1 New home for 2 brothers

"Here's the keys to your apartment. Treat them with care; I will charge you to replace them," the elderly landlord said as he placed the keys to the room in the hands of someone named Ren.

After receiving the keys to the apartment, Ren and his little brother Namiyo watched as the elderly landlord walked away. After the elder was gone, both siblings looked at each other and, in a burst of emotion, they began laughing and jumping around. "We got it! We got the apartment!" Namiyo cheered. A few seconds after cheering, both siblings looked at each other and coughed twice, seemingly regaining composure.

"You look happy," Ren said in a calm tone, trying to hide the fact his face was slightly red. "I- I seem happy? I got no clue what you're talking about; I'm cold, bro," Namiyo stated, also trying to hide his slightly flustered face.

Both siblings sat in silence for a second until Namiyo asked Ren if they were going to go inside or not. After asking this, Ren placed the key inside the lock and twisted it; after doing so, they heard the lock open, and with a swift movement, they slowly pushed the door open from the outside.

"It's empty…" Namiyo said as he walked in, but after he said that, his brother Ren, who was following closely behind, responded to him, "Really? I thought it would've been full of decorations and furniture, just for us, isn't that right, lil princess," Ren teased Namiyo as he then chuckled to himself. "Princess? Think you're talking about yourself, pinecone."

After both siblings inspected the full apartment, they decided that they would have to clean the apartment before they placed any of their things in place. So, about to do that, they brought their stuff in and placed it in front of the door.

It wasn't much; they had a few shirts, pants, and 2 futons, along with a few other minor essentials such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, and Namiyo's hairbrush. "Heh, you're so zesty, big bro," when Namiyo said this, Ren gave him a dumbfounded look. "And why am I zesty now? Hairbrush girl. I'M A DUDE. And I say that because you have a pink toothbrush." After stating that Ren had a pink toothbrush, Namiyo gave him a smirk. After a second, Ren came back quoting Namiyo from the past, 'Girls are so overrated'... "So tell me, Namiyo, are you into guys maybe?" Ren laughed as he had seen his younger brother's mad reaction; he yelled at Ren, saying he was only into girls, and so on. But as they teased each other as brothers would do, they eventually began cleaning and getting their stuff situated.

About 15 minutes later, all their things were in the right places, but even then, they lacked so many things, like a couch, TV, proper beds, plates, silverware, etc. "Hey bro...we have a gas stove!" Namiyo was ecstatic after seeing it since they had been living off instant ramen for the past 2 months.

"That's good. I'll pass by the grocery store after work, and hey, remind me tomorrow we have to both go apply for schools, okay?" Namiyo nodded his head, reassuring Ren that he'd remind him. "Alright, lil bro, stay safe." With this, Ren left for work.

About 30 minutes later, Ren was nearly halfway to his workplace when he was lost in thought. "Man, working three jobs sure is hard. Glad we got an apartment. Now we don't have to sleep outside." So as Ren was lost in his thoughts, he bumped into a light-skinned girl who was lost in her phone and walking in the opposite direction.

After they bumped into each other, Ren had seen the girl falling onto her back and caught her. In doing so, he rolled over so he'd hit the sidewalk and not this girl. After he hit the ground with his back, the girl was shocked, so she didn't say nor do anything for a moment. But after realization struck her, she stood up and helped Ren get up. "Sorry, are you okay?" she asked worriedly. "Y-yeah, I'm alright." Ren's back, for the moment, hurt as he'd absorbed most of the impact with the back part of his shoulder.

After asking to see if he was alright, the light-skinned girl, who had yet to introduce herself, found herself flustered and about to introduce herself, but just as she was about to say something, Ren suddenly spoke up, "Crap! Hey, sorry, I gotta go!" Ren had looked at his watch and had seen that he was about to be late for work, so he ran off towards his workplace.

Leaving the mesmerized girl standing there all by herself, she pondered there for a bit, "I don't know him, but he's… pretty hot." She thought as she quickly snapped out of it, leaving a faint trace of red of embarrassment on her face.

