Scheming and shaming

Vio tilted her head to the side a little and asked again,

“Oni-san, can I live with you from now on?”

I gave her the biggest smile I could muster, to which she had responded with one of her own. Following after that was the sweetest, nicest and gentlest answer I had in store.

“My lovely, cute, scheming little sister, listen to me well. There’s no way in hell I will agree to that.”

Oh, she froze.

I had to agree that her methods were super effective. Actually, they were too effective. Carefully planned words, moves, and gestures, everything tailored to achieve the best result. Probably even her getting stuck wasn’t a simple accident.

Looks like I’m not the only one who did his homework. She has no idea what oni-san means? That ame-chan was an accident? Good joke. I bet she was trying to find the most convenient way to handle me.

She finished restarting.

“O-oni-san, p-please think about i-it again. Why not?”

Her plan wasn’t perfect and she had trouble dealing with unexpected occurrences.
I released my hand from her grasp and sat down on the bed.

“Vio, you’re good. In record time you pinpointed my weakness and made use of it with care, but I could still teach you a lot when it comes to lying to obtain the desired result. The ratio between the truth and lie must be kept in a certain, very delicate balance, otherwise it either won’t work or raise suspicions. You mixed in one lie too many. With perfect timing, you started using the concept of onii-san, but earlier you said that you knew nothing about it. Drop the act and tell me your true goal.”

“So the sweet airhead didn’t work?”

“Your sharp tongue fits you more.”

We exchanged piercing looks and smiled at the same time. This time it was a different type of smile, one that wasn’t a tool.

“In that case, what about a loyal tsundere type?”

“Are you really asking me that?”

She twirled once, highlighting her golden hair, crossed arms and pouted.

“It’s not as if I want you to care about me baka!”

“That style’s old! Which era is your knowledge from?”

“Old but gold you idiot. I had a very limited access to stuff like that. Be happy that I already know that much.”

“Alright, but seriously we won’t get anywhere like that. Were you testing me or something?”

Vio returned to her relaxed stance and moved to sit on the other side of the bed.

“I don’t know, really. It seemed like a good idea to get some extra points in your book. Hey Geo, how should I feel about all this?”

“Geo?”

“You’re George so Geo or do you prefer when I call you dimwit?”

“Geo’s fine. So there wasn’t any big scheme or anything behind it?”

“What scheme? Wait, you said that you moved into this body regardless of your will, but what exactly did you mean by it? What are you hiding?”

Either she was a natural at changing topics or I was worried unnecessarily and Vio really just wanted to move in to the flat.

“Well, I don’t really know how did it turn out like that in the first place, but stick with me and you may be in for the ride of your life. That’s all I will say for now.”

I’m not sure if telling her about all those superpowers hidden around is a good idea, but giving her a tip or two can’t hurt.

She shifted her knees on top of the bed, moved closer, grabbed my arm and started shaking lightly.

“Please, tell me oni-chan~.”

“You’re already confused enough about today’s situation, organize your thoughts first and we will think about the rest later.”

“Muuuu~”

“Acting cute won’t work.”

But it’s a feast for the eyes and heart.

“Will tell me later?”

“Yeah, I promise to tell you ‘later'.”

“What about setting an exact date?”

“Huh. You can set as many of them as you want, but won’t find my signature anywhere. Give up for now.”

She stopped pestering me and moved to look out the window. This time the silence wasn’t as uncomfortable, but it still had a long way to go before it could turn into a truly relaxing one.

“Maybe you’re right. I should go home, it’s already dark.”

Her small figure, standing motionlessly with her back turned to me, was emanating melancholic and lonely vibes.

“Let me take you home.”

“Idiot, I just need to call and they will send a chauffeur to get me.”

As Victor was already bereft of such privileges I forgot about it.

“Got it.”

I said that with the intention of walking her to the door, but she was still standing near the window, without showing any willingness to leave.

“Geo… can you let me live in here? I don’t want to go back to that place.”

“Why?”

I could at least hear her out.

“I hate it, that house is sick. Everything is turning around Viktoria, recently even father started to be influenced. When I’m there I feel like a puppet, no matter what I do, everything must be according to her plan. Viktoria’s ‘training sessions’ are getting worse and the few friendly faces I could recognize among our staff were replaced by newcomers. Did you know that from the time when Victor had left she started distributing timetables which we have to follow to a minute?”

“It got that bad?”

“Yeah… and you are probably aware that when someone tries to resist ‘that’ happens, so people are just obediently listening to her.”

