The Brothers Kobayashi

Rin Tamura was pushing the dust out of her room when the other ladies of the twentieth floor passed by and blew the dust back into the room.

"Tamura, Tamura, come now," Takanashi, a close friend and neighbour, said to her.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It's the new neighbours. The one next to the Iwanaga's."

Rin Tamura tightened her grip on the broom stick.

"Not interested.”

“Really?” Takanashi asked.

“I have to clean my room, Takanashi. My boys are finally out of the house. This is my only chance to clean."

"Everyone's dying to see them. Aren't you curious?"

"They are probably busy. Best not to disturb them."

Kisabe Tamura, desperate to get her friend to come be a bother with her, turned to the ultimate trick that she knew would finally convince her.

"I heard the old man say downstairs that they were a handsome bunch."

And as expected, Rin Tamura rested her broom against a wall and untied her apron.

"Let's go," she said.

The crowd ahead of them had stopped just before the threshold of the door. The ladies debated amongst themselves on whether they should knock or wait. Muffled sounds of movement and speech from within the room quickly decided for them: they should wait.

"Tamura," a lady called from within the crowd, "don't you have that listening spell with you?"

The crowd's collective head turned towards Rin Tamura who was at the back.

"I do," she said, "but-"

"I want to know what they're saying," an older lady amongst them said, "use it on that door."

The door, Rin Tamura thought to herself. Hesitant at first, the pressure of the crowd and her own curiosity finally got the best of her. The group of roughly fifteen ladies parted ways to make a path to the door. Once at the door, Rin Tamura pulls her little pocket tome and thumb through a page somewhere in the middle of the book. She began to utter the spell which caused her eyes and finger tips to glow purple. She placed her palm on the door.

"What can you hear?" the old lady asked.

"Shh, old woman," Takanashi replied.

What can she hear? Well, first there was nothing. Only the sounds of the howling wind through an improperly closed balcony door. Then, as the spell started to work, more sound came. There were two voices, both still muffled. There was one that is older because his voice was deeper, and one that was more panicked because he talked faster. There was the sound of footsteps thumping on the wooden floors, and they were rapid, as if two sets of feet were chasing one another. As the spells began to intensify, their voices became clearer. Then...

"I don't want to go!" a loud voice screamed.

"Stop being so difficult!" the older voice responded.

"You can't make me," the younger voice, presumably the one that had shouted first, said.

"Huko, don't make me get the sleeping pills again."

"Do it, and I'll jump off the balcony before you can feed it to me."

Rin Tamura has heard enough. She moved away from the door. She turned to the crowd who was now brave enough to get closer.

"Well?" the old lady asked.

"Violence," Rin Tamura said, "there is great evil inside."

The ladies began to talk amongst themselves.

"Violence?" the old lady asked.

Before she could clarify, in the dying seconds of the spell, she heard one of the two voices speak. Then, two sets of footsteps getting louder and louder. Rin Tamura focused herself to maintaining the spell. She leaned closer, and with both hands amplified it so that she could hear better through the thick doors. It swung open. In front was the older one. He was older but not old, still young, around twenty one years of age Rin Tamura estimated. Behind him was the younger one, younger but not too young. About sixteen, again by estimation. The old landlord was not lying, everybody thought to themselves, they were handsome. The older one was tall and well built with a brown hair that flowed and glossed in the sunlight. The younger one was shorter but not by much, and had thick and curly black hair.

"Are you alright?" the older one asked, his voice smooth, different from the one Rin Tamura heard inside the room. He had his arm extended. Rin Tamura sheepishly held it as the older brother helped her back on to her feat.

“Ah,” he said after looking at the crowd beside him, “good morning, ladies.”

“How rude of us to not introduce ourselves when we came here. We are the Kobayashis. I’m Kenta and this is my little brother Huko.” He nudged his brother who was standing behind him.

"Good morning," the younger brother said sheepishly.

“We have just moved in from, uh, Kyoto. We are pleased to meet you. Going forward, please don’t hesitate to ask for any help from us." Kenta ended their introduction with a warm smile.

The crowd of women did not reply. Some of them blushed, some of them were scared, and some tried to reply but failed and ended up murmuring their words. Rin Tamura was one of them that was scared. The devil, she said, reaffirming herself.

"Now I apologise but we are late for a meeting with our friends, you must excuse us."

The group parted itself and made clear a path for the two of them to travel through. Once they were sure that the brothers had moved out of hearing range, they relaxed themselves. The crowd erupted into discussion. They talked about everything from where they had come from to what they did for a living and whether or not the older one was single. Even Rin Tamura, who was convinced that the older one, at least, was the devil, joined in on the discussion.

Meanwhile, the brothers were waiting for the elevator on the other side of the hallway, listening to every word that was spoken by the crowd.

