As she was putting on her pajamas, yet another thought struck the half-asleep youngster. "Haruhi-nee," she began, "Why did you take a bath so early? When I left, you were playing video games with Johnathan-nii."

As she looked over her at her womb-mate. Christiana noticed the slight frown on her companion's face. The black-haired girl paused for a few moments before replying, "John-nii says that it is not the same unless all three of us are together." Now fully clothed, she hesitated once more as she took a comb out of the sterilizer. Her silence went on as she sat on a stool in front of the vanity mirror. Finally, she continued, "Since you have been going to practice after school every day, we don't play the way we used to."

This unexpected revelation jolted her back to full consciousness. The now opened-mouthed Christiana looked her Sister in the eye. "Why would he say that?" she asked her womb-mate in a surprised tone. "That doesn't sound like him at all."

Haruhi-nee merely shrugged, the frown deepening on her face as she combed out her dark hair. After a few seconds, the older child continued, "I think he just misses you when you're not there. To be honest, we both do."

Christiana remained there, stunned by this unexpected news. After a few moments of silence, she perched on a stool and took a comb of her own from the sterilizer. However, she only sat there, looking at her companion's reflection. When Haruhi-nee finished grooming her Night dark hair, she stood up and retrieved the unused item from her sibling's hand. Then the elder Sister began combing her long golden tresses.

She turned her head and looked at the older girl over her shoulder, a look of regret on her features. In an apologetic tone, she said, "I'm sorry, oneechan. I don't want to become a Keeper, much less train for it every day."

The dark-haired youngster's face lit up when she heard her Sister say that, and she smiled back before she turned her head forward once again. The two were silent for a while, Haruhi-nee happily combing her womb-mate's hair far longer than she needed to.

Finally, the younger girl broke the companionable silence. "If you aren't spending your afternoons with Johnathan-nii, then what are you doing when I'm not around?" she asked out of curiosity.

"Well, after I finish my homework, I go hang out with Amelia-neechan," Haruhi-nee replied.

Christiana immediately responded by exclaiming, "What!" so loud that it was a surprise that no one in the rest of the house heard her. "All Amelia-neechan thinks about is love and getting Married as soon as she can," she continued.

Amelia-neechan had just turned eighteen Colonial Years old and was in her first Year of high school. From the time the medium height child with long curly brown hair entered middle school, her mind had been full of nothing but finding a good union and buying into it. While becoming interested in sex and Marriage was common amongst her age group, Amelia-neechan took things to the extreme. When she was alone with her youngers, it was all the girl would talk about.

Luckily, their next oldest sister, Sophie-oneechan, was the total opposite of Amelia-neechan. The twenty Colonial Year old Sophie-oneechan was very serious and not at all unstable. This short, dark-haired beauty had a mixture of Asian and Caucasian features with a very curvy figure. The problem with Sophie-oneechan was that she was only interested in her books and had very little involvement with other people. Thus, even though she was a high school honors student, she was unpopular with her peers. Her not taking care of her appearance didn't help matters, although she was meticulously clean. Amelia-neechan constantly tried to get Sophie-oneechan to wear fashionable clothes and style her hair according to the latest trends. However, the elder girl merely replied that fashion was nothing more than a waste of time and money.

Unfortunately, since the capricious Amelia-neechan had been born between Sophie-oneechan and the trio of youngers, making her the odd man out, so to speak. Her lack of interest in academics and her fixation on love and Marriage isolated the girl from her more serious Sisters. However, Amelia-neechan's outgoing personality helped her to make many friends at school, and she spent most of her free time on the 'com chatting with them.

As a result, it stunned Christiana to hear that Haruhi-nee was voluntarily spending time with Amelia-neechan. While the womb-mates were both popular with their peers, neither of them were as whimsical as Amelia-neechan. Besides, neither girl was concerned with love and Marriage at their age. Thus, either Haruhi-nee had to have gone crazy or else she had become very lonely without her two favorite siblings.

"Amelia-neechan isn't that bad as long as you talk about things she is interested in," the older sibling responded after a pause. "For instance, last night we talked about how we could merge hairstyles from Old Earth modern styles to make new ones."

"I could see how that might work. She is excited about becoming a trendsetter," Christiana replied, as she took yet another comb from the sterilizer. Then, after getting up and walking behind her Sister, she began combing Haruhi-nee's long dark hair. "So you have to be creative to talk to her about something other than love," she continued.

After flashing her womb-mate a quick smile over her shoulder and then turning to face forward, Haruhi-nee replied, "Yep. You would not believe the conversation we had about silk last week." Then the older girl giggled and said, "She actually took notes when I told her we could manufacture a similar fabric from rayon and polyester called satin."

