Once Upon the Pretentious Sunrise

"Onii-chan, wake up! If you don't, I'll send you to a parallel universe~! ♫"

"Mrrgh!" I exhausted a feeble mewl upon hearing a feisty woman's wringing call.

I'd rather not have you imagining what noise I make. However, for the sake of bringing this unstable biopic unto you, I'll exude away all the shame. Hello there, what you've come across is an amateur stand in storytelling: I've been woken from my slumber.

Miss Maid wished to send me to another universe. I've already journeyed into one, and I'd get the threat first thing in the morning. Acting to furrow my eyebrows to what I heard, I turned her off. One slide of the virtual button, and I practically cut off this meddlesome criminal out of my day.

Sheesh, what a bad joke.

I was happy when I installed the Miss Maid alarm app.

Now, I'm only annoyed over how disturbed I've been by her insolence in many cases.

Maybe I should replace her soon.

I wonder how many times she's caused disruptions with how I imagined how my mornings would go like?

I huffed a sigh.

I suppose I have to say our freshest addition to the list.

Where I dreamed of someone, and I didn't want to be woken up for what reason I'm now unconscious of. Hmm, something doesn't feel right at all. What reasons I have against Miss Maid, they no longer qualify for contempt.

Well, I could be petty and just say I'd be replacing her without reason at all.

Like, instead of an alarming alarm─I'd be more inclined to have my sisters rouse me awake. I wake up the earliest though, so I've been missing the psychedelic treatment one vampire brother would get from the Fire Sisters. If I could get my sisters to act like psychedelic heroines for the sake of it, I'd have something crossed off my bucket list.

Yet, reality can't be what you wish for.

Some steps and leaps take you closer to that dream─but I'm not gonna risk their welfare rotten.

No matter, I pranced to the kitchen.

As I went through the tangents, I already groomed myself for school. Cleaned my room, brushed my teeth, and took a shower. Incidentally, it was the opening of the second semester. School term begins anew─and pure chaos awaits in the corner.

So, in the case you're waiting for action or anything that gives out a plot, I'd like to keep it as slow as possible.

Once I reached the kitchen, of course, it was time to prepare my meal.

"Now, what should I prepare..."

I thought for myself then slowly and carefully took the ingredients out from the pantry. Once everything I needed was up and ready, I hit the stove on. It was time for Shirayuki Otogibanashi's cooking sesh, except that such nuanced elegance can't be soulfully captured in plain text.

"Good morning!" Blending with the sound of cooking oil was Otohime's morning voice. "You're up early today…What's up?"

This blonde big sister of mine swiftly moved towards the dining table and dragged a chair.

I would wonder if seeing her brother wearing an apron piques her worthlessness. Such an influx of wry emotion didn't matter in the continuity, though. I didn't spell anything for her.

"It's the start of the second semester after all," I said, accepting I may not have been routinely a morning person. "What about you, Otohime? You're early, or is it your time to sleep?"

"Sorry for you, I got up early for today!" She posed a tiresome peace sign.

And so, I ignored her.

"Wah, at least try to play along!" she whined, but not later than three seconds that she let herself be the baby. "Yeah…I know it's not believable. I wonder why I've pulled an all-nighter reading Keiichi Arawi and that one boring book you brought home…Strogatz. You know, Nonlinear dynamics and Chaos?"

Snow White's ears perked.

"That's rather goofy," I replied, grieving from my inability to understand the eccentric selection.

I'd attach reading surreal comedy and a nonfiction book on deterministic chaos for her whimsical behavior. When we're too devious of a clan for contrabands, I suppose we're free to consume all the human resources we can hold. I'd not be a hypocrite in the sequence, knowing I've read more unlikely combinations before. However, for her showing interest in something other than otaku culture, I'd take a hint that she's showing a difference.

I broke an egg, then had the succulent yolk and white drip inside a clear glass bowl.

"Hmm. So what's for breakfast?"

"It's the same as yesterday."

"Twice-baked potatoes, souffle omelet, and egg drop soup?"

My hand stopped moving from mixing eggs meant to be poured over the cooking pan after the first one.

Sometimes, your own jester likes to play tricks on your own imagination.

As soon as I heard those options, my ears tingled.

Unnaturally─as if a cringed out use of petroleum instead of cooking oil.

"Did I make souffle yesterday?"

She replied with a straightforward answer, "Yes, you did."

"Hmm, is that so? I'm sorry. It's not the same as yesterday's."

"Yes, you're cooking something different."

"How weird," I exclaimed. "I've gotten dull?"

