tease • edogawa ranpo

one ; sherlock and the suspenders-boy

Life would be entirely too boring to live it how it were intended to be.

At least that's what I've always told myself. It's a mindset I've grown up with, probably with much thanks to my father, who wasn't the greatest of saints. But it's true to an extent, right?

I could never imagine myself in a stereotypical lifestyle like many's, settled down in a happy little family, forced to overlook the abysmal spawn of my own - a task more suitably described as a punishment, especially after being promised how adorable they would be only to discover it as utter bullshit following the birth of my younger sister.

Not only was the little devil responsible for countless sleepless nights, but also a thousand pointless arguments between my parents. I thought children were supposed to bring unity and peace - again, another lie.

I often wondered if I had ever caused an uproar like my sibling did, and usually my five year old mind came to the conclusion that I simply wasn't capable because I was too angelic of a child. An actual angel sent by God, can you believe it? That's what my father used to tell me, anyway. Dad's little angel.

I could never believe it now. It actually makes me cackle thinking about how things have changed. See, as time passed and I grew older, I'd come to the realisation that the angels portrayed in religion were a stark contrast to the angel I was to my father. I was only ever a seraph in his eyes if my behaviour was beneficial to him. With tear-streaked eyes and flushed cheeks, a collection of stolen beer bottles stuffed by my father into my puppy-themed backpack - that was the day I decided I'd become sick of the word angel entirely. After admitting to my mother my assistance in my father's crimes, it only provoked an entirely new variety of disputes, and it hit me that I really wasn't that different to my sister after all.

It's not that I grew up hating her or anything. She was family; I wasn't daft enough to ignore that fact, and family's family, yeah? You're taught to accept them, no matter what. So I did, or I tried to at the very least, and I was certainly most determined to even when holding myself back from smothering her for even a split moment of silence. She drove me insane, but she was still my sister. I guess it only really started to feel like it that night, after sitting at the top of the stairs listening absentmindedly to the screams of my parents, and looking up to meet the culprit who was tugging my hand. Bright sapphire eyes burning into my own, lips tugged down in worried confusion, was the little devil herself.

"What are you doing up, Hana?" I'd quickly ushered her back into her room, watching as she climbed back into bed and in a split decision had decided it would be best to stay. She hadn't said a word to me, if we were closer she probably wouldn't have needed to, as a result I was slightly cautious of overstepping her boundaries. But she was beckoning me over, I soon noticed, and slowly but surely I'd crept towards her, climbing in next to her and cradling her in my arms.

Hana would kill me now for even thinking this crap, would accuse me of going soft, or that I was becoming a little pussy, but ever since that night I don't know what I would do with myself if she ever left my side, and it became evident to me that I needed her more than I let on. And she needed me.

Although she would never admit it now.

"...And so I let him know that he was being wayyy too off putting, like he was trying so hard, and he got so defensive, I've seriously never seen an ego shattered so quickly in my life-" I glanced up at her, a shit-eating grin stretched on my face as Hana abruptly paused her story to shove the hugest chicken leg I'd ever laid my eyes on into her mouth.

"I've never been more proud of you. Men are the most hilarious when they're being humbled." to which Hana responded with a muffled, "I know right", chewing down furiously as though she were fighting a life or death battle with the limp piece of meat.