Fraudzillas

And who knows, maybe then you will be able to heal that broken heart of hers to your own liking? It’s still not too late. Think hard about it.’

Remembering Votr’s words didn’t help. I was really planning to break contact with Vio after our today’s meeting but somehow it had spectacularly failed.

By failed I meant me sitting with hands crossed in the living room and Vio occupying the bedroom.

Three hours ago, when she had stopped crying and an uncomfortable atmosphere had been slowly contaminating the area, I had offered to take her home. She had refused and had said that she needed some time for herself.

That was how I lost the access to my bedroom, by now Vio was probably soundly sleeping inside. As the door to the bedroom was equipped with a simple lock, which I had already confirmed to be in use, I couldn’t even go and check on her.

Knocking is an option, but how am I going to see her sleeping face if I have to wake her up first to enter?

I chased away stupid thoughts flying around in my head and went back to the main dilemma. Turning Votr’s prediction into reality was the last thing I wanted. The key was hidden in Violet’s behavior. I had to fully understand her in order to create healthy siblings’ relations, which was already a partial fulfillment of that demon words… shit.

Can she so quickly accept her own brother’s death? The bond between them wasn’t a strong one, they weren’t close at all, and yet she knew him inside out. Is she seeing me as a replacement for Victor or something akin to an upgraded version? That’s possible.

Alright, let’s go through everything one more time.

Victor the rebellious black sheep of the Amato family, who never gave up. He never lied to Vio and was never kind to her and yet she was visiting him every day. She even smiled after I shouted at her like Victor.

‘Finally.’

Why did she say that word? Was me acting like Victor a good thing for her?

‘Please don’t apologize. I don’t want to hear it. Just explain.’, ‘From when?’, ‘No, but… otherwise, it doesn’t make sense. People don’t change that much in a day or two, not my brother.’

When I gave up on that eating challenge, she had this sad, disappointed look as if someone had betrayed her.

‘I see. So he’s gone from this Friday?’, ‘I see, that’s good. Very good.’

She was particular about the exact time and happy with my answer.

‘Every word you say convinces me that there’s really a different mind inside my brother’s body. You don’t understand anything.’, ‘So you’re not a total dimwit after all, but you don’t understand me.’

That was when something in my brain clicked and connected the dots.

Wait, it was that simple?

‘You’re nothing like Victor, Vincent or Viktoria. They would never worry about something small and stupid like understanding me.’, ‘Brother scum. You’re somewhat different today.’

I really spent so much time trying to understand something so obvious? Her going around and repeating ‘brother, brother’ was an effective smoke screen.

‘You would never agree to this! What’s worse you even accepted our defeat like a loser! You were a scum! A trash! An idiot! A miser! A worthless placeholder! But you never NEVER were a loser!’

For the love of heaven’s, I even thought of it before!

‘...maybe he was her symbol of independence from their family and symbols tended to be cold and heartless.’

She NEVER saw Victor as her brother!

For her he was akin to the incarnation of her most important principles, that’s why she got so angry when I started destroying the meaning behind them.

Victor’s death was the best guarantee that every value she saw in him would forever remain unchanged. That way he became a true symbol, which was both a sad and happy occurrence from Vio’s point of view.

‘Won’t this face remind you of him every time you see it?’

‘So you’re not a total dimwit after all…’

Could there be a better solution to her problem? Victor is gone and everything she connected with him will be forever burning brightly in her memories, and yet this body is still alive and is even willing to become a real kind brother.

I guess it’s true that bird’s of a feather flock together. She may be a bit broken.

There was no point in further pondering over this topic, the details were known only to Violet. I decided that asking her about it sometime in the future might be a good idea, especially now that I had changed my mind and became her new brother.

I was convinced that it was the right route to choose. Though I wasn’t looking forward to meeting with that damn demon again…

After forcing most of my grey cells into turbo mode, I was now craving for some relaxation. There were only two sources of it in the flat. One required a screwdriver, which I, unfortunately, didn’t have and the other was connected with a time-consuming scan of the entire laptop to get rid of that malware. Being spied upon everything I did wasn’t my cup of tea.

I turned on the machine and let the anti-virus do his work. In the meantime, I went to grab my smartphone from the jacket’s pocket. Due to the whole mess with Vio, I didn’t have a chance to check it from the time of our meeting.

There were three messages on it.

One from Adam:

[How it’s going mate? Everything’s fine with Rora?]

[She’s using Akarin’s special skill, can’t notice her at all.]

One from an unknown number:

[Rora’s still inside?]

This one was probably from Aura, so I replied:

[You can take her back as soon as she’s out. I will let you know immediately.]

And the last one was also from an unknown number:

[Good evening Victor!

Here’s a weekly report of your lovely sister Viktoria’s achievements (there are too many of them so I will just choose one per day):

Monday - I won 12,000$. All I did was to pick up a scratch card from the ground, which turned out to be a winner.

