The shutters rattled against the
window, grabbed and released by the wind blowing outside. Mireille sat on her
bed, glaring at nothing and kicking irritably at her mattress.
She hated it. Hated. It was so unfair that Reagan
was allowed to come and go as he wanted, but she wasn’t allowed to leave the house for anything but school.
So. Not. Fair.
She couldn’t believe her mom had grounded her. It was just a little bit
of water! But no, Reagan sneaked out
and all he had been punished with was
to do a couple of dishes he would’ve done in anyway, but when she played
a prank she got grounded! It was so unfair!
Her feet stilled as a thought
jumped into her mind. Reagan had sneaked out and all he had to do was a couple
of dishes. What could be the worst to happen if she sneaked out? Be grounded longer? Get yelled at for a bit? She
didn’t know, but she wasn’t afraid of either
of those.
She slid off the bed, eager to
follow out her plan.
She didn’t get far before her
plans were foiled. Her entire family were in the living room, and there was no way she’d be able to sneak out
without being noticed. Reagan even had a girl
over.
“Hmph!” she harrumphed and turned
back around, acting like she just wanted to go to the bathroom. It was so unfair!
Her parents always favoured Reagan
over her! When she’d asked if Lucinda
can visit they’d said no, because she
was grounded, but when Reagan wanted someone over they were
okay with it?! It wasn’t fair!
She wouldn’t accept it.
And once again she was bored. She
hated it. Hated hated hated it. There
was nothing to do in the house, and
there was no way she was going to sit
in the living room and watch her parents spoil Reagan.
Unfortunately, Reagan was the one to trigger her traps in
the bathroom, long after his friend went
home.
He came into their shared room
with wet pyjamas and dyed hair, looking all miserable and lost, and Mireille
almost thought she could see tears gleaming in his eyes, which was stupid. Everybody knew boys didn’t cry.
He didn’t say a word to her as he
rummaged through his closet in search for a spare set of pyjamas with a sullen
and slightly hurt air around him. Mireille almost felt guilty, a little. She
hadn’t really wanted Reagan to get
caught in her traps. She was trying to make a point to her parents, after all.
Ground me all you want, I won’t stop. You can’t make me stop.
But she wasn’t going to apologize.
There was nothing wrong with what she did. If Reagan hadn’t been able to figure
it out, then he was just stupid.
He left the room without a word,
and when he came back again, the dye had been washed out of his hair. He still didn’t say anything to her as he
inspected his bookcase in search of something to read in bed.
Finally, she couldn’t stand the silence.
“You look really stupid with pink
hair, you know,” she taunted. She expected him to give her that hurt puppy look
he did so well, but to her surprise, he clenched his teeth and glared at the
bookcase, refusing to look at her.
“You’re lucky it was me getting caught and not
Blaise,” he muttered sullenly, finally deciding on a book. “Why do you always try
to provoke him?”
Mireille sniffed derisively and
looked away.
“Because he’s unfair, and I hate
him,” she declared glibly. She didn’t really hate her dad. She was just trying
to make him think she hated him.
Maybe then he’d stop favouring Reagan over her.
He was curiously silent after her
answer. Mireille glanced at him, curious about his lack of a response. When it
finally came, it was again not what Mireille had expected.
“You don’t deserve to have them as
your parents,” he declared softly, his brows lowered in an angry scowl.
Mireille blinked. She hadn’t even known Reagan
could scowl like that.
She immediately scowled back at
him.
“What do you know?” she snapped indignantly and turned her back on him.
He didn’t answer her, settling
instead onto his bed, book in hand. He ignored her the rest of the night, and
it was a favour Mireille was glad to
return.
He wasn’t her real brother. How
could he understand how horrible her
parents were?
_~…~_
The next morning dawned cold and
bitter; the first official day of winter. Mireille was warm and comfy beneath
her covers, sleeping soundly, but she was rudely awakened by Kiki meowing
loudly and insistently. Mireille burrowed deeper into her covers, trying to
drown out the noise, but she gave a loud shriek when something furry landed on
her face.
“Geroff, Kiki!” she yelled and
shoved the cat off her bed.
Reagan sat up blearily in his bed,
woken by Mireille’s yell, and Kiki hightailed away from Mireille to his section
of the room and sat in front of the closed door, eagerly waiting for the door
to be opened.
