Title: Crawford no imouto

Author: Chisha

Category: Humour/romance??? Maybe.

Warnings: Original character inserted for the fun of it. :) Also swearing.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, except for Emily. Now I wish I owned a few of the others, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't. Damn.

Author's Note: So far, I'm still having fun with this. I'll be going on a 2 and a half week holiday to France next week, so don't expect any updates within 3 weeks. Sorry guys, but even I need a break. I'll take my notebook with me for writing, just in case. :D

Chapter 2 - Shopping is Fatal

Everyone had gone to sleep, and only I remained. I was not planning on going to bed soon; I had things to think over. Today had been a confusing day, and I was not used to confusing days. Not anymore. Usually things went easy, were easy to control, no surprises. But today, one of the biggest surprises had come, one I had never expected. I had only realized at the last moment that it was indeed my sister. And Schuldich had brought her in here.

Of course, she was probably as evil as I was at that particular moment, and I had told her she could stay, because I'd already seen myself give in to her. I cannot refuse a family member, even if she is an annoying brat. Maybe she grew up. Maybe she is not an annoying brat anymore.

Indeed, she grew up. Most probably there were still some childhood traces left, but if need be, I could erase those easily. If SZ agreed, she would even be a good asset to Schwarz.

Hell, even if SZ did not agree, I mused with a slight grin.

It sure had been long since I last saw her. Years and years ago… she was seventeen now. That meant she was still going to school, but had probably already learned to drive a car. Great, I would not have to drive her around Tokyo all the time. That was a relief.

Schuldich would be giving trouble for certain, though. That was a small problem I had to overcome. Schuldich usually gave in if you threatened with putting him in Farfarello's room, and even if that did not work, my authority was enough to calm him down.
But… if something was bothering him, he was not so easy to control. He was much too aware of his own powers and possibilities to let an obstacle slow him down. I would just have to glare at him constantly, maybe hit him in the face a few times if he really did not listen.

Schuldich and Nagi had been particularly quiet, though. Emily had gone into Farfarello's room to "meet" him, and had caught his knife before it hit her. I had noticed her amusement as she presented it to Schuldich and Nagi.

Still, the two had been particularly quiet. Nagi was always quiet, of course, but when Schuldich was quiet, I had reasons to be suspicious. A quiet Schuldich meant brooding. And brooding meant trouble from the redhead. All the more reason to keep an extra eye on him.

Finally having gone over all the possibilities, I decided to call it a day. I had an appointment at Takatori's office, and I would seriously hate to be late. He had to think we were crawling for him, so tardiness would spoil that image a little.

A little was all it took for Takatori to be suspicious, though. Probably a bad conscience.

***

'Please, Brad, take me shopping!'

I consulted my seemingly endless patience once more as I repeated for the third time, 'I have things to do, Emily. Not now. And please speak Japanese; you need to lose your accent if you are going to attend college on Monday.'

I could tell she was pouting even though I was not looking. I acted as if I was concentrating on the book in front of me, but in fact I was paying all the attention I had. Just to be sharper and stricter in answering.

She sighed, but tried in Japanese, as if it would get me to give in, 'Onegai, oniichan! Take me shopping!'

'Do not ever call me oniichan.' Seriously, if Schuldich ever heard that I would have to kill him for calling me that all the time. Because I was sure he was going to. As the leader of Schwarz, I demanded respect - and I got it from all its members. Emily was the flaw in this. She could no longer call me anything she wanted.

'… Sorry.'
She sounded sincerely disappointed, so I glanced over the pages to see how disappointed she was. The damage did not look too bad, so I looked back at the fine print on the ivory coloured sheets.

'Onegai, Brad?'

Better. Much better. She even sounded begging. I had a vision of her whining all over me for the rest of the day, so I decided to change that before it actually happened.
Just when she opened her mouth again, I slightly raised my right hand and put the book down. 'Fine. But speak Japanese from now on, or the deal is off. And I have to pay the Jigen Party vice-president a visit afterwards, so you will behave when we get there.'

'You're dragging me with you to some old fag?'

'Emily.'

'Hai!' She even saluted, to try and piss me off some more, most probably. Next time she was going to go in the car on her own. It was that I needed a car today, else I would never have given in.

I really hoped she would indeed behave, especially since the other Schwarz members were going to be there, too. Schuldich was gone for the moment, and who knew what Nagi and Farfarello were doing, but they would all be present during that visit to Takatori. They knew they had to.

As she went to get her purse from Schuldich's ex-room, I watched her back disappear around the door, sighing inwardly. This was going to be a long day. Why had destiny put her with me at this crucial moment in SZ's plans?

Fortunately, she was quiet for almost all of the trip to the nearest mall, so I could refill my seemingly endless patience a bit. I remembered her ability to drain anyone's patience in the most infuriating ways she could think of.
She acted like a child at times, but only to the people she knew. Me, for instance. I furrowed my brow at the car in front of me as I took a right turn. Almost there, so we could get it all over with and get to the appointment at Takatori Reiji's office.

'Bradley?'

Something suddenly clicked in my mind as I heard her say that. It was not Schuldich who had given me that nickname. It was her, and Schuldich had just dug it up from my memories of long, long ago.

'Hmm…' I did not see the point in actually formulating a sentence to let her know I was listening. I had never done that, so why now?

'Why do I have to get rid of my accent?'

