Walking in the front door, things in the apartment instantly felt off. It wasn’t that any of the furniture was missing, or anything had been majorly moved, just everything looked a little different. Like the carpet looked like it was a slightly different color, and the surfaces of stuff looked more shiny. That’s when it struck me, the apartment was clean. Like really clean. The carpet had been freshly vacuumed, the coffee table had been wiped down, and there was no sign of dust anywhere.
    I took a slow turn around, taking in the sights I’d never seen before.
    “Wow, it’s really tidy in here.”
    I pulled in a big lung full of air.
    “It even smells pine fresh.”
    Vegas shrugged.
    “Yeah, we like keeping it clean.”
    Reno gave an uninterested glance around.
    “Yeah, we always keep it like this.”
    They always keep it clean? 
    It was never clean before I was in the hospital. 
    An uneasy feeling twitched through my shoulders.
    Yet more things had changed while I was away. 
    My mind starting running around in circles. 
    Why had they started cleaning while I wasn’t here? Was there something about me being around that made them not clean before? Did Jiro make them clean now? What happened?
    I gave the twins a bright smile.
    “It looks really great in here.”
    I better try my best not to mess it up.
    A teeny hand wrapped around mine and gave a few quick little tugs. Tina was at my side, looking up at me with her big blue eyes.
“Big Sister, do you want to see my room? I got lots of animals and toys and pictures.”
I totally already knew exactly what Tina’s room looked like. After all, half the stuff in there I got for her. But then, I thought I knew what the apartment looked like too.
I gave Tina a nod.
“Take me to your throne room!”
Tina giggled and skipped, tugging me along behind her.
Walking into Tina’s room was like walking into a stuffed animal safari. There were teddy bears, and plushy bunnies, and kitties heaped into the corners of the room. There were soft, velvety monkeys and fluff covered exotic birds hanging in a toy hammock. There were stuffed toy zebras, giraffes, tigers, and lions mounded on the dresser and there were velvet covered unicorns, cubby dragons, and glittery sea monsters heaped on the bed. The bigger plushies dominated the back of the room. Cuddly dinosaurs, emus, and an over sized penguin leaned against the back wall, like glassy eyed bouncers. A velvet T- Rex taller than me loomed over the squat little crafts table and toy box that was chilling in the center of Tina’s room. There was barely any space to step without tripping over another soft, squishy toy, just a narrow little path leading to the bed and the table. 
A couple years ago we had tried to cut back on Tina’s plushy addiction, but she had thrown a fit of epic proportions the likes of which we had never seen before. 
Jiro is still traumatized. 
We never tried to take away her animals after that. 
Giving the room another once over.
Huh, was there something missing in here?
Tina would have freaked if there was, right?
It was about an hour later when Noah ambled in and knelt next to where I was sitting on Tina’s bedroom floor. She was showing off her latest master piece to me and I was properly “Oooing” and “Ahhing”.
    I leaned in and got a look at the drawing. I titled my head and squinted at the colors scribbled across the paper.
    “Oh, are these rainbow wildebeests?”
    Noah winced.
    “Kari, I don’t think –“
    Tina clapped excitedly.
    “They are!”
    Yeah, after having to decode Tina’s artwork for years, I’d become a pro at deciphering colorful blobs.
Tina looked at me with surprised eyes.
“Wow, Big Sister, you’re really good at this.”
A little pout formed on her adorable little face 
“No one ever gets my art right.”
No, I did, she just didn’t remember it anymore.
I could feel the smile fading off of my face as I stared at the scribbly picture.
Noah nudged my shoulder with his.
“Kari, did you want to go –“
That’s when the twins burst through the door.
“COUSIN!”
Vegas scooped me up by my armpits and Reno snagged my ankles. They swung me like a hammock between them as they hauled me out the door, across the living room, and into their room. Noah was angrily squawking and following us the whole way.
The twins room was tiny for two tall and gangly teen boys. Like all of the smaller rooms in the apartment, their’s was narrow and deep, meaning their big chunky furniture sucked up most of the space. One wall was crowded with a bunk bed and an over stuffed chair, the other was lined with two desks heaped with laptops, games, comic books, and game rule books. The walls were plastered with posters of RPG games I’d never heard of. The floor was carpeted with dirty clothes, candy wrappers, soda cans, and empty chip bags. The whole place was filled with the standard dude funk of smelly socks, stale nacho chips, and the fumes of Raging Red energy drinks.
Hmm, I guess their cleaning fad hadn’t reached to their own room.
The twins gave me one last big swing, then let go. 
“Heave ho!”
I went sailing through the air.
“EEEEEEEEE!”
To bounce to a stop on the bottom bunk of their bed.
While I struggled to get myself up right again after my wild ride, Vegas scurried over to his desk, snagged a big box off of the top and held it up for my inspection.
“Check it, we got a dance paaaaad~”
My jaw fell open.
“What? Those are super expensive.”
Vegas smirked.
“We found a used one on Freebay.”
Reno plopped himself down on his desk next to Vegas. He held up a much smaller, slimmer box.
“The new Dance Dance Apocalypse game came out.”
This had me bolting up right and gasping.
“Yus, gimme gimme!”
Reno quirked an eyebrow.
“Do you think you can beat this one?”
I bounced on the bed.
“I totally can, or I will die trying!”
We all had to scurry around to shove the clothes covering the floor over into a heap to make a clear space for the dance pad, and it took a moment for the twins to get the game running on their crappy old laptops, but the new version of the game was even more epic than the last one. 
We spent the next hour shaking our booties, only taking a break for Jiro’s home made lunch. 
Not surprisingly, he made okayu, Japanese rice porridge. Standard Jiro cooking for anyone he thinks is sick. Like little ol’ me.