ROMAN'S P.O.V
Our little sister sure was a strange one.
Not that I minded. If anything, I was glad that she wasn't like every other teenage adolescent. In my eyes, it just meant that we received such an adorable and unique little sister and it was the greatest gift ever.
She wasn't a big talker and her face usually remained expressionless unless one of us made her smile, she hates doing homework and would often hide it from us when we tried to get her to do it, and she tended to be easily influenced by Max who I guess she looks up to in a strange Ceres kind of way.
Ceres didn't necessarily like the normal things a young girl should but that by no means made her a tomboy. She was just in the middle. Neutral to those kinds of gender roles. She was very truthful and blunt so it was only natural that she did what she liked and won't do what she doesn't like.
Such as making friends. I was very worried about her lack of friends or just socialization in general as the only people she talks to is us. Though it seems Ceres wasn't bothered by it at all, in fact, I'm pretty sure she thrives off of the distance from others.
Her reason being that she likes being alone.
Speaking of the little one, Ceres slowly walked into the kitchen with a tired look in her eyes before sitting in the stool and slumped over the island in a tired heap.
"Low battery. Low battery. Low battery..." she began to mutter and I smiled wearily at Ceres' weird way of telling me that she was hungry.
"Need charging. Please give me energy" she continued as she turned her head to me.
"You're such a weirdo, y'know that?" I said as I took out some ingredients from the fridge in order to make food for the girl that apparently needed charging.
"Max said that I'm like a robot so I was acting like one to try and see if I really was like a robot" she said while swinging her feet since they didn't touch the ground in the chair.
I chuckled. Just like I said, Ceres has been influenced by Max once again.
"Robots are incapable of feeling emotion and you," I said reaching over to pinch her arm and she muttered an 'ow' before rubbing the spot where I pinched her.
"Are very much so capable of emotions" I said and Ceres sulked, I'm guessing at the fact that I pinched her.
She really was so cute.
"You should hurry and eat. You don't have long before it's time for you to go to school and you aren't even dressed" I said while sliding a plate of food in front of Ceres. She sat up straight and gave me a nod before digging in to the food I made for her.
Now that I think about it, Max should be up right about now as well. Leaving Ceres in the kitchen, I went up to Max's room only to see him still asleep. I sighed before going over to his bedside.
"Max, you've slept in a little too long. You're going to be late if you don't wake up" I said while nudging his shoulder. Max grumbled in response as he tried to dig his head further into his pillow, almost as if he wanted to become one with the pillow.
"So fucking what...." he muttered and I frowned at his words.
"Max" I said lowly and hearing my tone, Max cracked an eye open.
"Please get up" I said as gently as I could. I didn't want to have to resort to extreme methods in order to get Max out of bed so I hoped that he would comply right now.
"Mhmmm..." Max's eye shut back closed as he chose to ignore me. I guess it's time for extreme measures.
Leaving the room, I walked over to Kade's room and when I walked in, I saw that he was getting dressed. Probably to go to work; Kade worked at some IT company.
"Wow, Roman. You didn't even knock and I could have been naked, how rude" he said with a pout and I just shook my head at his dramatics.
"Sorry about that. I need you to wake up Max, he's going to be late for school" I said and Kade nodded. Leaving it to Kade to do the dirty work, I made my way back downstairs only to see that Ceres was gone and her plate was washed and in the drying rack.
Such a thoughtful one. If it was any of my other brothers the sink would be piled with dishes.
I decided to finish cleaning up the pan that I used and once I was done, I turned to leave the kitchen only to be greeted with the sight of Max running away from Kade.
The two had gone by past me so fast that I could feel the slight wind blow past me after them.
"Oh c'mon, Max. Don't you remember? If you don't wake up for school the tickle monster will come and get you. You remember the tickle monster don't you?" Kade asked while inching closer to Max who's face was completely paled.
He tried to run away, he really did. But once Kade sets his sights on a target, he never misses.
"Gotcha!" Kade said as he pounced on Max and started tickling his sides. I never thought I'd live to see the day where Max laughed so hard tears came to his eyes but lo and behold my brother has made the impossible become possible.
