[Fanfic, 100% OJ] Sisters in Arms
Genre: Humour/Slice of Life
Length: 4827 words
B/D: This was a commission from Quincy/QuincyUSA on twitter, who asked for a story with Mei and Natsumi in a setting in which they're sisters. I didn't really have a clean idea of Mei's canon personality when I started, so I more or less recalled some vague things about classic!Mei that I might have misremembered and just meandered until I got the form she takes here.
There was a rumour that, from time to time, floated around the eaves
and the alleys of Ebimanyou Town. It spoke about a girl. A girl who
was immaculately beautiful and fair of temperament, fearless and
swift to act. A girl who demanded worship. But a girl who, more
importantly, knew things
about the hidden and secretive side of Ebimanyou Town and its
inhabitants. The man your wife was cheating on you with? She knew.
Who was your daughter crushing on? She knew. Was your local bowling
tournament being fixed behind the scenes? She knew.
If you, too, wished to know these
things, you could – for
a price. All you had to do
was come to the sociology
classroom from four ’til six on a Friday, money in hand, and
everything would be revealed to you.
It was a very interesting rumour, in Mei’s opinion. After all, she
had made it herself – hand-crafted it from old misremembered scenes
of spy movies and film noir, picking lines and setups until it was
suitably mysterious.
It had done the rounds in Ebimanyou School, but hadn’t quite made
its way out into the wider town yet. For some reason, grown men and
women had some doubts over whether a schoolgirl would know the dark
secrets of their personal lives. But the trickle of interested
students gave her a nice change from the sanitised journalism of the
school newspaper, and a little pocket money certainly never hurt.
The hardest part of the whole thing was setting up her desk. She was
really going for the hard-boiled private eye kind of appeal, or even
just a secretive back-room information broker, and that required a
certain ambiance that sociology classroom generally didn’t have.
She’d figured out how to tilt the blinds so that the setting sun
lit up one desk in the front, but she wasn’t sure she’d get away
with installing a hat rack or a few filing cabinets full of
miscellaneous dog-eared folders. There was, however, already a
half-flask of whisky in the teacher’s drawer; Mei hadn’t put it
there, but she appreciated it. It set the mood.
She had just about finished setting up her ‘office’ for the day
when she heard footsteps approaching from the corridor – too faint
and dainty to be a teacher’s. A customer.
“So, you’ve come at last,” she
said grandly as they walked in. “I knew you’d be coming. There
must be knowledge you just can’t live without, right? Take a seat.
Tell me what you need to know.”
“Hi, Mei. Gotta say, you’re getting a lot better at that speech!
I remember the first time you did it, you tripped over your tongue
and had to start the whole thing again.”
Mei frowned, but caught herself. “Oh, Syura. It’s you.”
Syura, for bizarre reasons that made
sense only to herself, had very quickly become Mei’s best
‘customer’. A regular customer, in fact, despite
seeming the kind of girl for whom schoolyard rumours and
interpersonal rivalries were a non-factor. She had her games, her
burning rivalry with QP and a small coterie of close-knit weirdos who
passed for friends, and she had never shown any signs of aspiring to
more than that. But for whatever reason, she was happy to stop by
Mei’s office every once in a while, cross her palm with warm coins
and listen to whatever little tidbits had been uncovered since she
last came.
“It’s a bit like a game guide for your social life,” she’d
said mysteriously when Mei asked. “I don’t like to look at them
while I’m playing, but they’re super interesting after the fact.”
“Well, sit down,” Mei said, back in the present. “Make yourself
comfortable.”
“Already done,” Syura replied, flopping into a chair and pulling
a handheld game system out of her bag. “Hey, are you still shiny
hunting? I spent all night grinding up some top class ’mons…”
It was an offer: rare virtual creatures for real-world information.
It was a trade Syura often offered, and which Mei sometimes took; she
preferred cold, hard cash, but time was money and she’d rather
spend Syura’s than hers. “I’ll think about it. What kind of
stuff did you want to hear about?”
“We-ell,” Syura said, and then stopped, figuring out how to
phrase it. “I wanted to ascertain if there’s any truth behind a
certain scientific railgu… I mean, rumour that’s been
floating around, and you’re uniquely placed to know about it.”