Reagan groaned when he saw the cat
and lied back down, throwing an arm across his eyes to block out the light.
Mireille scowled. Kiki was his cat, he should be the one opening the door for her!
She shoved the door open for the
cat, thinking about how Reagan was
supposed to do it. To her utter displeasure, Kiki merely stretched and ran
towards Reagan’s bed where she promptly curled up and went to sleep.
Mireille scowled at the cat. Stupid cat. What an absolutely great way to start her day. She stalked
off to the shower and with a content sigh, she let the deliciously hot water
wash away her irritation.
Half an hour later, Mireille left
the bathroom and went in search of breakfast. She rubbed her bare shoulders
when she entered the living room, caught a bit off guard by the chill in the
air. Her dad’s temperature charm on the house must’ve started to fade. She
didn’t really understand how it work – just that every now and then her dad
waved his hands around the house, shooting out brilliant globes of light, and
afterwards the house would be not cold anymore.
She kinda really liked that.
“Morning Mireille,” Reagan greeted her,
glancing over his shoulder with a warm smile. “Thanks for taking care of Kiki
this morning.”
Mireille sniffed the air
derisively, pleased at his gratitude, yet unwilling to let him show, but a
slight smile still sneaked onto her face.
“Well, she did wake me,” she pointed out primly. “And she’s your cat, so now you have to play with
me after school.” She was still grounded,
so if he promised to play with her later, she wouldn’t be so bored, which meant being grounded
wouldn’t be so bad.
Yeah, that sounded like an idea,
and Reagan agreed easily enough.
“Sure thing, Ray-Ray,” he agreed,
the words causing Mireille to scowl.
“Mireille,” she emphasised insistently. “Mee-ray. It’s not that
difficult. Stop calling me Ray-Ray!”
Reagan smiled into his pancakes,
amused by the familiar byplay. “Okay Mireille,” he agreed indulgently.
With a disdainful sniff, Mireille
grabbed her own plate of pancakes and joined Reagan at the table. Reagan left
to shower, and not long after, the school bus arrived, and a flurry of activity
filled the house as Reagan tried to get dressed as quickly as possible and
Mireille wolfed her breakfast down. They didn’t want to miss the bus, after all.
At school, Mireille was
immediately ambushed by her cousin and best friend, Lucinda. The other girl
threw herself at Mireille and immediately started chattering a mile a minute
away.
Mireille perked up, and suddenly
her day was looking much, much better. Lucinda was the best. She was. So. Much. Fun.
_~…~_
Reagan sighed when he went home
after school, tired out by the hustle and bustle of a normal school day. He had
a ton of homework, and he was
mentally tired – not only because of school work, but also because the Kahekili
girls were going through some very obvious and very interesting changes. They
were completely unashamed about the fact, and they dressed accordingly.
Reagan didn’t know how to look at them anymore.
“Mmreow,” Kiki greeted him,
rubbing affectionately against his legs. Reagan smiled at the cat and picked
her up, cheered up by her presence. He really loved animals. He would love to
get another cat or a dog, but he never asked for one. He knew it would be
inconvenient, and he didn’t want to be a burden to Lyra and Blaise. They never
made him feel like he was a burden or
in the way or anything like that, but…
…but he wanted to make life as
easy as possible for them, because wasn’t that what people did to those they care about? What was the point of living if you
couldn’t help others or make them happy?
“Mmreow!” Kiki purred in his arms, demanding
attention from her human and pulling him out of his thoughts. The days when she
had preferred Mireille over Reagan were long gone.
“Alright, you little flirt,”
Reagan laughed at the cat and lavished her with the attention she deserved.
Their quality time together was
broken by a low voice demanding his attention.
“Reagan,” Blaise requested, his
voice light. “You have a minute? We need to talk.” Reagan looked up, worried by
the serious words, but the slight smile on his godfather’s face immediately
reassured him that nothing was wrong.
“About what?” Reagan answered, curious.
“Your magic,” Blaise replied
promptly. “Your core is starting to stabilise, and it won’t be long now before
you come fully into your magic. When that happens, you’ll need to start
training. The last thing you’ll want is for your magic to go out of control and
hurt someone.”
“Okay,” Reagan agreed easily, feeling
excitement well up in him. He was finally going to start training. Everybody
knew the magical cores of children were unstable while they matured, so in
order to minimise accidents, every magical child got a binding on their core
when they started school, preventing them from using magic. Once their cores
had stabilised enough the binding would automatically snap, and they would be
considered mature enough to use their magic responsibly.
