4 A Completely Normal Sunday

Awakening to the sound of his alarm, Ryker sleepily reached out a hand and smashed it a few times until it shut up. The pain from doing so brought him out of his lazy state ever so slightly but was nothing compared to what occurred when he tried to fully sit up.

"Even after all that work it seems I failed in the end" thought Ryker as he slowly took the blanket off of him, revealing the sleepy face of Avlynn.

"Avvy, wake up please. You are putting bro in an extremely complicated position full of moral and biological intricacies…" said he whilst poking her cheek.

Avlynn stirred, her long lashes fluttering open revealing to her a slightly frustrated face that belonged none other than to her beloved older brother.

"Good morning Bro!" she said cheerily as she stretched while still laying on top of Ryker, further compromising his sanity.

"Ignore the softness and warmth. Its just skin, muscles and a bit of fat attached to bones made up of millions of cells. Yeah just think of her as a skeleton, a walking skeleton yep" thought Ryker in an act of self-hypnotism.

Now enlightened, so much so that even Siddhartha Gautama may have given him a nod in passing, Ryker looked down at his sister and asked

"What are you doing in my room Avvy? Even sleeping on top of me for that matter"

Avlynn looked at Ryker with upturned eyes once more, putting on a face of pure innocence while saying

"I was going to surprise you by hiding in your closet but when I hid inside some blankets I was taken by a familiar warmth and scent which made me quite tired, so I fell asleep. I didn't know it was you 'cause I was still half asleep"

Nodding his head as if he bought the explanation Ryker then asked,

"Okay my lovable little sister, do tell me what would have happened if I decided to sleep in the nude and you popped out yelling 'surprise' while I was basking in the glow of the morning light?"

Avlynn thought for a moment before meeting the glare of her older brother once more, her face completely and utterly serious as if she was speaking over the grave of her grandparents.

"Then it would have been a happy accident?"

Resisting the urge to familiarize his face with the underside of his hand, Ryker took yet another deep breath before playing out the 'imagined' part of what a kind and caring older brother would be like.

"Little sis, that is no good as we need to have boundaries. I am an adult now and you are about to be one, we cannot always be tied to the hip as eventually we need to live our own lives. Also, get off me."

"Big bro, we have a SPECIAL relationship as siblings would you not agree?" said Avlynn then in a mutter she said "and its not like we have anything holding us back ehehehe."

Tactfully ignoring the dark half of Avlynn as had become a habit by now, Ryker raised his hand as if he were giving an epithet that would resound throughout time and history for the next several generations.

"I agree that we have a special relationship, that of two siblings that can and will care and support one another throughout their lives. We will have one another's backs and help the other in their time of need as a FAMILY does. Also, please get off me."

Avlynn did not look too enthused about the wording used but just ignored it and instead opted to sway side to side playfully and ask

"Why do you want me to get off big bro? Its Sunday, we can sleep for a bit more there is no need to get up so early."

Reciting literal Buddhist mantras in his head at this point, in an attempt to separate the mind from the body, Ryker replied with

"Good habits require constant reinforcement, taking two days off every week threatens to interrupt said habits and can make us lazy if we are not careful. That and I do have important things to do today, I need to venture out to the city again to look for a place to rent."

"You are going to…abandon me…?" asked Avlynn, her voice going from bright and sunny to cold and dark.

Noticing the change Ryker's few good brain cells quickly frothed about as they tried to make a convincing argument that used both logical reasoning and passion that pulled at the heartstrings…yet all that was delivered was stammering out the facts one by one in a vain hope that his sister would see reason.

"No no, I would never do that. We are siblings for life, but you and I both know that I just finished my time at the community college and will be entering the big university soon. It is too inconvenient to travel back and forth all the time, taking up valuable time I could be using to study or work. I will still come and stay with you every weekend since Mom is leaving randomly as well as make time for any events you will have at school" said Ryker, trying his best to not completely give in.

Avlynn mulled over this, the chill that had erupted suddenly receding slowly but surely.

"Okay…I can live with that, but you MUST come over every weekend…and every break and whenever I have an event going on. Also we will sleep in the same room when you do come over to make up for all the days that you are gone. You can at least do that for me right? After cruelly and heartlessly abandoning your poor adorable younger sister to being all alone in a cold dark and dreary home with not a single person to keep her company day in and day out, surrounded by reminders of her departed family…" said Avlynn, her tone suddenly shifting into a sonorous one accompanied by obviously fake tears but still tears nevertheless.

"Okay, okay I agree to all of that calm down Avvy" said Ryker like the sucker he was.

"Heh, the living room counts as the same room, right?" thought Ryker like the scheming sucker he was.

"Yay!" cheered Avvy as she wrapped her hands around Ryker's neck and gave him a kiss on the cheek all the while squeezing him tightly.

"Damn plentiful modern society, how you have damned me so allowing such godly proportions on a mere mortal" was a thought that rang out somewhere in the dark recesses of Rykers' mind as a certain biological process finally defeated the Buddhist monks that had been desperately chaining the beast down.

As luck would have it, for once in a blue moon, Avlynn finally decided to break away from her brother and stepped out of the open closet door and fully into the morning sunlight that was shining through the window, fully showing off the cutsy pink bunny patterned pajamas she was wearing. A stark contrast between displayed innocence and the physical maturity that Ryker has experienced personally…

"All right now get out of my room so I can get changed, I want to get to the realtors office early so I do not have to wait in line" said Ryker as he quickly enacted the hidden technique that only the most enlightened of men would know when Avlynn's back was turned: the skill of the hidden tower.

Avlynn turned around just as he completed it, much to the relief of Ryker who continued his natural motion as if he were simply scratching his stomach.

"Hmmm, that's weird" mumbled Avlynn as her eyesight was focused on an area below the belt but above the foot.

"This girl…is she not as airheaded as I thought?" remarked Ryker who immediately quashed the thought and set it next to the dozen or so other things that he forced himself not to think about for the sake of his sanity.

"All right! now that I have survived such a task this morning, I am ready to tackle the rest of the day. Getting some cheap housing closer to the University shouldn't be too hard right?" thought Ryker as he dressed himself, as Avlynn had finally left.