“I’m placed to know about everything,” Mei sniffed. “Who do
you think you’re talking to, here? I run the school newspaper.
Investigative journalism is my speciality.”
Syura was generally not a girl who worried too much about manners,
but she did at least understand that sometimes the politest thing to
do was say nothing, and that was what she said. Very loudly. When she
had finished her silent monologue, she pressed on with the matter at
hand. “Well, even so, you’re better suited than most. It’s
about your sister, Natsumi.”
Mei’s eyes narrowed; she felt her knuckles begin to itch. She had
not, in fact, heard any rumours floating around about Natsumi,
primarily because nobody was stupid enough to discuss them with her
in earshot. She’d gotten a reputation as a girl who’d fight
anybody over anything, but Natsumi topped the list of things she was
prepared to throw punches over.
“What,” she hissed through gritted teeth, “are they saying
about her?”
“Oh, nothing bad. Well, probably. It depends what you define
as ‘bad’,” Syura said quickly. “It’s just that, well,
people are saying she’s been getting awfully, um, close. With QP. I
was just sorta wondering if that was true.”
Of course, Mei thought, rolling her eyes. With Syura, it
always came back to either games, or QP. But in a sense, that was
what made her likeable. You always knew what vectors to go along when
you spoke with her, and it meant she had a surprising amount of
friends for a nerd. She was just easy to talk to.
“They’ve been hanging around a little outside school, I guess.
It’s not like that’s unusual. Me and Natsumi have known QP since,
like, first grade,” she boasted, puffing up her chest for no real
reason. It just felt like she should. “Besides, those two get along
well anyway.”
In fact, QP and Natsumi had garnered themselves a nickname in
Ebimanyou Town. People had taken to calling them the Dessert Eagles,
thanks to their shared appreciation of all things sweet.
Syura still seemed unconvinced. “I know, but people are saying
they’re getting along a bit too well, if you catch my
drift.”
“Fine, fine. I guess I can look into it. For the usual fee, of
course.” Mei’s eyes glittered with barely concealed greed. “Hey,
you got any dragon types?”
There was a simple, easy, and morally correct way to figure out
Natsumi’s relationship with QP, and that was to just ask her. But
if Mei had learned anything from Syura’s nonsense videogame
rambles, it was that the easy way was the easy way and the hard way
had way better loot. So, without further contemplation, some spying
was in order.
If you had told people that Red and Blue were actually top-class
espionage agents, many people wouldn’t believe you. They were,
after all, penguins. Very brightly coloured penguins, at that. The
only place they could conceivable camouflage themselves was in a
pitched battle between two factions of quirky, cartoon mercenaries,
and those were not as common in the urban landscape as tabloid
newspapers would have you believe.
What people didn’t realise was that Red and Blue were also utterly
spineless cowards, crippled by their semi-justified suspicion that
everybody was trying to cook and eat them. By harnessing the
unlimited power of rampant paranoia, they had become the world’s
foremost experts in hiding. They were also eternally vigilant,
keeping their ears open for any and all conversations on the
off-chance that they contained the word ‘dinner’. As penguins,
they also came pre-equipped with tuxedos, which were the cultural
garb of secret agents the world over.
Always listening and never seen, Red and Blue formed one of the
keystones to Mei’s information empire. The other keystone was Mei’s
uncanny ability to goad any living being into fighting her – dogs,
children, men in ties, nobody was safe from her pugnacious ways. In
the ensuing battle, emotions would flare up, self control would
dissipate, and usually some pertinent information came out of
it.
Unfortunately, Mei’s particular brand of aggressive journalism was
uncalled for in this case; she didn’t want to fight against her
sister, and she knew from experience that a fight with QP was a fight
you’d lose. So the penguins would have to do. She gave them
instructions and a packet of animal crackers each, and sent them off
to do their nefarious business.
After much hiding in alleyways, breaking and entering into several
mailboxes and a prolonged stay in an identical pair of trash cans,
the penguinious pair tracked Natsumi to a nearby diner, where
hopefully the patrons would be too busy eating things that had
already been fried to worry about flightless birds.