It was a moment all magical children regarded with eager
anticipation.
“Good,” Blaise approved. “When the binding
snaps, let me know. You’ll know when it happens.”
“Of course,” Reagan promised
earnestly. He couldn’t wait to start
training, especially since Blaise would
be the one training him. Blaise was brilliant. He was a dragoneer. Only the best of the best were ever chosen by the
dragons. Being trained under a dragoneer was a privilege very few people get to
experience. He couldn’t wait.
Any further conversation between
them was interrupted by Mireille bursting through the door, smiling widely. She
waved cheerily at her dad before bounding over to him to hug him and tell him all about her day.
She seemed to have forgotten she
was angry at Blaise. She chattered on about how she and Lucinda did this and then that and then seemingly everything else. Blaise listened patiently
to her, his mouth tilted in a slight smile.
Reagan instinctively repressed the
slight sting of jealousy, feeling a little like a stranger looking in. He had
no right being jealous. Mireille was Blaise’s daughter, and he…he was only the
godson.
Mireille didn’t
give him much time to brood over it.
“You promised to play with me!” she announced,
looking eagerly at him now that she grew bored of talking to her dad. “You
promised, so let’s play.” She blinked innocently at him, all excited and eager,
and Reagan returned her smile resignedly. He wasn’t really in the mood for her
childish games, but he had promised.
Playing with her… turned out quite
a lot of fun, actually. She had a lot of energy to burn, so the things she
wanted to do were things Reagan didn’t mind doing at all.
She had a mean arm with a pillow though.
The entire afternoon was spent
playing with Mireille, and their activities only ceased when Lyra pointedly
reminded them they had homework to do. Miracles above miracles, Mireille didn’t
complain, and Reagan was left in peace to complete his mountain-sized heap of
homework.
When the binding on his magic
snapped later that evening, Reagan decided his day wasn’t that bad after all.
_~…~_
The sound of fingers tapping
keyboard keys and light breathing filled the air. Besides the familiar hum of
the refrigerator and the scritch-scratch of Kiki sharpening her nails on Lyra’s
couch, those were the only sounds in
the room.
Joelle leaned close to Reagan,
reading what he’s written on their biology assignment on the laptop screen with
a confused frown on her face. She was close enough that the floral scent of her
shampoo lingered in his nose. The pendant around her neck swayed with the
motion, drawing attention to places Reagan did
not want to think about.
She still had no idea what effect her ‘fashion sense’ had on him.
“Wait, why did you write 23 chromatids?
Shouldn’t that be 46?” she pointed out, her brows still drawn with confusion.
“You’re thinking of mitosis,” Reagan disagreed. “This is meiosis.”
She scrunched her nose up in a way
Reagan found a little adorable, causing Reagan’s heartbeat to speed up
slightly. She really was pretty.
“What’s the difference?” she asked.
For a moment Reagan wasn’t sure if she was simply teasing him or not. They’ve
been going over the differences in class for weeks.
“U-uhm, mitosis is normal cell division, while
m-meiosis is…” he trailed off, unable to give the rest of the explanation as embarrassment
started to rise.
Joelle rested her head in her
hand, an impish smile on her face. The movement caused her pendant to sway
again, and Reagan suddenly realised the angle presented him with a perfect view
down her top.
“Cell division in the reproductive cells,
right?” she finished his explanation for him. Oh, so she did know. She was just
teasing him.
He blushed slightly and pulled his
eyes away from the view, trying to drag his mind out of the gutter. To his
complete mortification, there was a knowing smile on her face and her eyes
glittered with amusement.
She smiled mischievously at him
and fingered the collar of her top.
“You like it?” she asked coyly and
pulled her top down about an inch. “I can show you more if you want.”
Reagan promptly turned blood-red
and jerked his eyes away, blushing to the roots of his hair, causing Joelle to
burst out in laughter.
“It’s not funny,” Reagan mumbled out a
protest, frowning, but Joelle wasn’t finished.
“It is funny,” she disagreed, and before
Reagan mumble another protest, she laid a slender finger across his lips,
instantly silencing him. “But you’re cute, so let’s go to prom together, okay?”
