“So, I’m confused,” Aria’s disembodied voice sounded more than a bit perplexed over the phone. “I thought you already had a job. Are you going to quit that one?”

“I don’t think so,” I replied, legs swinging in sync as I sat on the bed, my backpack lying beside me. “After all that crap back in October and with my hand they cut my hours to the bare minimum as it is. I only work like four hours every couple of weeks, and I need the money. I can do both without a problem.

“I always figured shrines were more…forgiving, I guess,” Aria said.

“Well, I’m not a priest or anything, I just work there part time selling charms and stuff,” I piled my books into the bag, peering inside briefly to locate my pen and pencil.

“Dinner’s ready, brat!” Jun suddenly called from the living room. My back stiffened and my eyes shot immediately to the surface of my phone; the green “speaker” icon lit brightly. Maybe she didn’t hear it…

“Who was that?” Aria immediately asked. Fuck me.

There was no way in hell I could tell her Jun was back from college. I absolutely, positively, 100% had to keep Jun away from her. Firstly, no one deserved any sort of interaction with Jun except a war criminal and I’d feel bad for the criminal. Secondly…what? Did I not trust Aria? No, no, no, I trusted her. It was Jun I didn’t trust. However, that also didn’t make any sense. Jun may be many things, but I doubted he would stoop so low as to force anyone. I quickly realized the pause on my end was dragging into uncomfortably guilty sounding territory and finally bit the bullet.

“My brother,” I swallowed my fears, hoping against hope she wouldn’t delve any deeper into the situation.

“Oh! I thought he was at college,” Aria asked, dashing my vain hopes against the shoals of cold reality.

“He, uh, got kicked out again,” I mumbled, trying to rush through so we could move on to any topic not involving my brother. “So whe- “

“Sounds like a bad boy!” Aria giggled on the other end of the phone, causing my scowl to deepen to the point where what my mother always used to say about my face staying that way sprung to mind. “What’d he do?”

“I don’t fucking know,” my words came out more angrily than I intended. “I don’t give enough of a shit to bother asking, but you’re welcome to if you’re so keen on finding out.”

“Wow!” Aria breathed. “I didn’t know it was such a sensitive topic. I was just curious is all.”

“I-I’m sorry,” I muttered guiltily. “I don’t get along well with my brother and don’t care to talk about him is all. I didn’t mean to snap on you.”

“It’s ok! I get it. I’m the same way with my parents. No big deal,” Aria’s voice sounded genuine, but I got the distinct impression it was definitely not ok. “I’m gonna head out so you can go to dinner. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, K-chan.”

“O-Ok,” I sputtered. “I lo- “The line went dead promptly. To coin a phrase: it was at that moment I knew I’d fucked up.

“I said dinner’s ready!” Jun called again. My eyes narrowed to slits as I stalked out of my room.

“Don’t talk to me, Jun,” I spat as I stalked past him. “Don’t pretend we’re close. Stay the hell away from me.”

“Wow!” Jun teased; a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. “Is it your time of the month, brat? Why do women act so irrational when they’re on the rag?”

“You misogynist piece of shit,” I snapped, whirling on him. “Say that again. Say it one more fucking time. I dare you.”

“You two stop fighting!” My father ordered from the dining table. “You need to stop acting like children.”

“I’m only trying to have a little fun with Kasumi, dad,” Jun chuckled, walking past me with a flip of his hand. “We don’t get along like we used to, and it makes me sad.”

“Kasumi, be nice to your brother, he’s the only one you have,” My father admonished me.

“Lucky me,” I growled angrily, though whether I was angrier at him or myself I couldn’t accurately say.

“Are you and Aria having a fight?” Emi whispered to me at lunch the next day. I glanced over to where Aria sat chatting with Daishi and his knot of fawning sycophants and scowled.

“Evidently so.”

“Yuto and I have fights sometimes,” Mizuki supplied, her hearing unsurprisingly acute. Truth be told, it would unnatural if she didn’t have more acute hearing than a bat given her ears were twice the size. “Don’t we, Yuto?”

“Hmmm?” Yuto glanced up, the remains of some kind of berry present in his lunch staining his lips, chin, and cheeks a smudgy lavender color. I rolled my eyes at him to show my displeasure at his existence.