“Mmm… Q-chan, my cooking sense is tingling. Something delicious
must be nearby,” Natsumi said, tilting her head.
“That’s probably the burgers,” QP replied, her tail wagging at
the scent of frying meat.
As a dog with an inflated opinion of her own charm, QP had become
aware of a recent trend where cute girls ate burgers on the internet.
She had hitherto been under the impression that cute girls ate
burgers all the time and it wasn’t something to make a big deal out
of, but now people were making a big deal of it and she
wanted in on the action. If nothing else it was an excuse to eat a
burger.
“Well… I know you said to recommend a place, but please don’t
raise your expectations too high, Q-chan.”
“I trust your judgement, Natsumi. You’re the number one food
blogger in our town, after all.”
“Q-chan… I’m the only food blogger in our town…”
“That’s because you’re so good, you scare away the
competition,” QP bounced back, with the satisfied smile she wore
when she thought she’d made an unshakeable argument.
“You’re such a straightforward girl. I think that’s wonderful.”
It was the kind of thing that, if anybody else had said it, might
have been sarcastic. But sarcasm made a poor seasoning, and thus
Natsumi had no need for it. QP really was a straightforward
kind of girl; she had a belief in her friends that couldn’t be
shaken by misfortune, misconduct or even basic common sense. It was a
very stupid but endearing kind of support, and Natsumi was happy to
enjoy it.
“But I wouldn’t like to scare anybody away. It’d be nice to
meet some other bloggers.”
QP frowned. “I’d blog with you, but I only really know about
pudding, and I don’t think this town has a great amount of pudding
culture.”
For Red and Blue, who had established an outpost under one of the
nearby tables, this sentiment was somewhat of a surprise. QP herself
was more than enough ‘pudding culture’ for any one town to be
dealing with; perhaps, they decided, she was falling prey to
expansionist tendencies. One town was not enough. Maybe even two
towns were not enough. She wanted a controlling stake of the pudding
industry in every town, and the only possible way to do that
was to clone herself multiple times and establish a hierarchy of QPs
who would protect her business interests. They noted it all down; it
would run well in Mei’s gossip section.
“Hmm. Oh, but that does remind me… Q-chan, have you had a chance
to talk to our ‘mutual friends’?”
QP’s ears flattened a little. “Ugh… no. I don’t know if
Breaker and Eater have some kinda secret telephone line, but they
haven’t let me in on it. They just grab me when they need
something.”
“Me neither…”
“So the only way I can really contact them is to fly up to space
and speak to Breaker, but… uuu. Me and her don’t really get
along. She’s still prejudiced against pudding, and I think she
doesn’t like me because I beat her up that one time.”
“Really? I think… she actually really likes having you around,
Q-chan,” Natsumi said softly. “Part of our ‘job’ is we have
to make tough decisions, and I think Amami-chan second guesses
herself a lot… It’s easier for her if she can be the ‘bad guy’
and suggest the things we don’t want to think about, and we talk
her out of it.”
“You think?”
“Mmhm. But Eater doesn’t really do anything, and I don’t like
to argue a lot. Maker will stand up to her, but she has her own
things going on, and she’s not the toughest… so I think
Amami-chan appreciates having somebody who’ll call her out when she
goes too far, and who can beat her if need be. You give her peace of
mind.”
“Huh. When you think about it that way… I guess I’m pretty
awesome, right?”
“I think so. Nobody creates awe the way you do.”
Two tables over, Red and Blue were scribbling notes furiously. What
they were hearing was beyond their wildest dreams (which, to be fair,
were not particularly wild; penguins are not known for their flights
of fancy, or flight in general). Conspiracies, shadowy groups of
people, code-names, even flirting! It was going to be a news
sensation, and they were going to be given ample supplies of fish for
their part in facilitating it.
“Okay, that settles it. I’ll fly up and see her tomorrow. If
you’re free, why don’t you come?” QP asked, her tail a-wagging.
“You can explain the whole situation in person.”
“Mm. That sounds like a good plan. It’s usually a little
dangerous to go so far up, but I’m sure I’ll be fine with you
there, Q-chan.”
