai tried to start a conversation with his little sister, who was acting a bit strange. The personality of his brocon little sister suddenly shifting to having some distance between them really made Kai feel a little unease.
Risa turned to look at Kai. Her palm again touched her left chest. Again, that loud pounding wasn't there. Was she really sick? Risa didn't understand. Her heart usually always raced just by being near Kai.
Risa had always admired Kai. Kai was the standard of a perfect person for her. She always felt happy and loved him, even back when she was little, she always said she wanted to marry him. But now she wasn't feeling that heart racing anymore. It was strange because it suddenly disappeared just like that.
"Big Brother..."
"Hmm?" Kai stared into his little sister's eyes. From the look in Risa's eyes, Kai could tell something was off with her. "You want to say something?"
"Can you kiss me?"
"..."
Yup, seems like my sister is healthy.
"I could die socially if I kiss you here." Kai of course meant a kiss on the cheek.
"..."
Kai sighed. It seemed like Risa wanted to test something he didn't know about. For someone that many people claim is sensitive to women's feelings, honestly, the intuition of a "Ryan" definitely wouldn't work when dealing with a girl that have screw loose in their head.
But as an older brother, it would be wrong of him not to make his sibling happy. Like people say, don't doubt your sibling even if their requests are weird.
So Kai leaned in and kissed Risa's cheek. His lips pressed against her soft cheek for quite a while. But after Kai pulled back to see her reaction, Risa's expression wasn't what he expected.
Risa just stared into Kai's eyes, no blushing face or silly smile. As if that skinship meant nothing.
"Um... Risa?"
Risa checked her heartbeat again. Nothing changed. Still steady. She then hugged Kai, hiding her face in her older brother's chest.
"Kai. I'm sick."
Kai was pretty confused about why his sister could change so quickly.
"What's wrong with this... my heart doesn't beat fast anymore. Usually I... usually I feel flowers when I'm near you."
Kai patted his little sister's head gently. He seemed to immediately understand what was happening with Risa. His sister was falling in love with someone else.
That was really good, actually really great if Risa could fall in love with someone other than him, because there's no way Kai would go down that... inc- yeah that route.
"Well, maybe you're in love," Kai said.
"Me? With who?"
"Why are you asking me? You're the one who would know."
"..." Risa released her hug from her brother. Her face looked a little disappointed, not pouting but just looking down, as if in disbelief. "This is wrong... I'm in love? No way, right? I only love my dearest big brother."
In the end, Kai and Risa walked again with some distance between them. Both Kai and Risa just sat on the bus and parted when Kai got off first.
Before Kai got off, he still saw Risa's face looking a little spaced out. But Kai chose to give her space. Besides, a teenager's feelings can change quickly.
Walking toward the school gate, Kai saw Lily getting out of a car. Seeing Lily reminded him of what happened in the rain that day.
I need to apologize to her.
Just as Kai was about to catch up to Lily, his shirt was pulled from behind by someone.
"Idiot... why weren't you at school the past couple of days?"
Of course it was Chloe. Kai let out a breath of relief. For some reason, seeing a girl whose face seemed to radiate "no thoughts only empty head" was such a comforting thing to happen after the recent events.
"I was sick yesterday." Kai opened his backpack and handed an envelope to Chloe. "Here."
"Hmm?!"
Chloe received the envelope, her face blushing a little. Seeing that, of course Kai said it was his part-time job application letter.
"Ahh, of course I-I knew that," Chloe said, putting Kai's envelope into her bag. Even though she said that, from the tone and expression Chloe made, she seemed to have been hoping for something else. "So... why weren't you at school last Thursday?"
Bullseye question. Kai scratched his chin, which of course wasn't itchy, to find a logical reason. Even though this girl's brain only had a few bits for lessons in class, Chloe was truly a girl who paid close attention to small details.
"Mmm... something came up suddenly, so I... skipped school."
"Hmm... something sudden, huh..."
Chloe's eyes sharpened as she stared into Kai's eyes, who stared back at her. A battle of who would back down first, and of course Chloe was the one who blinked first and turned her face away with a sigh.
"Fine then. Don't make me worry. You didn't even reply to my messages when I tried to reach you."
"Ohh... about that," Kai smiled and walked, followed by Chloe. "I turned off my phone."
"Ugh... you're lucky I'm a nice girl that become your buddy."
Kai and Chloe then walked while discussing Kai's plan to talk with Mother Maryn.
A sunny day. Hopefully nothing like the other day would happen again.