Sighing Rin flipped through the TV channels, looking for something he actually wanted to watch. It was the Australian winter school holidays and he was back in Japan and his mother had left him to 'babysit' (she's eleven why did he need to babysit?) Gou when he heard a muffled shriek from the other end of the house.
"You better be either sick or dying if you're screaming like that!" He dragged himself out of his chair. "I was about to watch Bleach. Do you know how far behind they are in Australia and it's all dubbed in English, I mean 'Soul Reaper' the left it as Shinigami in Death note so why did they change it for Bleach." He stood outside her door. "You alright in there?"
"I'm fine!" Gou called as something crashed inside her room.
"I'm coming in." Rin turned the handle and opened the door . . .
. . . To find his younger sister sprawled on the floor desperately trying to hide something underneath her bed.
"What happened?"
"I, uh fell!" Gou stood up, loose pants falling down over her knees. "Yeah, that's what happened!"
"Okay, just try not to -" His eyes fell on an ominous speck of red on her floor. He had seen kids that cut back in Australia, and a couple of times he had been close to it himself. "Gou, you know you can talk to me and Mum right? I mean if you're having trouble at school I can understand that, but hurting yourself isn't the way to -"
"Rin what are you going on about?"
"- I mean I know what it's like feeling like no-one understands you -"
"Rin, you're scaring me!" This was the most she had heard her brother speak since he had gotten home
"- There are other outlets -"
"RIN!" Gou grabbed her older brother's wrists. "What are you going on about?"
"The blood on your floor."
"I was trying to shave my legs but I cut myself. Sheesh how much of an idiot are you Rin?" She let her brother go and moved to wipe up the blood with a tissue. "You see Mariko was teasing me because I don't shave my legs yet so I though it can't be that hard so I stole Mums razor and -"
"Stop." Rin held up a hand. "So your telling me you tried to shave your legs but you messed up an ended up cutting your leg?"
"Yup."
"Why didn't you ask Mum to teach you?"
"I didn't think she would say yes."
"Google how to do it?"
"I'm not allowed to use the internet without supervision."
"Fine." He pushed his hair out of his face. "How bad is the damage?"
Sheepishly, Gou pulled up the leg of her trousers.
"How the hell?" Rin muttered in English. There were at least three cuts on his sister's leg, one of them still oozing blood. "These are going to get infected." He switched back to Japanese. "How about I teach you how to shave your legs?"
"Rin, we both know you aren't old enough to shave yet."
"I shave my legs for swimming or have you forgotten that as well?"
. . .
An hour later and Gou's cuts had been cleaned and had finally stopped bleeding enough to be shaved properly, Rin had made an emergency trip to the store to buy disposable razors (he hadn't planned on swimming much while on holiday) and the Matsuoka siblings were sitting on the edge of the bathtub.
"Hurry up Mum will be home soon!" Gou poked her brother's arm. "I want smooth legs noooooooooooow!"
"Shut up and pay attention." Rin grabbed the shampoo.
"Why aren't you using shaving cream?
"That stuff is expensive and shampoo works better in my opinion." He squeezed a little shampoo onto his hand and worked it to a lather. "Are you paying attention this is important. You have to make sure you get it all over your legs and then -" he ran his razor under the tap and drew it up his leg. "You start at the ankle and go to the knee in one stroke, don't apply too much pressure or you'll hurt yourself. Rinse your razor under the tap after each stroke." He continued to shave his leg. "And when you finish rinse it off, check to make sure you haven't missed a spot and you're done." He stuck his foot in his sister's face. "Feel my leg, just shaved."
"Ok, I think I've got it. Move I wanna go." She pushed her brother so he fell of the edge of the tub. Lather, rinse, shave, rinse, shave, rinse . . ."
"Finished!" Gou swung her legs over the edge of the tub. "That was way easier. Look, I didn't even cut myself. Do I do above the knee now?"
"Not until you're old enough to get married. Now move I want to do my other leg. Also," Rin grabbed a bottle of lotion off the shelf. "Rub a bit of that into your legs."
"Thanks Rin." Gou hugged her brother. "Now I can tell everyone that my brother taught me how to shave my legs!"
"You realise I never see most of those people so your attack on my manliness fails automatically."
"I'm going to do it to show them how much better my brother is than theirs." Gou grinned. "Cause you know theirs couldn't even teach them basic skills."
"Anytime sis."