Natsumi reached over and gave QP’s hand a squeeze. Unlike the
penguins, she was neither incurably paranoid or a spineless coward,
and thus did not notice the rattling that came from a few tables
down.
“Oh, here come the burgers!” QP barked, letting go of Natsumi’s
hand. She was still at the age where any and all romantic signals
lost out to a warm slab of meat in a bun. “I can feel my charm
level going up already!”
“Hee… You know you have to take a picture with it, right? You
don’t become more charming just by eating it, Q-chan.”
“I don’t get to eat the burger…? That’s cruel. Cruelty to
animals!”
“No, no. You get to eat the burger. You just have to pose with it
first. Here, I’ll take the picture, and I can put it on the blog
later. Say cheese?”
“It’s not a cheeseburger, though…”
“Just smile, then. Here we go… and there! That’s a very
charming picture, Q-chan. It really captures your enthusiasm. You can
eat now. Just don’t eat too fast, or you’ll spoil your dinner.”
Usually, the word ‘dinner’ would have set off alarm bells in the
penguin’s heads and forced a hasty retreat. But on this occasion,
they had already left – with a notepad full of salacious details
for their master.
“You’re sure? There was flirting? And hand-holding? In
public?”
Red and Blue watched as their master began to pace to and fro,
agitated, chewing her bottom lip as she did. This wasn’t how it was
supposed to go. They brought her gossip, and she would exchange it
for fish and cuddles. That was how it worked. Never before had they
brought their master gossip that actually troubled her.
“It can’t be. QP’s way too dumb for romance. And anyway, she’s
meant to be polite. Isn’t that a character trait she had? So
obviously she would have asked me for my permission to date my
sister. It stands to reason,” Mei muttered to herself furiously.
“What does Natsumi see in her, anyway? Is it the tail? It has to be
the tail. But Nacchan… I just can’t see it. There’s no way my
sister is going out, chasing tail!”
She slammed her palms on her desk for emphasis. It mostly just hurt;
she had a very solid desk.
“And they’re going on a date tomorrow?” she asked the penguins
archly.
The penguins looked at each other, worried. Mei never asked for
confirmation. She was confident, unflappable, possessed of all the
foolhardy bravery that had been removed from her pets at birth. She
even had a talent for filtering out the countless conspiracies,
cryptid sightings and other miscellaneous nonsense from their
reports. But now, she seemed worried. By what?
“...No way. No way! There’s no way I’m letting QP date
my sister! Seriously, what’s with that?!” Mei finally exploded,
thumping her desk again. The dull ache only served to make her
angrier. “She gets involved with all sorts of dangerous people!
She’s a… she’s a dog of disrepute! I don’t approve at all!”
The penguins looked at each other, and looked at their master, and
decided that their presence was required elsewhere. Extremely
elsewhere. With practised penguin efficiency, they snuck out of the
room and towards the refrigerator, where they had a little bed set up
in the freezer compartment. They could play ice cube ping-pong. That
was always a good way to waste fifteen frosty minutes.
“Besides, anyway you look at it, it just isn’t fair,”
Mei grumbled to her currently absent audience. “She’s already got
a.. a… well, whatever Syura is. Plus, everybody in class pays
attention to her because she’s a weirdo and she fights crime or
whatever. I can’t let her date the cutest girl who isn’t me as
well. It’s too much power for one dog. It’s hubris, that’s what
it is.”
If left unchecked, QP’s unrestrained ambition would draw the wrath
of the gods. Therefore, stopping the dubious dog from stealing away
the affections of her one-and-only pure, untainted, slightly
knife-happy sister was actually an act of charity. Therefore
therefore, the only correct and moral thing to do was to
gatecrash their date, beat up QP and escort Natsumi safely home.
It was along these lines that Mei thought as she furiously reasoned
backwards in an attempt to justify her end-goal of picking a fight
with QP. That was the real reason she was so good at picking fights
in the first place: she applied nonsense to the situation until she
managed to convince herself the fight was worth picking. It was so
much harder for people – even people naturally disposed to peace –
to prevent a fight with somebody who genuinely believed in what they
were fighting for. Mei could launch a civil war over a bucket of
chicken wings and believe in it every bit as much as if she were
fighting to end world hunger.
It was all part of the service.