“You’ve got something on your face, Yuto,” Mizuki spit as delicately as one could on her handkerchief and, to the horror of Saki, Emi and I, proceeded to begin to clean his face like a doting mother would their child who’d buried their face in a bowl of oatmeal.

“Oh my God,” Emi gagged. “That is so nasty.”

“What the hell, Mizuki?” I shrunk back in disgust.

“Oh, oh,” Saki put her hands over her eyes and shook her head. “You shouldn’t do that, senpai. Please.”

“We fight sometimes, don’t we?” Mizuki continued to scrub Yuto’s face with her handkerchief, ignoring us.

“Do we?” Yuto didn’t seem to mind which, honestly, just made the whole situation worse.

“Remember in September when you wanted to go to the dunes, and I didn’t?” Yuto glanced skyward, the hamster running the wheel in his head redoubling its sadly ineffectual efforts.

“Oh, yeah! You didn’t call me that night!” The lightbulb finally went off in Yuto’s bulbous head.

“Friends fight, lovers fight, its natural,” Mizuki patted Yuto’s hand patiently, as if rewarding him for remembering something. “I’m sure once you apologize it’ll be fine, Kasumi.” I cocked my eyebrow disdainfully.

“What makes you think I’m the one needing to apologize?”

“How long have we known each other?” Mizuki smirked at me infuriatingly.

“Not that it’s my fault, but I tried to apologize last night,” I returned, sucking on the straw poking out of the juice box in front of me.

“Of course, it’s not your fault, Kasumi,” Mizuki patronizingly patted my hand the same way she’d done Yuto’s. I snatched it back and glared at her. “I’m sure she’ll calm down and you two will be as good as new.”

“Wait!” Emi exclaimed, jumping up so fast her chair clattered back behind her. “I have the best idea in the history of ideas!”

“Bold words from Emi senpai!” Saki clapped her hands excitedly. I felt bad for Saki. She plainly didn’t know enough about Emi, yet, to avoid encouraging her unnecessarily.

“Are you hawking trinkets Saturday?” Emi placed both hands on the desk in front of her and leaned forward until her nose just about touched mine, eyes staring into my own.

“Rude!” I scowled. “I’m providing a vital service to the public. But, yes. Why?”

“Saturday night,” her butt started bouncing up and down in excitement, “we are all having a prewinter break winter break party!”

“I’m busy on Saturday, though,” Mizuki muttered.

“Watching sewing shows is not an excuse,” Emi shot her a look which brooked no argument.

“But I haven’t seen that episode, yet,” Mizuki muttered, brought to her knees easily by Emi’s blade of righteous partying.

“Not a chance at my house,” I shook my head. “Not with Prince Charmless back in town.”

“My parents are going out of town!” Emi positively crowed. “We have access to the whole house!”

“Wait,” Mizuki’s eyes blazed with excitement. “You mean…the whole house?”

“May the gods strike me down if I’m lying,” Emi placed her hand across her chest.

“You might want to move away a bit, Saki-chan,” I warned her with a smile. “You never know the full area of impact on smitings.”

“Even the bath?” Mizuki persisted, leaning forward. Emi folded her arms across her chest and smiled, nodding sagely.

“Even. The. Bath.”

“We’re doing this,” Mizuki declared.

“Can I come?” Yuto asked like the moron he was.

“No,” Emi and I snapped.

“That’s not going to ever happen, pigeon,” Mizuki patted his hand again.

“But why not?” Yuto was plainly too stupid to figure out when to quit.

“It’s a girl’s night,” Mizuki explained as one would to a toddler who had just tried to put their tongue in a light socket. “It’s a time for us to be around other girls and to talk about things that girls like to talk about.”

“Probably periods,” Emi interjected. Yuto shrunk back slightly. “And leg shaving and nipple discoloration.”

“Y-You all really talk about that?” Yuto was unable to hide his disgust and I smirked at him.

“Kinda wrecks the mystique, huh, meatball?” I piled on. He nodded his bulbous head, looking strangely like an onion bobble head.

“Saturday at 6:00 PM ladies!” Emi crowed. “I’ll handle getting Aria over. You all just be there with your party panties on! Oh! And bring salty snacks. I’ve got the sweets, but we need the salt!” Maybe that would be a chance for Aria and me to spend some time together without the ever-present pressure of school bearing down on us. There was always Mizuki, but if we were careful maybe we could shrink the widening gap between us.