About 20 minutes after bumping into the girl, Ren found himself out of breath and in front of the bookstore he'd been working at for the last month. Walking in, he came across the elder lady who was in charge of the store. "I'm so sorry for being late, baa-chan."

After Ren had explained the situation to his boss (Baa-chan: meaning grandma), she understood and kindly told him not to worry about it, that it wasn't a big deal. Thus, after getting to work, cleaning the store, taking care of customers, and reorganizing the bookshelves, 5 hours passed, and it was finally time for him to clock out and head off to his next job.

This time he wasn't late for his next job, which had been at a movie theater. Ren was working at the front table where people would go and buy snacks, refill popcorn, and get practically anything they wanted. After another 5 hours, Ren would clock out and head off to his last little job; he'd walk, walk, and walk for 20 minutes until he'd reach his next workplace, which was a restaurant called Night-dine. Being one of the waiters, Ren was going to be very, very busy.

40 minutes after he had begun working, someone arrived at the restaurant and sat down with a couple of friends at an open table. After waiting for a few minutes, Ren was able to head over to them and did so; though upon getting there, he'd recognized one of the ladies who was there.

"Well hello again," Ren kindly greeted the light-skinned girl from earlier. "U-umm, hi," the girl tried to hide her face a little bit but quickly tried to regain composure after remembering how he took the fall for her. Her friends had seen this and began teasing her. "Oh? Is our tough Iris a little shy right now?" one of the girls teased her, as another joined in.

After yelling at her friends, Iris, embarrassed, began to order her food and drink, as did the other girls. "Alright, so that'll be 3 flat whites, and 1 pumpkin spice latte, and 2 steaks, medium rare with sides of fries? O-okay, and then a pork teriyaki ramen, and for you, Ms. Iris, just a bowl of teriyaki ramen with some amberjack added into it?" The girls quickly confirmed the order, and Ren went to get them their drinks and later their food.

After arriving with their food, Ren leaned a little close to Iris as he saw that she wasn't touching her food. "Is there something wrong?" Ren whispered to Iris, not wanting to alert any customers or her friends to further embarrass her.

Doing this caught Iris off guard completely, so she silently reassured him that nothing was wrong and that she would be eating right away. After reassuring him of this, she grabbed her chopsticks and began to eat the teriyaki ramen. Ren didn't stick around for too long since he had other customers to tend to, but he could tell that every now and then she'd glance at him as he moved around doing various things.

After they were ready to leave, Ren came over with the bill, and they paid. "Come again," Ren kindly bid them farewell as they left, talking amongst themselves. After this, Ren looked toward the left a little and noticed the clock. "Well, I've got about 10 minutes left till I clock out," Ren reminded himself as he wrapped up his part of the shift.

After that, he was on his way home when he stopped by the grocery store, as he promised Namiyo he would do so. After getting a few ingredients to cook, he continued on his way home. Upon arriving at the apartment, Ren was greeted by his hungry younger brother Namiyo. "Bro, I'm starving! What's for dinner?" Namiyo asked Ren as he literally walked right through the door.

"Ummm, how about we wait for me to put the stuff down," Ren said as he handed the two bags to Namiyo who began looking through them. "Help yourself to an apple for now while I clean up and get the food ready," Ren told Namiyo, who was clearly going to do that even without his approval.

After getting situated, Ren began cutting the greens he'd gotten at the store and lit the stove as he placed a pan with some sesame oil. After waiting for it to heat up, Ren placed some bluefin tuna and then later added some seasonings after it was ready. "Now to boil these vegetables…" Ren would do a few things and finally have food ready.

Within a second of finishing all the food, Namiyo took a bite and cried out, "HOT! HOT!" Ren saw as Namiyo took deep breaths to cool the food in his mouth. "And that's why you wait for your food to cool off, dumb little brother of mine," Ren smiled as he grabbed his plate and, with his chopsticks, grabbed a bit of the tuna, which led to him blowing on it to cool it off before digging in.

After about 5 minutes, the food was more or less cool but warm enough, and as both brothers ate, Namiyo asked Ren something that piqued his interest, "Hey big bro, don't you think that it's about time you..."