“Q-chan, you didn’t have to dress up.”
The very small hole through which QP’s face could be seen didn’t
allow for much emoting, but Natsumi was almost sure she saw a pair of
eyebrows move up and down. The rest was a mystery, but probably a
very sweaty one.
Rather than turn up for their ‘date’ in anything resembling
casual clothes, QP had packed herself up in the sort of parka that
arctic explorers wore when they set out from their base camps to be
eaten by polar bears. It was the kind of gear that took twenty
minutes to take off and involved a number of interesting buckles,
belts and zips that interlocked and sometimes counteracted each
other; it might have been a romantic outfit, but only for couples
made up of fashion designers, engineers, and puzzle enthusiasts.
It was also, it bore mentioning, noon. On a very warm day.
“I totally do,” came QP’s muffled voice once it had echoed
around the cavernous interior of her outfit sufficiently. “I
figured this out last time, but space is super cold! I was fine
before because my heart was on fire with the love of pudding, but
this time I’ll need to wrap up warm. Are you gonna be okay,
Natsumi?”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she replied. “I have a thermos
flask with some hot stew. It’s leftovers from last night’s
dinner. Would you like some?”
There were many people in the world who would have given their left
arm for Natsumi’s delicious stew, but QP was wearing so many layers
that she wasn’t even sure where her left arm stopped and the magic
of the textile industry began, so she bravely shook her head.
“I don’t really get why she’s gotta live in space,
anyway. I bet it’s super inconvenient, and not just for us. How
does she go shopping?”
“Hmm… Maybe she gets delivery.”
“Do you think anybody delivers to space?”
“I’m sure they do. The astronauts must want to eat out from time
to time.”
“Oh, that’s a good point! But it still doesn’t explain why
she’s up there in the first place.”
“Hmm… Maybe the rent is cheap. Miss Amami does seem like the
fiscally responsible type.”
“Huh. So, I guess even Sweet Gods have those kinds of problems…
That’s depressing.” QP tilted her head slightly, and an idea
rattled around inside it. “But maybe she’s actually super rich?
After all, I bet the house prices in space are… astrological!”
“That was a good joke, Q-chan. But you probably meant
astronomical…”
“They’re probably both.”
As Natsumi and QP wandered toward the outskirts of town, taking short
breaks to pursue snacks and ponder the vagaries of the interstellar
housing market, they had no idea that they were being watched.
Mei didn’t often go out on sneaking missions. She didn’t need to.
But after re-reading her penguin’s report, she had noticed a few
things that seemed inconsistent with their usual level of paranoia.
Namely, the space travel. At first she had assume it was some sort of
weird metaphor for lewd goings-on, the kind she shuddered to talk
about but liked to imagine. It wasn’t in their usual conspiracy
lexicon, so she needed to get a first-hand account – and to make
sure her hand would be the first to hit QP’s nose if anything lewd
did happen.
So far, what she had learned was that there was a reason all
those stealth game men with the gravelly voices and square chins wore
skintight bodysuits when they went sneaking – skirts just weren’t
a practical choice at all. Neither was wearing bright white on a
sunny day. But it was fine. She could work with it.
What she couldn’t work with was her own mounting and inexplicable
frustration.
“What is QP doing?” she hissed to Red and Blue as they hid
behind some mysterious but quite convenient crates. “She goes on a
date with my sister, dressed like that? And she’s not even
making any moves! What’s with that?! Who goes on a date with the
cutest girl in the whole school and doesn’t make a move?”
Red and Blue said nothing, but mostly trembled. They had a somewhat
divergent opinion on whether Natsumi was the cutest girl in school or
not, primarily because she was also the girl in school who was most
likely to be carrying a knife. Besides, they weren’t great judges
of cute girls, unless they were cute penguin girls – a rare but
valuable commodity in today’s modern society.
“She’d better at least give her some compliments. That’s
the bare minimum level of attraction anybody’s allowed to have for
my sister. And they’d better be good compliments, too! None
of that ‘Oh, you’re lively’ thing they try on me,” she
grumbled. “Mold is lively. Don’t try and make it seem like
an achievement just to keep breathing!”