I'd be reluctant to accept the idea but somehow, what I remember makes it convincing. I'm only eighteen and my brain cells have already reduced. How hilarious, I might want to slam my head in a block of tofu, yesterday or the other day.

But it's never about the reduction of brain cells.

It was eerily different.

"I'm preparing tamagoyaki, grilled salmon, and nameko miso soup."

I grasped upon an inkling of realization, the recipe was from the other day.

All of a sudden, she faked a gasp and sported a wry grin.

"Don't you think you're getting forgetful?"

Me being forgetful─was quite the remark.

I'd be wholly accepting of the thought myself, if I wasn't this monstrous person with a nearly impossible disease.

"There's no way that could be true, though."

On second thought, I didn't need to say it aloud.

Each and every Otogibanashi, present day and down the line, have perfect memories.

It's not an almighty trait, though.

Even if I can remember everything I see, there still can be lapses wherein I'd remember something else differently.

It must have been what happened.

About yesterday's meal being twice-baked potatoes, souffle omelet, and egg drop soup─I merely misremembered.

"Please don't try to say something inconceivable now, Otohime."

I might have sounded a little immature there─but let it rest into your synapses, I wasn't in the least bit.

"Err, what can I say?" She scratched her head, having readied a non-verbal apology. "From what you've been up to lately, it's not surprising if you don't recall what happened in the last few days."

Somehow, she sounded a little gleeful about it.

"What now, did I do something aside from rolling around the tatami all day?" I tilted my head, unflinching in focus fileting salmon. "I did my best to be as reclusive as you for the entire summer break, though."

"You're somehow different today, Shiro."

Blink once─and huff a sigh.

I've been blanched into a terrorful entropy, so it must have been time to overthrow the current subject.

Cue in Nichiyoubi North High School's Detective Club.

"More importantly, has there been more news about the disappearance of Sayaka Orihara?" I, as the president of a pretentious school organization, proceeded to search for clues. "Now, my dear sister, does that sound familiar to you?"

"You might mean about the girl who's been spirited away?"

"Yup, that," I confirmed.

"It's not like you to be invested with urban legends."

"I've always been interested in urban legends."

Like she did earlier, the line was supported by a tiresome peace sign.

"The weight of the conversation doesn't need that gag line, Shiro."

I know─as it was very distasteful, treating disappearing entities like they're disposable.

"I guess what you know already might be what I know, too." She coordinated with her brain and brought the situation into light, "From a recent urban legend: Orihara disappeared─appearance unknown, and records not found in the city hall's database. Then there's two speculations on how it happened─first having been spirited away and second, she's been banished to a void. Space Magic can do it, but is there even someone strong enough to erase the identity of another person?"

Seriousness laid on the table.

"Or…It could have been Chaos Magic."

"Hmm, there's no way you took her out of the picture."

Insomuch, I don't take interest in banishing people out of existence. Quickly did my sister shrugged the thought. I suppose stealthily involving myself to the issue holds too loose of fidelity.

Goes to show how Snow White can't be the bad one.

"What if in the slightest chance, it could have been Chaos Magic?" I asked her in nonchalance.

For where she had the better proposition, saying, "You should conduct an investigation, then."

Shirayuki and Otohime, brother and sister, can only be frank with each other. I wasn't asking for her to subtly greenlight a case, if anything, but I get her point. However, she's missing a crucial puzzle piece.

"How do you find a person who doesn't exist?"

"You will find her."

I smiled, complacent from the surface but maybe more celebratory in thought. "Yeah, I can see that happening," I seconded and we soon followed to move out of it. "Anything you want to eat?"

She ordered omurice: I didn't know how to make it, but I made one.

Perfect memory was useful in events like it.

It didn't take much of my time to finish breakfast as to why I had spare time to check the local news. News and spare time shouldn't intersect as carelessly as I do, though. Good boys and girls should always place news in utmost priority. Seeing a tidbit of the weather forecast, which was the reason I tuned in anyway─the evident disgust climbed all the way to my hair.

My sister caressed my head. "Want your hair styled, Shiro?"

"Yes."

It was a one-liner welcome.

My hair is a prized asset, after all.

"Fix it for me, please," I asked, and she smiled back─and gallantly posted herself into becoming my hairdresser.

The next moments were the normal "off to school" moments.

After she fixed my hair, I readied myself, lasting to speak for her words of gratitude.

Getting out of the house, she waved farewell and as for me, I basked in the torturing morning sunlight. I stared at the sun for as long as I walked. Surrealness to haunt the mind and memory of what the winter dreamland implied. Once I let my head down though, I walked towards the school without any reservations. Only forwards to life─onto the breakdown of an ageless lie.