"Why was she so interested in that?" Christiana asked while running the comb through her Sister's hair.

"Well, we don't have enough see-oh-too free areas to raise silkworms in sufficient quantities. Thus the only way that we can create a related material is with synthetics," the older girl explained. "Since most clothes, including kimonos, are composed of woven cotton, we still haven't generated synthetic-based fabrics on a major scale here on Cooper's World. However, we have the technology to fabricate polyester and rayon from the excess carbon in the atmosphere. There just hasn't been a market for man-made materials because they are much more expensive than fibers derived from plants. After all, most vegetation thrives in the see-oh-too rich air."

"So Amelia-neechan had the idea to produce satin, make clothes out of it, and wear them as a new style," she conjectured.

"Not exactly," Haruhi-nee responded. "She wants to create satin kimonos and sell them instead of wearing them herself. That way she could break into the fashion industry while investing her profits back into satin production and into the large-scale production of synthetic fibers."

"Wow, that is a good idea," Christiana replied, amazed to learn that underneath her capricious exterior her least dependable sister had a head for business. However, after a few moments of thought, she continued, "Haruhi-nee, how much of this plan was your idea?"

Her womb-mate laughed for a bit before replying, "I'd estimate about fifty to sixty percent, but she came up with almost half of the scheme on her own. She is a lot smarter than she lets on."

"Then why does she act like a love-addled social butterfly?" Christiana asked as she continued combing.

Haruhi-nee was quiet for a moment, apparently trying to come up with an appropriate answer. Then she said, "I guess she thinks that if she acts too intelligent, she won't be liked at school. After all, Sophie-oneechan behaves as if she is smarter than the rest of us combined and she is the least popular."

She promptly quipped, "That has a lot more to do with the fact that Sophie-oneechan likes to be alone than how smart she is."

"Well, that just shows that Amelia-neechan isn't as bright as we are," the dark-haired girl replied with a chuckle.

Christiana stopped combing her Sister's hair and put the combs back into the sterilizer, pressed the button to make it close and begin its UV cycle, and walked away. On impulse, she reached out and took Haruhi-nee's hand, to which her sister responded with an unabashed smile. It had been a while since the duo had done this, but when they were younger, the two had often held hands.

"I hope things like this can help to cure her loneliness," she thought as she led her womb-mate out of the bathroom, through the halls, and into their bedroom. The pair walked side by side, their fingers still entwined without saying a word. Christiana looked over at her Sister from time to time, only to see her beaming the entire way.

Once they got to their room, she finally released her womb-mate's hand to close the door.

"Aww," Haruhi-nee said in a fairly quiet voice as soon as their hands parted. However, Christiana acted like she hadn't heard. Then she walked to her bunk and laid down under her warm, fuzzy covers while turning away from her companion. After she realized that her older Sister had settled in, she flipped over so she was facing her womb-mate's bed. Just as she had suspected, her sibling was laying there peeking at her from under her bedding.

Acting like she was exasperated, the younger girl sighed loudly and then said, "Okay, you can sleep with me if you want to," and then turned back over. She smiled when she heard her oneechan say "Yay" before she hopped up and climbed in with Christiana. Then she snuggled up to her Sister and hugged her from behind.

As soon as Haruhi-nee settled in, she called out, "lights off," and the room dimmed, leaving only a faint glow. This small amount of light remained so the girls could see to get to the door if they had to go to the bathroom during the night. Hurriedly stumbling around in the dark while having to use the restroom was no fun, and it was a good way to stub a toe or two.

Just as she was drifting off to sleep, her Sister commented, "You know Amelia-neechan, and I talked a little about her favorite subject."

"Really?" Christiana responded, her half-asleep mind not quite understanding what her womb mate was hinting at.

"Yeah," Haruhi-nee went on, "She told me all about what husbands and Wives do in the privacy of their bedrooms."

"That's nice," she replied groggily, no longer paying attention to what the older girl was saying as she drifted off to sleep.

"Yeah, she said that what they do is really fun," the elder child continued, and then playfully kissed her on the cheek.

This, of course, brought Christiana back to consciousness in the blink of an eye. "What are you doing!" she exclaimed, abruptly sitting up in the bed.

In response, her older sister dissolved into a fit of giggles. "I was just kidding," she replied. "I wanted to see how you would react to my joke. Amelia-neechan doesn't know what adults do in the bedroom any more than we do."

At this, she simply shook her head, called the dark-haired girl a baka, and then laid back down next to her weirdo of a Sister.

"Good night, Chris-imouto," Haruhi-nee said as she snuggled up to her womb-mate yet again.

"G'night," she replied, already well on her way to dreamland. It had been one of the most eventful days of her young life, and she welcomed sleep with all of her heart.