Siblinghood. 006

After Denis' leave, my mom walked up to me and asked, "So, who really is that kid anyways?"

"Like I mentioned earlier, he is just an acquaintance of mine."

"Hm…you sure about that?"

"I certainly am."

"I see, if you say so." With that I headed back to my room upstairs and started cleaning that messy domain of mine. Those blades that Denis held…they don't seem to be ordinary. Something smells fishy. 

"It indeed does."

"...." I stood silent as the presence of this cold-blooded creature arrived in front of me, floating in mid air like a genie.

"The silent treatment, eh?"

"Not exactly…just that I am not prepared with my words."

"Hrm, fair enough. Also, art thou interested in that boy?"

"No, I'm not?"

"You seem like it though."

"First my mom and now you too?"

"Aye, indeed."

"Oh god…making my mom understand the truth is easier than making a demonic entity like you understand."

"Grahah. Let us leave chit-chats aside and discuss about the main topic." Makkura said as I took a seat on my chair. "Those blades that he showed thou, they art not ordinary ones. Those blades art specially made to unwind the accessories from the users' necks, it ain't a piece of cake without those blades as such accessories art just impossible to remove."

"Yeah, he mentioned something like that."

"No matter what, do not trust that boy."

"Relax, I've got this. I don't think there'd be any harm as long as he doesn't know that I'm also one of the element users."

"Those blades have the ability to sense the element users."

"He hasn't sensed me to be one of them, has he?"

"He hasn't, yet."

"That's good for now."

"Aye, only for now. That boy hasn't mastered in using those blades yet."

"Seems like it."

"And now, before I taketh my leave, I'm warning thou again. No matter what, DO NOT trust that boy, he could be friend or a foe, thou'd never know."  With that, the demonic entity which resides inside of this accessory of mine, completely disappeared and was nowhere to be seen, again.

I scoffed and started proceeding with my work. After being done with that, I headed downstairs to tell my mom that now I'm totally ready and that we could go and visit a doctor. But then, "Kei dear, we don't really have to visit the doctor. You seem to be all fine and healthy now."

"....." That was unexpected? 

"You probably just need some rest for today." She said as she walked up to the front door, "Well then, I'll take my leave and attend the work I have outside. Take care of the house, Kei."

"B-Bye, mom." And with that, she took her leave and I headed back upstairs. My phone was vibrating like crazy on the nightstand. Now who could be texting me at this hour? The answer to my question would be Carrie. But it isn't Carrie. It was someone else texting me using her phone. 

Carrie: This isn't Carrie texting ya now. I'm Matthew, her lil' bro.

Keiko: She has a little brother, that's nice. Nice to meet you, Matthew.

Carrie: Nice to meet you too, Keiko.

Keiko: What makes you text me at this hour?

Carrie: Sis is currently at school and I'm here taking care of the house. Mom isn't home either.

Keiko: Don't you have school too Matthew?

Carrie: Well, the elementary school I go to has given us a break.

Keiko: That's great. We don't have any breaks for now in our school.

Carrie: The reason why I've texted you now is that I need help in finding our pet bird.

Keiko: Hm? Seems fair enough. What kind of a bird is it?

Carrie: He is a cockatiel. His name is Chi-Chi.

Keiko: I see. Where did he fly off to?

Carrie: The bird-cage's door wasn't closed properly. He opened it completely and flew out the window. The windows weren't closed.

Keiko: That's really careless of you guys. Very irresponsible.

Carrie: Ye, sorry 'bout that. It's actually my fault.

Keiko: You've got any clues on which direction he flew off to?

Carrie: No clue. 

Keiko: I see, this is definitely not going to be easy.

Carrie: Indeed.

And with that, the conversation ended. New task, I have to find a missing cockatiel bird? I got another message from him stating that, 'He is a special one. An albino. Completely milk-white in color.' An albino, eh? This wouldn't be hard then. Such mutations of cockatiels are quite rare. An interesting one too…

Strange how Carrie has never mentioned anything about her little brother or her pet bird. Perhaps she doesn't want to disclose too much. But something really feels off and unusual about that girl. I find her to be strange in a different way.

Instead of rambling nonsense I decided to make move and find this bird. Wait, why am I doing this again? What benefit will I get from finding a friend's pet bird? That too it was requested by her little brother. Hope he insists on doing something back in return. I decided to head outside and start my hunt but all after making sure that I had locked the house doors, windows and had the house keys with me. Should be back before at least 6:00pm. Currently the time is already 12:05pm, around the time I'm supposed to have lunch at. My mom had prepared some lunch for me and kept it in the kitchen, hope I'm back home for lunch at least now.

I sneakily walked outside and made a run for it so that my neighbors don't spot me not staying home like my mom had asked me to and taking care of the house like I'm supposed to. To my surprise, after just walking for five minutes I found a pure milk-white albino cockatiel lying down on the pavement a little to the very corner of a brick-wall on the roadside. 

He seemed to have injured his right wing. He wasn't able to fold it off like his left one. I gently picked him up and texted Matthew about this. I headed to Carrie's house and woah the front gate doesn't seem to be in a good shape. It looks as if it had been hit by a vigorous cyclone twice or thrice. It was also severely rusted. Didn't they have any intention on changing it? 

"Aw man. Chi-Chi, I missed you so much. Gosh, you've injured your right wing, it doesn't seem to be in a good state, we need to get you to the vet."

"You should probably call your mom and inform her about this."

"Ye, planning on doing that." He cradled the helpless little bird in his arms and before heading inside, he warmly thanked me. As expected he felt like repaying me with something or doing a favor in return…

"Anything. If you ever feel like you need any help, you could count on me! Just call or text me through Carrie's phone as I don't really have my own, heh."

"No problem. Happy to help." With that, I headed to my own house. For some reason I'm deeply concerned about that gate in such an awful state. Why would anyone not change that bad gate? They don't seem to be challenged family facing any money issues. Or do they?

After reaching home, I went to the kitchen to have my afternoon meal, lunch.