The late night air was filled with the screeching of countless bugs. The torches surrounding the deck kept them all at bay while the lights that illuminated our late night gathering enticed them to come closer. Nina pouted in her chair after Natsu had refused to keep quiet about their upbringing, and he sat in a lounger with his arms wrapped around a bent leg.

  "Our story began around two months before Nina was born," Natsu seemed deep in thought. "I have no memory of the time, but our father told me about this once or twice."

  His normal comical appearance had been replaced with a somber look. The dim light bounced off of his dripping body as he drenched the lounger. He would often take long pauses like he was trying to find the right words to tell their story.

  "Our mother had been stricken with some sort of illness late into carrying my sister. No matter what was done, her health continued to decline. Doctors urged her to put her own life above her daughter's, but she refused to hear any of it and carried her to term. Not even a week into my sister's life, our mother died from that disease."

  Nina had curled up and pushed her face into her knees. I had never seen her so small. The other girls attempted to comfort her, but they were met with a figurative wall of ice. Denki threw a towel at a still sopping wet Natsu and took a seat beside me.

  "All of her life, she's never known a mother's touch or love. What I had known, I've long since forgotten," Natsu turned to Nina. "Regardless, I have never blamed nor will I ever blame her death on you. She made her choice, and if she was anything like Dad described her, she was unwavering in her choices."

  Nina said nothing as he continued his story.

  "Life was hard for Dad, a single father of two working two full-time jobs: one at home, one at work. He never let us see what it did to him, though. Fast forward three years, and I'm sure everyone can picture that huge solar flare. I was walking home with Nina from the convenience store when it happened. It was over before either of us could react, and nothing seemed different at the time. Little did we know that would be one of the most defining moments of our lives.

  "Dad rushed home after it happened to see that we were okay. We started getting babysitters the next day. Don't get me wrong; before, our neighbor would check in on us frequently throughout the day. She was a sweet old lady... I wonder what ever happened to her...

  "Anyway, babysitters were expensive, and with full-time care, Dad ended up working longer hours to make up the difference. Sometimes, we would go two or three days without even seeing him."

  "He should have just remarried and worked something else out," Nina butted in.

  "You and I both know how much he loved Mom. Him trying to start a new marriage with someone else never would have worked."

  Nina sank deeper into her seat.

  "Three more years go by, and we were doing pretty well for ourselves. Dad had gotten promoted which came with a nice raise. We ate dinners as a family for a long time, but even that time wouldn't last. One day, Dad didn't come home for dinner. We had no way to contact him, but we had hoped that everything was okay. He came home long after Nina had fallen asleep and told me that his company was belly up, something about bad investments and contract loopholes. That was when everything started to go downhill.

  "He desperately sought another job, but the reputation of his former employer tanked any chance he had with a good company. He took three part-time jobs to try to make up the difference, but it wasn't enough. We went back to almost never seeing him, only this time, there was no babysitter besides me. When he was home, he was either dead to the world asleep or watching out the windows. We kept a stack of bags packed so we could leave at a moment's notice, but I never knew why until it happened.

  "Three big and ugly guys showed up at our doorstep one day when he was leaving for work. They said something about him owing their boss money and that the time to pay up was coming fast. After they left, Dad sat at the doorstep for a while. I know now that he was thinking about telling us that it was time to go, but something inside him pulled him back. We didn't see Dad for a week after that, and we didn't see the thugs ever again. Somehow, he had come up with the money, but the cost was sky high.

  "After another week away from us, Dad came home one night and collapsed on the floor. His breathing was jagged, and sweat poured from his forehead. We did all we could, but nothing seemed to help. He sent me next door to ask the nice old lady to call an ambulance, but she never answered. I pounded on every door of that apartment complex until some kid no older than me finally opened the door. It was only by a miracle that she had a house phone. The ambulance arrived about twenty minutes later, but it was already too late. Dad had died of a heart attack brought on by astronomical stress and a scarce diet almost completely devoid of any nutrition.

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  "One of his jobs was at a convenience store, so that was probably where he would get any food that he would eat since we never saw him eat after the company collapsed. Dad had literally worked himself to death leaving a ten year old son and an eight year old daughter with no family and no money."

  "If he had just —"

  "Not another word, Nina," Natsu's voice was uncharacteristically firm. "Dad's death was like Mom's: his own choice. Whatever drove him to make that choice, we can't blame ourselves for, and I swear to you if you try to blame yourself..."

