Little Red

Colleagues

It was a few months later when Keith just couldn't get to bed one night. He heard his mom and dad talking in the kitchen in uneasy tones.
"I don't think that we can keep going the way we are, something has to give." His father whispered sadly.
"I know, I'll take up a job after Keith and Miya go to school," mom sighed.
"But what about the babies?"
"I'll figure something out, don't worry."

It was a year later that school began.
"Miya! Where are you?" Keith wandered around the house looking for his sister.
"Keeef!" Miya called him, when he saw her she was struggling to get ready for the day. So far she had her shoes on the wrong feet, her skirt was up in her armpits, and her hairbrush was caught in her hair.
Keith couldn't help but laugh raucously at the situation.
"Keef! Dis is not funny! Dis is sewious!"
"I-I'm sorry, do you want some help?" Keith smiled, wiping away a tear of laughter.
"Yes pwease," she sighed, sitting on the floor.
"Ok, I'll help," gently, he fixed her skirt, pulling the elastic waistband down to her waist. The skirt was a black tutu that went down to her chubby knees, she was wearing a black t-shirt and little black sneakers to match. "Why are you wearing all black?" Keith asked, fixing her shoes.
"So I can be like you!" She beamed.
Keith took a minute and looked down at himself, <I never noticed, I do wear all black. Weird.> He smiled, and began fixing her hair. "Wow, what did you do?" He carefully removed the hairbrush and began brushing her hair.
"Wellll, it was supposed to be pigtails, but..."
"Eh, why do you have a banana in your hair?" Keith stared at the yellow fruit he combed out of his sister's hair.
"Oh! That's my bweakfust." She smiled, grabbing the banana and eating it.
"There we go," Keith smiled, he'd finally brushed her hair and he pulled it into two loose pigtails. "Done."
The two walked out to the living room and grabbed their backpacks, lunches, and sweaters.
"Here you go," Keith smiled, grabbing Miya's purple sweater.
"No."
"No? What do you mean no?"
"I want to wear a red sweater."
"But you don't have a red sweater!"
Quickly she ran off to his room, crawled up into his closet, and grabbed his other red sweater from off the hook.
"Miya," Keith stared at her, she was snapping the snaps on his faux letterman, "that's my sweater."
"Mhmm." She looked up at him and smiled hopefully.
<Crap, I can't say no. At least not to that face.> He sighed, "it looks better on you anyway. Come on, let's go wait for the bus."
She grabbed his hand and skipped all the way to the bus stop.

"Now, you never want to sit in the very front or the very back. Always the middle." He explained, leading her down to the middle of the bus.
"Ok," Miya smiled happily.
"Do you want to sit by the window?" Keith inquired, there wasn't much to see, but it wasn't a bad view.
"I want you to sit by the window." Miya waited for him to get into the seat, climbed up, and sat in his lap.
"Eh..." Keith paused for a moment, looking down at her.
"Click!" She smiled, holding his arms together like a seat belt and looking up at him.
"Fine." He huffed, he was wondering what the other kids would think.
"Hey," a boy about Keith's age was standing at the end of the seat.
"Yeah?" Keith looked at him, the boy was tall and skinny, he had short black hair and striking gray eyes.
"May we sit with you?"
"Sure," Keith moved his and Miya's backpacks to the floor and scooted closer to the window.
One of the little girls whispered into the boy's ear. He sighed.
"Ok, as long as you two don't bother these two," The boy sat on the seat and his sisters crawled up into his lap. "Sorry about this, I'm Shiro by the way." The boy smiled, extending his left hand.
Keith smiled and accepted the hand shake, "I'm Keith, and this is Miya."
"It's nice to meet you Miya," Shiro smiled warmly, extending his hand to her.
"You're handsome, you can call me Senpai," Miya smiled mischievously while shaking his hand.
"Miya, what the heck?!" Keith blushed loudly, looking down at her.
Shiro laughed, "that's very sweet of you to say! You're very pretty too!" He smiled kindly.
"Not just pretty," the twin sitting on Shiro's left leg smiled at Miya.
"Not just very pretty either," the other looked up at Shiro with a slightly disappointed look.
"She's devastating." The twins both smiled at Miya.
"Oh," Shiro blushed lightly, "this is Ransa," the one on the left bowed, "and this is Shinju." The one on the right smiled.
"I like your hair!" Miya smiled at the twins, Ransa had bright purple hair and Shinju had sea-green hair that went down to their chins.
Keith looked at Shiro with a look that said, "are you kidding me?"
"Mom did it so that the teachers could tell them apart, it used to be black like mine is." Shiro smiled.
"That's cool." Keith looked out the window.
Shiro stared at him for a moment. "Look, I'm new here, are we going to be friends or not?" He finally asked.
"You want to be friends? But I'm a first grader!" Keith stared back at Shiro.
"Congratulations, I'm in third grade, it doesn't matter, are we friends or not?"
"We are," Keith smiled.
"Good."