I clearly heard the reason why. Again. She was smart enough to keep speaking Japanese to me now, as she did with Nagi, Schuldich, everyone else. Her accent was bad enough to make me have to concentrate on what she said, else I would barely be able to make out what she was saying.

'Because with an accent like that, nobody is going to be able to understand you,' I replied, squeezing the car in between two vans. 'Get out. We're here.'

Her smile made her look much younger. She sure smiled often, for someone as mean as she was.
Why did I even bother? She was just a sister, a sister I had not seen in ages. I had done all the necessary embraces and other things that came with "having family", and now I was driving her around as if I was her sweetest brother ever.

I was just her brother. Nothing more, nothing less. There was no bond between us like siblings in Japan always had.

'Uh… Brad?'

Since it was a sunny day, I noticed that not only I was putting on shades. She switched her own glasses for sunglasses as well; I could see her do it from the corner of my eye as she got out of the car.

'What now?'

'Can you help me with the kanji?'

At least she knew it was called kanji. That was a start. 'Of course.'

'I never got enough time to learn all that. I know some… but not all.'

'Of course.'
I followed her through the streets, avoiding the chances of bumping into people before the chances were even there. Bumping into people was something I hated; the unnecessary contact was easy to avoid.
She got into almost every store a girl would be interested in, burning with curiosity. I could see the happiness on her face.
God knew where she had gotten all the money to buy all those clothes from. I noticed the only kind of clothing she bought was decent, but tight and usually short, too. Only the kind of clothing that would make her look as sophisticated and well-educated as possible.
I guessed I was the one to blame for that. I had always taken care of my own appearance, so that I could set a certain image of myself in the minds of others. How I appeared was especially important lately, if you asked me. When dealing with certain people, you could never be too thorough.
At least Takatori would not be alarmed by her presence that way. She was just the same as me in her choice of appearance.

I never went into any of the stores, but waited outside, observing the people around me. They were not particularly interesting; horribly predictable.

I glanced at my watch; almost time for that appointment. I had to get her out of this mall before she discovered even more stores and I had to carry even more bags. This was humiliating to say the least. No one here knew me, but being used like that was one of the things I disliked.

'We'll be leaving soon, Emily.'

'Hai!'

All this talking to the people in the stores had cleared away some of the heavy accent. So there was a small advantage to this wasted morning after all.

'Oh Brad! Look at that cute flower shop there! Can I go in there before we go? Onegai?'

The "ai" was a long, drawn out one that sounded too cute for her own good. If I gave her this last thing, she would be satisfied and behave when we got to Takatori's office. 'Fine.'

Again, I was left to watch her disappear into the so-manieth shop, holding the bags in both of my hands, waiting for her to emerge so we could leave.

When she finally came out, she was holding a colourful flower arrangement, and I could smell the flowers even before she got in range to tell me how nice the people in the store were.
Too nice, if you asked me.

She started ranting as soon as I was in hearing range, 'Those guys from that shop are so nice! One of them said I looked pretty,' of course, that always did it for a girl her age, 'and he did much better at it than Schuldich, too!'

Ah, of course. Schuldich had tried something. I could have expected that. The fool always wanted information, and if not, he wanted appreciation. I certainly would have to keep an eye on that man. I could guess why Schuldich's flattery had not worked on her; she had been expecting it, knowing that if he was working with me, it could never be a true compliment.

'The blond, tall guy gave me these for free, but he was kind of a slime, if you ask me,' she rambled on about her visit to that small store, as I noted the sign that had the shop's name written on it in kanji.

Koneko No Sumu Ie… Kitten in the House. An interesting name, which I had to remember for some odd reason, according to my own instincts.

'The two younger guys were much nicer, not as fake as the other one. And there was this other guy, but he was a jerk if you ask me.'

So four young men running a flower shop?
Schuldich would have to look into that one. I had to remember this spot.

'The brown-haired guy was cute, but I like the youngest, I think he's about my age. Maybe he's in the same school as me… He looked good…'

The last of her sentence was lost in a content sigh and I watched her from the corner of my eye. Was it me or was she smitten with one of these Japanese already…

~~~

Author's Note: Well, that's it… A short introduction to how Brad Crawford feels about having his sister back around him. And you can guess what's with that last thing ;)
This is going to go so wrong, tee hee.

Misura: Yeah, for Crawford, that was an emotional moment. The guy's a total bastard, isn't he? ;) Well at least he's a cool one at it.

TigerEyes: Oneechan! I see you're reading my Weiss Kreuz stuff too now? That's cool, always love getting those encouraging reviews from ya :)

SoulFire: Ah, that's a nice, long, constructive review. I love those ^__^ I think you know why I decided to get a different POV for this chapter, hm? And yeah… Crawford embracing someone. It's totally new. That's why I just had to try. There was no affection in that, hm? And yeah… Schuldich's annoying ;) A relationship between him and Em? Hm. Maybe. At least you provided me with a nickname for her now. If Schuldich wishes it, there may be a relationship between the two.

Japanese words for the uninitiated (in order of appearance):

Onegai: Please

Oniichan: Yes, that was a pretty daring one. A younger sister would call her brother oniichan (brother) or oniisan (big brother). Now you get why he got pissed ;)

Kanji: It's those weird Japanese characters no one can read ;)

Hai: An easy one. It simply means "yes"
And that concludes today's lesson.