Tuesday - On the way to school I saved a young boy from being run over by a truck, the local newspaper had asked me for an interview, again.

Wednesday - Our school mid-term exams results were out. Randomly picking boxes on the answer sheets wasn’t enough to stop me from scoring 100% in everything.

By the way, you should come back to school already. No one’s going to make fun of you again I promise!

Thursday - That day was horrible! When I was out with friends, singing karaoke, some pushy people tried to scout me. Despite my refusal, they followed me home. Luckily, one of them climbed over the fence so I could watch my dogs having fun.

Friday - It was incredible! I couldn’t believe it myself! I didn’t have a day like that in over a year or two. Nothing, absolutely nothing happened, can you believe that? I still wonder if maybe there was something going on and I simply missed it.

Saturday - Mother insisted on taking me and Vincent to some fancy restaurant and we agreed. Food wasn’t bad, but It's annoying when everyone's watching you eat. At least Vincent had fun, he brought another two young ladies home. I turned down all invitations, why those men want me to be happy while all they do is stating the obvious?

Sunday - This is the day I love the most! After all, I can write to you about everything and you’re obliged to read it. I still regret forgetting to include a point forcing you to reply at least once per message.

Maybe you know where’s Violet? She’s still not back, I asked around, but no one knows anything and she’s not answering her phone.

Love you dearly
Viktoria]

Ladies and gentlemen, here she is, Victor’s twin sister Viktoria in all her glory.

The person against whom Victor could never win. The goddess of good luck. When he had refused to have anything to do with her, she had somehow obtained a court order forcing Vic to read one her message a week.

Yes, somewhere out there was a guy whose job was to monitor this one message and check if it was marked as ‘read’ in their system.

Her weekly reports were always like that. At the first glance, they might have looked bizarre, absurd and innocent, but that was only her public face. In reality, she could be compared to an unpredictable natural disaster.

Victor never truly understood and found it strange, how someone like that could even exist. But thanks to Adam, I knew that it was connected with the supernatural aspect of the world. Triple the disaster. If she had a challenge mode it also meant that she had a power of her own.
From the look of it, it was probably connected with her unnatural luck and worked in a passive way.

She had to be avoided at all cost.

At least in theory, because in practice if I wanted to set my life straight I would have to go back to school and face her.

This Victor’s legacy is annoying like always.

I went to the bedroom door and knocked.

“Vio? Are you sleeping?”

After a minute of knocking, I heard someone moving inside.

“Vio?”

“Yes?”

“Open the door please, it’s time for you to go home. I can walk you there if you want.”

“No.”

“What do you mean no?”

“I’m not going back, you dimwit.”

“What? Why? Come on, open the door.”

“No.”

Does she still need some time to organize her thoughts?

“Alright you can go back later, but at least send them a message that you’re fine.”

“No.”

“You don’t expect me to send one, do you?”

“Just ignore them, they won’t do anything.”

She was lying as there was no way that Viktoria would allow Vio such degree of freedom. I was starting to get worried about her refusal to come out.

“Yeah let's do that, but can you let me in?”

*Thump*

“Nya-!”

There was a short sound of something soft falling on the floor and the tone of her voice from behind the door turned strange as if she was talking through a pillow.

Nya? Just what is she doing in there?

“Vio? Are you alright?”

“I’m not coming out!”

“Fine, fine, but at least let me in.”

“Nooo~.”

“Why do you act like a child?”

“Because I caaaan~.”

“And you think I can’t get those door open hmmm?”

“Well, can you?”

She was seriously underestimating the guy who had spent over an hour thinking on how to see his new younger sister’s sleeping face. So what if there was no screwdriver around. This simple lock was nothing compared to the one in the front door, all I needed was a kitchen knife.

I quickly brought one and started unscrewing.

“Bro-. Hey you! You’re coming or not?”

“Just a moment please.”

One screw down, three to go.

“How should I even call you?”

“Brother I guess?”

Second’s gone.

“No. That’s reserved for Victor. Pick something else.”

“But aren’t I your new brother?”

“This is this and that is that. Think of something or I will start calling you fraudzilla.”

Third one’s removed.

“I’m looking forward to hearing you call me that in public.”

“...”

Alright, let’s try my luck.

“What about calling me onii-chan?”

“The heck is that?”

“You don’t watch anime?”

“No. You know that Viktoria hates it right? There’s a ban on this stuff in our house.”

I stopped removing the last screw for a moment, this conversation was more important. After a quick memory search, I realized the terrifying truth.

“How can it be… she’s more of a monster than I’ve imagined.”

“I know right?”

“I will have to educate you properly, let’s start from calling me onii-chan.”

“I don’t like it,”

Goodbye my dream.

“What about onii-san, onii-sama, onii, nii, nii-san, nii-chan, nii-sama?