Reagan blinked owlishly. He hadn’t
really planned on going to prom. His only real friends were the twins, and he
knew they would easily be able to find dates, and he didn’t want to go and be a
third (or fifth) wheel. He’d never expected
one of them would want him as a date.
“Okay,” he agreed with a tentative
smile, a smile she returned brightly.
Time passed in a blink of the eye,
somehow getting lost in the routine of everyday life, and suddenly the day of
prom was upon him. Reagan was a nervous mess, constantly fiddling with his
cuffs or pulling at his collar, despite Lyra’s admonishments as she tried to
get a decent photo of her son-in-all-but-blood all dressed up.
The limo meant to take him to prom
arrived far too soon for Reagan’s comfort, but he bravely squared his shoulders
and left the house, his stomach in knots at the thought of going with Joelle.
From the earliest days, she had always possessed the ability to fluster him.
The hall was filled with teens
when he arrived at prom, talking and laughing and flirting. He felt decidedly
out of place. He didn’t really like being around a lot of people.
“Reagan!”
He turned towards the voice, and
smiled broadly when he saw the speaker. It was Joelle. She was just as pretty
as always. He had been a little afraid that her asking him to prom was just a
joke, but seeing her grinning excitedly at him eased his worries. It seemed she
really had wanted to attend prom with
him.
The evening passed in a blur,
filled with dancing and laughing and just all around fun. Joelle never left his side, helping him navigate the crowds of
teens of ease, and when they weren’t socialising, they were dancing. It was a
lot of fun.
But in his honest opinion, the
best thing of the night happened when they were taking a break from dancing,
waiting for the queue in front of the punch table to get shorter and watching
Daniella dance with her boyfriend. Joelle was idly running her finger across
her lower lip, and Reagan had a hard time not staring at it, because it made
him want to do more than just look at
her.
Once again, she caught him
staring, and impish smile appeared on her face.
“Have you ever kissed someone?”
she asked innocently, but her eyes were sparkling mischievously.
The question caused him to blush
and look away, instantly answering her question.
Her smile broadened. “Me neither,”
she confessed,” but I’d like to change that. Would you like to change it?”
“Wha-“ He didn’t even have time to
finish his question before she leaned closer to him, and suddenly her lips were
against his, soft and supple. It caught him completely off-guard, but it was
something he’d been contemplating over for a while, so he gave in and
responded, exploring the experience.
He liked it.
He couldn’t say how long the kiss
had lasted, but when she drew away, he was a little disappointed.
“And now, with that,” she declared grinningly,
“you have to be my boyfriend. Okay?”
He blinked owlishly at her
statement, not quite believing he’d heard right, but there was no deception in
her eyes and she was clearly waiting for an answer.
“Okay,” he agreed bemusedly, and
when her face lit up with her happy smile, he couldn’t help but grin back,
excited by the change in their relationship.
He couldn’t wait to see what the
future would bring.
_~…~_
The weather remained blistery cold
as time went by, confining people to their houses. The days went by without any
real incident, and days turned into weeks, and then into months.
Time was spent idly.
Playing.
Training.
Dating.
Fighting.
Nothing truly of note happened.
People woke up.
Went to school.
Worked.
Came home.
Spent time with their loved ones.
Went to bed.
It was just life in its purest
form.
And then Mireille became a teen.
_~…~_
And now the drama can start again.
XD
Lol. Kiki loves route-blocking Mireille. There’s only one tile space between
Mireille’s bed and the wall, and that one tile seems to be Kiki’s favourite
space to sleep. It’s annoying, but kinda funny at the same time, because
Mireille always scowls at her.
They’ve got this love-hate relationship thing going on.
And whoops. Apparently, I chose
the wrong twin for Reagan. I made him ask Joelle to prom, which she happily
agreed to. The day after prom, he rolled a wish to kiss Daniella. Well. A little more warning would’ve been appreciated,
Reagan. But oh well. He’s stuck with Joelle now.
Also, please ignore the prom photo
of the prom-that-technically-hasn’t-happened-yet in that first shot of Reagan’s
room. >.> (I am a little disappointed they decided to waste all my effort
getting them dressed up nicely by getting their photo in their outerwear.)
I added two new families to my
town:
-
Archer (Junpei, Finley)
-
Sparrow (Dustin, Meghan, Jyoti, Jet)
Thanks so much for sharing them, guys!