"Stop! Stop!" Max yelled through the laughs and Kade just continued his merciless attack.
"You bastard, I said stop!" Max said before kicking Kade where the sun didn't shine. Kade groaned as he fell to the ground in a heap and Max quickly got up and away from Kade.
"You! What the fuck were you thinking sending that lunatic after me?!" Max exclaimed as he came up to me with a cold glare. I simply smiled in the face of his anger.
"I told you to wake up" I said and Max looked like he was ready to explode.
"Uh...." we both turned to see Ceres, dressed and ready, looking at us with her head tilted.
"Ah shit. Now we're really going to be late" Max muttered before dashing up the stairs, leaving just me, Ceres, and Kade who was still on the floor.
"Is he alright?" She asked pointing at the fallen soldier.
"No idea..."
After my two youngest siblings were off to school, courtesy of a sulking Kade, Lance had come down the stairs.
"I heard yelling, was Kade bothering Max again?" He asked as he walked over to the fridge.
"I'm afraid so" I said with an innocent smile and Lance gave me a raised eyebrow but didn't question it any further.
"Did you finish the manuscript for the publisher?" He asked as he took out a water bottle. I nodded my head.
"Yes, I finally finished editing some time after twelve. I just can't believe that book was so long that it took me nearly two months to edit" I said with a tired laugh at the end and Lance showed me a proud smile.
"You did good and I'm sure your publishers will see it. Just make sure to get some rest okay? Let someone else do the breakfast duties around here once in a while" he said and before leaving he made sure to pat my shoulder.
"I could say the same to you, y'know. With all these last minute meetings you rarely have any time to yourself" I said making Lance stop in his tracks.
"I know but it's fine. As long as you guys can continue to do the things you want, I'll do what I can to make sure that's possible" he said and I frowned.
"What about the things that you want to do?" I asked and Lance shook his head.
"It's alright. I don't think I've ever had a dream job or anything anyways so this is fine for me. Besides, whether or not you guys were born this is what I was groomed to become since I was young" he said.
That's right. Regardless of him having siblings or not, Lance would have never got the chance to decide what kind of life he wanted to live for himself. It was sad in a way as he was never given the chance to have dreams of his own. I know it couldn't have been easy playing back up dad and future CEO all at the same time since our own dad was busy on different trips.
Lance never complained even as we all went through our own rough patches in our lives and instead, he helped us get through them without even a second thought. It was times like this where I wished I could take some of the burden off of Lance's shoulders so I guess that's why I'm always trying to do the smaller things around the house.
"That doesn't mean you can't take a break or two...or five" I muttered and Lance let out a hearty laugh.
"I'm glad you're so worried about me but really, I'm fine" he said before giving me another pat on the shoulder and leaving the kitchen.
Fine my ass...
CERES P.O.V
I am currently facing a dilemma.
There was someone sitting in my seat.
Meaning that I would have to sit somewhere else but the only problem with that is that if I sit in someone else's seat, they would get upset. So my choices were either I asked the person in my seat to move or sit in someone else's seat and possibly be asked to move. There was no way I could win in this situation at all.
So I did the only thing that made sense to me.
I left the classroom. I didn't mind missing out on that class since it was math and it's not like I wanted to be in there anyways.
I didn't know where I was going to go but I just figured that I better get somewhere before the bell rings. Thankfully, I remembered that the library is always open so I went up to the fourth floor where it was at. When I walked inside, there was hardly anyone in there most likely because classes were about to start.
The librarian didn't even notice me as his eyes stayed glued to his phone so I had no problem walking by without asking him if I had permission to be here.
I don't know if I would say that I liked reading but it wasn't bad. I could handle reading a book or two every once in a while but it would have to be a really interesting one. I also would settle for reading a book over doing homework any day.
As I browsed the book section, I loosely skimmed each of the titles but none have really caught my eye yet. There were so many books, many seemed to be falling out the seems as they laid messily in the shelves. I guess they didn't really care much for the appearance of the library...
As I was looking, my eyes connected with someone else's through the space of two books and I quickly averted my eyes before backing away from the shelf. I was just about to turn and go to a different shelf those blue eyes that I connected with were suddenly right in front of me.