  "Now you wanna act like a big brother..." Nina said in a hushed voice.

  "Without anyone to go to, we made use of the bags that we had packed. After a singular day of being on the streets, we were picked up by the authorities and thrown into an orphanage: Angel's House. The place itself wasn't bad: decent food, an education, a couple handfuls of other kids to play with. The problem arose when I discovered my ability two years later. A disgruntled and cocky teenager finds out he can put his hands anywhere and not get caught? Yeah, recipe for disaster.

  "We would go on shopping trips for Angel's House and come back with way more than was allotted. A brand new television and gaming system went missing from a local electronics store, and we just so happened to pull one out of the basement of the hall. A high school volleyball team loses their undergarments out of their gym bags that had mysteriously disappeared in the middle of a match — definitely one of my worst decisions. Anyway, eventually, the staff caught on that I was a master thief.

  "They gave me a choice: stop and return everything, or face punishment. Naturally, I chose neither, but that ended about as well as you would think. Thankfully, they spared Nina when they threw me back out on the streets. I was a regular old street urchin with a knack for getting things without being seen. Of course delinquent and criminal outfits heard about me and tracked me down. One such outfit was led by none other than a young ogre named Kawasaki Shu. Like all the others, I turned them away — ever the angsty teenager, I guess.

  "This one, however, knew more than anyone else, and I came face to face with Nina again. The brute had somehow adopted her and was using her to get my cooperation. What neither of us knew, however, was her own ability had manifested, but instead of taking off with both of us, she invited me in."

  "A roof over your head with food you didn't always need to steal, sorry it wasn't up to your high standards," Nina grumbled. "We needed a place to go, and he was the only one that would take two orphans like us."

  "Again, I don't blame you," Natsu reassured his sister. "You did what you had to do for us to survive, and we did. Hell, we made names for ourselves, but if we've learned anything so far, it's that nothing lasts forever. A heist goes bad, the two of us bail out before it all comes crumbling down, and the rest of the crew gets caught. Next thing you know, we're wanted by both the law and Kawasaki's crew. We went back to my roots, petty theft, and that's where you came in," he held his hand out to me. "And the rest is history."

  The silence was deafening on that midsummer's night. The two of them had been through so much together, more than any of the others could have ever dreamed of. Even I had to pause and take it all in, but I took comfort in the fact that they had each other at the very least. The girls forced Nina into a group hug despite all of her struggling. The fact that she had not sped away let me know that deep down, she wanted to be held, to be understood. So much about her became clear after hearing their story. The group eventually broke off, and one by one everyone went to bed until only Nina and I remained on the deck.

  "So there," she said after a long silence. "All my dirty laundry aired out for everyone to see thanks to that oaf of a brother."

  "I don't think it's such a bad thing to tell your friends about your life," I responded as I leaned against the rail.

  "Ever the hopeless optimist," she sighed as she leaned over the rail facing the ocean. "I hate that about you, you know."

  "Well, excuse me," I chuckled. "I hate that I can't tell what you're thinking most of the time."

  "I hate how you went from almost killing the two of us to saving us without hesitation."

  "I hate how you insist on being number one in absolutely everything; it really makes a competition between friends difficult."

  "I hated how goofy you looked in that Dracula costume," she laughed.

  "I hated how you and Natsu brought food and drinks to the party when we told you not to worry about it," I smiled. "Heck, I hate it even more now that I know that the two of you were struggling."

  "I-I hate the way you trained us to use our abilities so that we aren't scared of them anymore," her tone changed.

  "I hate that I couldn't save your brother at the stadium."

  "I hate that you noticed that I had aged after a few minutes," her voice almost cracked.

  "I hate how you could starve to death in the middle of a run," I glanced at her.

  She said nothing as her head hung low. Her breathing went from slightly shaky to perfectly normal, and she turned to me. The moonlight reflected from her brown eyes making them almost seem yellow. She wore a sad but determined look on her face.

  "I hate that I lost the race before I ever decided to run," she declared.

  "What are you — "

  My thought was interrupted by her lips pressing against my cheek. She pulled away in an instant, and I tried to process what had just happened.

  "Can you tell what I'm thinking now?"

  Before I could answer, she sped off into the house. I stood under the moonlight as dumbfounded as I had ever been in my life.