"I think I made a good impression on them," Kenta said, happy with himself.

"Don't change the subject, Kenta, we might be outside but we are not going to the committee," the still fuming Huko said.

"Did you see anyone pretty in the crowd?"

"Kenta!"

The two brothers resumed their bickering. They started the shouting again but when their voices made the crowd turn their heads to them, they lowered it. Now, they were fighting in whispers.

"Remember what the old lady said," Kenta whispered, "a good school is the pathway to a good job, and a good job means good money, which we need.”

"It might be, but I'd be spending five days a week with those people. One wrong move and I'll be gone, Kenta. Gone!"

"We made it this far without alerting anyone, if we just keep doing what we're doing we should be fine."

"Another thing, what am I going to show to the committee? We can't do that trick we did with the landlord again, no way they won’t see you in that jacket.”

Kenta thought about this predicament for a while. The elevator bell dinged, and the rusty doors slid open.

"We'll come up with something," he said as they entered, "something good."

“And if it’s not good? They’re going to send me to a crooked school.”

“Relax, will you. We’ll come up with a way to impress those people. You’ll see.”

Huko realized that there was no point in arguing further, and so calmed himself.

"So where are we going now?" Huko asked.

"The city, I have a plan to get us some money in the meantime."

"It better be a good plan, and not like your plan to steal coins from the vending machines down stairs."

"Did we or did we not get food for dinner last night?"

"I hardly call eating three packets of chips dipped in soy sauce dinner."

The elevator doors squeaked close. Then, a hand jammed itself between the doors, and the doors opened wide again. A woman entered the elevator, causing all discussions to cease from the brothers. She was wearing a black jacket over a shirt and tie. Her face looked completely uninterested in the two faces in front of her. The elevator doors closed again, and the car gently lowered. It was deathly quiet inside. The brothers behind her exchange occasional glances.

"Iwanaga." The lady suddenly spoke. "Akane Iwanaga. Room 2019. Nice to meet ya."

The woman pulled out a small tome from her waist.

"There," she said as she read the tome, "I did my introductions."

"Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Iwanaga. We're the Kobayashis--"

"You're Kenta and he's Huko," she interrupted, her eyes still fixed on the book, "I heard your little

introduction before."

The rest of the journey down was quiet. The door squeaked open again, and they were on the first floor. The three of them went to the small street in front of the apartment building together. Kenta, usually talkative and cheery, was silent. They continued this way until a junction at the street, just a few blocks from the apartment.

"Say," the lady said as she put away her tome, "where are you from, Kobayashi?”

“We just moved in from Kyoto,” Kenta said.

“Is that so?”

Akane did not face them. They continued to walk side by side through the quiet neighborhood street.

“Lot’s of folks around there who can’t do magic.” She finally turned her head to the brothers. Her eyes were sharp. Huko could tell that every little action of theirs was now being judged.

“They say ever since we started pushing them away from the city perimeter, those non-mages from the countryside have been trying to sneak their way back into the city.”

“Is that so?” Kenta said, still trying to be his cheery self.

The lady went ahead of the boys and stopped in front of them. She turned around, and for the first time, revealed her full face.

“You boys aren’t those people, are you?” she said slowly, making sure she was heard and understood.

The silence now turned into paralyzing fear. Huko wanted to look at this brother's reaction to tell him what to do now, but he knew that would look suspicious. He held his head to look forward, but his eyes were not looking at anything, he was too paralyzed. Kenta's smile evaporated. His mouth was twitching, he was scrambling to find a story, a lie, an excuse, anything. Is this it? Kenta thought to himself, his brain still scrambling to find what to say, should we run now? Can she catch us? Kenta's leg tensed. He started to lift his heels. Any minute movement now would cause him to run. Will Huko run too? I wish I could tell him to run.

“Quiet aren’t we?” she said, her blue eyes staring into their eyes. The brothers took a step back. Kenta nudged Huko to tell him to run. Huko, too stunned with fear, did not get his brother’s message.

"Kidding." She finally said after a minute of silence. She let out a terrifying smile, like a cat toying with her prey. Her short black hair and the scar across her otherwise smooth face made her even more terrifying. "Catch ya boys, later" she said, and left.

"She's pretty," Kenta said, still in shock. Huko was bent over on his knees, trying to settle his racing heart. That mere sentence was enough to make him sweat, and his heartbeats audible for him to hear. There is a hill, he thought to himself, a hill where the moonlight shines at. There is a field of grass on that hill, the cool wind blows through it every now and then. His heart slowly settled.

"Let's go," Huko said after he had calmed down enough. He went ahead of his brother who was still in shock. After a while, he sobered up, and went after his brother. And so they went ahead into the day.