A Bond Beyond Blood

Once at home, I crashed onto the couch again, and stretched my arms. Chiori soon followed suit, letting herself fall into the couch, right beside me.

"Tired?"

She looked at me with puppy-eyes, a hint of concern could be heard in her voice. She reached out her hand to my grocery bag.

"No, no, I'm fine" I said, gesturing towards her that she doesn't have to do it. She looked at me again for confirmation, before leaning herself back to rest as well. "I'll deal with that later, just don't want to do it right this moment."

Didn't have the heart in me to tell her that the reason I was a little tired was because of her antics. Especially since I secretly find those antics of hers pretty funny.

"Oh, but... if you will, could you get me something to drink?" I asked her in a sheepish voice, after having just rejected her previous offer.

Nevertheless, seeing the opportunity, she grabbed the grocery bag from the floor.

"Of course, anything for you." She cheekily smile as she hopped towards the kitchen. "Anything specifically?"

"You choose for me." I told her with a tone of awe and exasperation at how she even has the energy to act this way.

"Cola it is then!~"

She put the bottles on the countertop, before quickly placing everything away that I'd brought and closing the fridge again. In a flash she stood beside me, holding the bottle close to my face.

"Here you go, onii-chan!"

I grabbed it from her, and took a sip. She did so as well after plopping back beside me.

"How the hell are you still this energetic?"

"This isn't my first all-nighter, you know? It's not a big deal."

I'm willing to believe her on that. Her playing games far into the night wouldn't be a farfetched idea.

"Oh, I got an idea, wait here onii."

Once more she ran off in a flash. I stopped trying to figure out why she's jumping around like she's overdosing on sugar and just took another sip of my cola.

"Ah, that could be why." I mumbled to myself, realizing she was drinking the same thing.

She soon came back down, tablet in hand. Before I can ask what all that's for she eagerly shows me the screen, of which a horror movie title stood squarely on the webpage.

"So, wanna watch?"

For some reason, Chiori enjoys horror movies a lot despite not being good with them.

"Well, since we're not going to sleep anyways, sure I guess."

Otherwise it'd be like last time where she kept coming to my bed at 3 in the morning for days on end, practically begging me to let her sleep next to me.

As she pressed play, she snuggled up against me while I sat back against the couch corner.

Once the movie started, and the screen faded to dark before the title screen, I felt Chiori instinctively tense up.

I stroked her hair the same way I would if she got scared by lightning back when she was a kid. Surprisingly she didn't mind, and it actually seemed to ease her a little.

The movie was a psychological horror depicting some sort of traumatic event as an all consuming monster throughout the story, twisting and turning uglier the more the characters fed into their inner issues.

I'd almost be getting deja-vu from the concept.

The premise was pretty interesting though, and I caught myself being fascinated by the designs. The creature kept lurking in the back, slowly the face and body of it becoming unrecognizable and less humane.

At this point Chiori's foot had began to rub against mine anxiously, perhaps as a way to calm herself down while the movie built up suspense.

As the monster pretty much jumpscared the youngest child of the family, and by extension, us. It began murdering and eating it in a gruesome fashion, with horrible gnashing and crunching sounds added for extra effect. This made Chiori begin to uncontrollably quiver, making a terrified face while staring at her tablet screen.

"Are you okay, should we take a break?" I asked, as I shifted myself to sit upright. "If you wa-"

"No, no. Please." She said, clutching the hem of my shirt.

"Are you really sure?" I asked while caressing her head in a soothing fashion. "We can always pick this up later."

"Mmh." She moped. "Please stay..."

I relented, and wrapped my arm around her as we laid back down again.

The rest of the movie slowly continued on, but had few other noteworthy scenes aside from maybe the end fight. The movie was more or less alright.

She was less shaken up by the end, and seemed to have enjoyed herself quite a bit despite being scared.

"We'll do this again sometime." she even promised.

Just like that daybreak arrived and our mornings began, with me starting to make breakfast for the both of us. With Chiori staying suspiciously close to me throughout the process.

Still, I wondered if we'd really have the chance to do something like this in the future.