They belonged to a girl with short black hair and she had a smile on her pink heart shaped lips. I backed away a little, not liking how close she was to me.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I'm Diana but you can just call me Dia" she said. I said nothing as I felt highly uncomfortable with how she so easily approached me. What made her think that I wanted to talk to her let alone give her my name? Sure it's rude of me but I really just wanted to be anywhere but here right now.
Maybe I should have went to class...
"Are you shy? That's totally okay, I understand!" She said with that same bright smile from earlier on her face. It almost made me want to shield my eyes from how radiant she was.
"I've never seen you around here before, are you new?" She asked and at that moment, I sincerely wished that I had walked into that math class and gotten yelled at by some other student. This girl seemed like the type who wanted to know every little detail about the people she meets and it was bothering me greatly.
I gave a quick nod before turning and trying to walk back to my abandoned book bag and try to hike it out of here but the girl stayed on my trail as she continued to ask me another question.
"Do you like books too? I love the books here so I try to help clean up around here and put things back in their right places..." the girl continued to ramble on even as I clearly showed my distaste for this conversation. I picked up my bag and started heading for the exit, with the girl still hot on my tail.
If you couldn't tell by now, I had forgotten her name.
"Oh! That's right, what's your name?" She asked and thankfully, just as I stepped out of the library, the bell rung.
The girl seemed surprised by the bell so I just used that distraction as a way to hike it out of there.
That girl was seriously scary...she kept talking despite me showing no interest in our conversation. Maybe she wasn't good at reading signs? Whatever it was, I hoped that we would never run into each other again.
The next two classes went by like a breeze and once it was time for lunch, I headed out of the classroom to meet up with Max and like usual he was outside waiting for me.
I quickly walked to him and he raised an eyebrow at my hurried behavior.
"What's wrong with you?" He asked as he walked. I just shook my head.
"Hunger" I said simply while putting a hand on my stomach for emphasis. Max chuckled at me and just shook his head.
Once we were seated, Max began to dig in his bag and I looked at him curiously while he did so.
He pulled out a folded paper before handing it to me.
"Open it" he said and I nodded. When I opened it, inside was a beautiful drawing of Lucas. Each hair was drawn into place perfectly, his lashes looking so real that I thought I could touch them, and a faint smile was on his lips. He was looking at something but I couldn't tell what since Max had only drawn a head portrait.
"I sometimes use my brothers as practice but I'm telling you this in confidence that you won't tell the others" he said with a small smile and suddenly I felt extremely happy.
Max was trusting me with something that he hadn't even shown his own family, and I knew that I could never betray his trust since he definitely didn't seem like someone who would give it easily.
I made the zipper motion over my lips and Max grinned. I handed the drawing back to him and he placed it back in his bag.
"So, wanna explain why you weren't in your math class?" Max asked and I almost choked on my food at the sudden question.
How did he know that I wasn't in class? I looked over at him and the look on his face was that of expectancy.
"You might as well tell me now since the school calls when you miss a class. The others will hear about it in no time" he said while munching nonchalantly on his lunch.
I just sighed. Today was just not my day...
"Someone was sitting in my seat..." I muttered and Max just looked at me with a confused face.
"I don't get it, why did that make you skip class?" He asked and I just shook my head, not wanting to explain.
I don't think he would really understand anyways...
We ate the rest of our lunch in silence. Well, I was eating, Max was just on his phone scrolling through whatever it was that he was looking at. It made me wonder if Max had any friends in school? He seemed to always be with me, so maybe not? Or maybe he's ditching them to be with me which isn't good...
After lunch, I had my last two class and while I was on my way to my last class, my eyes caught sight of that girl from earlier. She headed inside of the classroom that I was supposed to be going to.
I guess I didn't notice that she was in my class...
When I walked in the room, I looked anywhere and everywhere except for where that girl was and took my seat which was unfortunately in the back.
I had begun to take my stuff out when a shadow loomed over me and blue sneakers came into my line of vision.
"It's you! I didn't know we were in the same class" hearing her voice, I grimaced.
Here we go again...