But! There’s still hope!

“Aren’t all those choices kind of the same?”

“As if! Let me explain, oni-san is used whe-”

“Stop, stop, stop I somehow don’t want to hear it. It creeps me out.”

“Your brother feelings are hurt.”

“So you want me to sound like a sweet airhead?”

“Wouldn’t hurt to try right?”

“Sure, after you kill me first and stuff a speaker inside.”

“Whose wallet did you destroy today hmm?”

“Victor’s!”

Ugh...

“In whose arms di-”

“Stop! Leave this topic alone. I don’t want to think about it.”

“Sorry.”

“J-just… just tell me one thing. Are you the one responsible for this situation?”

This was an important question and I had to answer it truthfully.

“No, it happened regardless of my will.”

I sat on the floor, waiting for her answer. Depending on how she would react to my words, our whole relation could change.

“I will believe you for now... I just need more time. So what should I call you, come on give me something good already.”

Uff... I got carried away, but it’s good that she’s strong enough to leave it alone and change the topic.

“Give me a minute. It’s not easy to think of something on the spot.”

“What was your previous name? You had one right, it’s not as if you just appeared out of the condensed mass of human’s race stupidity?”

“Come on! I’m not that stupid!”

“I had to reduce the number of insults used while talking with you, as I worried that you wouldn’t be able to understand half of them!”

… that one hurt.

“George Ruslan.”

“Hmm… George Ruslan and Victor Amato. Let me think.”

“See?! It’s not that easy to pick a nickname.”

“I got one already~.”

“I’m listening.”

“After combining George and Victor I created a new name for you - Gigolo!”

“Like hell I will use it! And there’s not even a trace of Victor in it. You just took ‘g’ from George!”

“There’s ‘i’ and ‘o’ though?”

“Just imagine it. You calling me your gigolo in public. That’s a weapon that will destroy the both of us.”

“... you’re right. I take it back. Let’s pick one that fits mine in that case. Amethysts are violet.”

“That’s not exactly a good choice for a man’s name.”

“Muuuu~.”

A cute muffled sound reached my ears. Was she lying face down on the bed?

“Told you it’s not easy.”

“I will take Ame from the mineral and chan from the ones you wanted earlier, Ame-chan, how about it? It’s passable in my opinion.”

“Please spare me…”

“Huh? Why? Not good?”

“I will first have to explain the meaning behind different oni-chans.”

“Ok! Not good. Understood. I will just pick one at random, who cares if it has some deeper meaning or not.”

“Well, I do a little. You still remember that we aren’t changing my name but just picking a way for you to call me right?”

“... can’t think of any. All the good ones are girlish and the rest is lame. I guess it’s your win, nii-san. Ehh, this will be hard to get used to.”

“Really?! Say it again please!”

“When I feel like it~, so you’re coming or not? I’m getting hot in here.”

“Oh right, just a moment.”

I forgot about my original goal and was sitting outside the door enjoying the conversation untill she reminded me of it.

The last screw lasted only for a second. After removing the unscrewed lock, opening the door wasn't a problem anymore.

“Just… just what the heck are you doing?”

The secret behind her muffled speech was discovered. Tightly wrapped in the quilt, she was stuck in between the bed and the wall. Only the tip of her blond head was sticking out.

“Waiting for you to help me you idiot!”

“B-buahaha!”

“Don’t laugh and help!”

“Hehehe, a moment please.”

“Huh? Help me first! I really can’t move.”

I went for the smartphone. It was a perfect chance to increase my ‘precious memories’ folder content.

“How did you even end like that?”

“I was just rolling around… what’s this sound?”

“Don’t worry about.”

Aaaannnd one more from this side, perfect. Ok, this should be enough.

“Ok, I will get you out now.”

“I’m sooooo glad you had your fill of laughter. N-o-w h-e-l-p!”

All I had to do was to move the bed and loosen her trap. Vio quickly understood that her range of movements had increased and crawled out of the quilt. It must have been hot in there as there were drops of sweat on her red face.

“Freedom!”

She made a victory pose and stretched like a cat.

“Were you talking with me like that from the beginning?”

I sat down on the bed and watched her happy face, while she was smoothing out her disheveled clothes.

“Almost, but I was expecting you to force the door open and not to start a lengthy conversation!”

Vio tried to look at me with reproach, but that big grin of hers ruined the desirable effect.
“Blame yourself, you should’ve just told me to help straight away.”

“Well, maybe, but…”

“But what?”

“... I was having too much fun to stop in the middle.”

This is unfair! How can she be so cute?

I stood up and patted her head, she narrowed her eyes like a cat and demanded to spoil her more.

“Oni-san, I've got a request.”

“I’m listening.”

She took off my hand from her head and clasped it tightly.

“Can I live with you from now on?”

“...”

“...”

“Say again?”