“She’s a control freak.”

“I… I always was j-jealous…”

With a trembling voice, she was looking for the right way to express her feelings.
“You wanted to reject everything and be freed from it like Victor did?”

“Y-yes...”

That’s why she schemed to run away and move in here. The previous Victor would never agree to that, as this could ruin everything he set up for himself. After a brief search, I found a situation when she had asked him for help and had received some really harsh words in return. That was probably the moment when he had died as her brother and became her symbol of resistance.

If I refuse she will be taken back by force, but if I agree there’s a good chance of convincing our father to let her do as she wants and this will also resolve one other problem.

“Vio are you willing to pay the price?”

“What price?”

“You will have to live the rest of your life in shame.”

She turned to look at me with a face full of confusion.

“What are you talking about? I don’t under-”

“Just now, you were trying a ‘sad story approach’, right?”

I had only one word in my mind when she lowered her head to avoid the eye contact.

Bullseye.

“It was quite good, you didn’t mix too many lies and choose the right words. Don’t look so depressed, it has worked after all.”

“You agree?!”

“I already said it, in exchange you will have to live the rest of your life in shame.”

Oh? I wonder what exactly is this little girl thinking now. Her face oscillates between ‘no way in hell I can’t go that far!’ and ‘but, but, this may be my last chance for freedom’. Let’s see what conclusion is she going to reach.

I watched as Vio started walking in circles, if she was a computer I would say that someone gave her a paradoxical problem to solve:

The next sentence is false → The previous sentence is true.

Oho? She stopped.

Vio was opening and closing her mouth repeatedly, either searching for right words or fighting with herself to say something difficult.

“If… if w-we keep it tame at first… l-like p-petting and stuff, then maybe late-”

“Wait you stupid girl! Don’t finish that sentence!”

“...”

That was way more than I was expecting! One day I will really have to open her head and examine the inner workings. However, that red lantern of a face she has right now is incredible, is she going to activate her inner chameleon?

“Then what do you want from me?!”

“You’re embarrassed? In other words, you’re feeling shame. Like I’ve said a life full of shame is the price I demand. As for this small prelude, I will think of it as a payment for all the mind tricks you tried to pull on me.”

“...”

“As for the rest, I want you to call me onii-chan for the rest of your life.”

That was my target from the very beginning. No way I’m going to give up on this sweet drug coming from her mouth.

“That’s it? You only want this?”

A tone full of disbelief dominated her voice.

“Yeah, only that. By the way, care to enlighten me to what was going inside that head of yours? I’ve got a feeling it was incredible.”

With one hand on her red brow, she looked like someone who was close to declaring that there was no meaning in life.

“Give me back my resolve you crazy bastard.”

“Wrong! It should be ‘give me back my resolve you crazy oni-chan’, repeat it now or I will change my mind.”

“... a second please.”

She took three deep breaths, massaged her cheeks, took another deep breath and moved closer to me. Seeing her outstretched arms I caught her intention and pulled her into a bear hug.

“Onii-chan, you’re a sick fuck.”

“Shouldn’t it be ‘I love my oni-chan?’, anyway, you pass. We will talk about the details later, for now go home and prepare everything. You can move in tomorrow and I will somehow get you an permission from father. Viktoria won't be able to do anything that way.”

The day was almost over. Lying in the bed and summarizing everything that had happened I was mostly thinking about my younger sister.

A day full of Violet.

I was looking forward to the perspective of living with her under one roof. She was cute and smelled nicely. We were also broadcasting mostly on the same wavelength, so talking with her was fun. Teasing was even more fun but was connected with the possibility of being hit by her returned fire.

Other than that, the laptop was finally clean of malware and prepared for the future use. I had also spread some salt near the front door and had made a circle with it around the bed, hoping that it would be enough to stop whatever that thing was.

Cleaning it later is going to be a pain in the ass.

At the end, I started pondering over the matter of soul reformation. Things didn’t turn the way I wanted, but overall it was a step in the right direction. There were some ulterior motives involved, but it was the same on Violet’s side, so I didn’t worry about it.

It might have turned ugly if she was more emotionally attached to the previous owner of this body. Luckily, that wasn’t the case.

When I had almost fallen asleep I heard the sound of vibrating phone, which was lying on my neatly folded clothes in the corner.

Convinced that it was a message from Vio, I went to check it.

I was wrong. It was a message from Adam.

[I’m on my way to your place. Get ready to go out. Aura's missing.]