She was teetering on the edge of a tangential rant that would flesh
out her character and no doubt find its way into the editor’s
column of the school newspaper in drips and drabs over the next few
weeks, but was stopped in her tracks. At some point in the last
twenty seconds, Natsumi’s hand had found itself in QP’s. Or, at
least, what looked like QP’s hand. It was honestly hard to
tell, because her gloves were roughly as large as her own head.
To an ordinary person, Natsumi’s hand finding its way into QP’s
was not as alarming as QP finding her way into mid-air. But Mei was
far from ordinary. As her heart burned with sisterly indignation, she
broke cover, hauling the terrified penguins after her.
“Hey! Hands off my sister’s mitts, you light-fingered fist
filcher! If you wanna hold Nacchan’s hand, you gotta sweet talk her
first, you pudding-brained punk!”
QP turned in mid-air, and even with her face obscured by the hood of
her parka it was easy to see the sheer incredulity written across it.
“Sorry, but what did you just say to me? The second part is
weird enough, but the first part was out of control!”
“Hello, Mei-chan,” Natsumi said. As usual, she sounded calm but
quietly pleased – as if she’d found extra money in the bottom of
her purse that she hadn’t known about. “Don’t you have work on
the school paper today?”
“The paper can wait!” Mei replied hotly, pointing an index finger
charged with justice straight at QP’s chest. “Listen here, QP! I
don’t care if you hang out with dangerous people after school, and
I don’t even care if you’re soaking up all the attention from
Syura and the rest of our classmates – but there’s no way in hell
I’m letting you take my sister away from me!”
If she had more time to think about it, Mei might have realised that
her true motives were showing. She might even have examined them, and
went through a process of self-reflection that would illuminate her
current worldview. But she didn’t have time. QP touched down
gently, rubbing the back of her head.
“Oh, right. Yeah, okay. I get it,” she said glumly.
“Um, listen, Natsumi. I’m, uh… I’m really sorry about
this. It’s just a… it’s just this thing with me, where
whenever I try to go anywhere, a bunch of people pop out and try to
fight me one after another.”
“It’s probably because you have a magnetic personality, Q-chan.”
“M-maybe… Well, anyway! I can’t really get out of it, so I’ll
just have to fight her, and then we can get going. I’ll try and go
easy on her, okay?”
“Go easy on me? Pfeh!” Mei spat. “I’ve been tussling with you
since we were little kids, QP! I know your weaknesses just as well as
Syura does by now. You won’t get away with going easy on me. Come
on – who the hell do you think I am?”
QP sighed, and gave the only answer she knew how to give – and the
only one she really needed. “Right now, Mei? I think you’re the
stage one boss.”
Hello again, cooking fans! It’s Sweet Blogger here. Is everybody
eating well?
Today, we’re going to be looking at a very special recipe. It’s
a heavenly chiffon cake that’s rich and springy, but still melts
away like a cool summer night. One slice and you’ll be hooked, so
please eat it in moderation!
All good recipes have a story behind them, and this one is no
exception. Actually getting the recipe was a lot harder than making
it! I’m not a fantastic baker myself, so I decided to ask my very
good friend and amazing
pastry chef – let’s call her Sacchan – for some pointers. But
she’s a hard girl to get ahold of, so my good friend Q and I went
out to talk to our mutual friend – who we’ll call Umami-san –
to put us in contact with her.
Of course, originally, I wanted the recipe so I could surprise my
sister, who’s been putting in a lot of effort with her newspaper
reporting. But just as we got underway, she popped out and challenged
Q to a fight! It seems she had some kind of misunderstanding.
As my regular readers might remember, Q can be quite ferocious
when she wants to be. I’m afraid to say my sister came off pretty
badly. But she tried her very best, and her pets were quite brave as
well. I think she was fighting for my sake as well, although it can
be a little hard to tell with her.
But all’s well that ends well. In the end, Q and I made it to
Umami-san and got our recipe from Sacchan, and we all made up over a
few slices of delicious cake!
Hopefully your cake-making adventures won’t be quite as eventful
as ours were, but if you’d like to try this one for yourself,
you’ll need to start by pre-heating the oven to 160 degrees
centigrade and separating 7 large eggs…
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