"You traitor", said my brother Lucien. "You were supposed to join the air force! Why did you pull out last minute?"

"Big brother, do you know when you have that bad feeling in the pit of your stomach that you can't ignore no matter what?", I asked. He replied with a slight nod of his head. No sign of Grey fever anywhere on him, not even in his wavy-fade cut hair. "Well, I had that really bad feeling in my stomach and I couldn't get rid of it. I knew that joining was a bad idea from the start was not for me but I felt pressured by you and Dad to get in. It's just that after I signed my name, I felt like I was signing my life away".

"Do you realize the opportunity you let go because of some 'feeling' you had? Do you realize the benefits you would've had?!", he shouted. I took Lucien's jam-packed luggage bag, which was an extra large duffle bag decorated in the pale tan fatigue pattern with his name stitched onto it along with the scraggly airport tags on the handle. Lucien continued to yell at me while my sister, Nenna, joined in along calling me lazy as I walked his luggage into the guestroom we had prepared for him the day before he arrived. 

"Alright shut up! I already quit so what's done is done", I argued back. At times like this, I hated being the younger sister due to me having to take all this bull from my older siblings. I can't talk back to them harshly because Mom and Dad are here and they won't hesitate to jump on my tail for disrespecting them and cussing. Because I'm younger, I have to listen to what everybody says but I can't have a mind of my own and make my own decisions.  Besides, Dad already pesters me about it even though he said it was okay for me to do it. Not one piece of silence resulted from quitting the enlistment into the air force. 

"You're so irresponsible and lazy! Why can't you just do something without Mom and Dad jumping on your back and saving you!"

"Save me? They were the first ones to show how disappointed in me they were. They constantly nag at me and try to push me away. No one wants me here and I'd be better off dead if you guys want me to go away so badly!"

"How could you say that? You are our baby sister, we want to see you on your own and thriving".

"Okay but I want to do this my own way so leave me alone!". I rushed myself to my room to avoid  anymore. All the pressure I felt inside just stored itself inside my head until the end of the day. The rest of the day I wanted to cry but I held my composure until night time. When I knew everybody was asleep, I snuck out of my room, grabbed my journal, and quietly walked to the deck in the backyard. 

Pages and pages of my journal lined with words of depression and anxiety left little to no space for what I was about to write down. The tears I held in and every emotion I felt was scribed into my journal with my favorite pen rapidly while the words I was thinking of were in my head. I finished my thoughts. 

"Leela, wake up", he said as he shook my body. Kai had a worrisome face as I got up from my bed, slowly sitting up to stretch my back. "Do you have PTSD or something because you seem to have nightmares all the time", he continued, "Maybe I just pushed you too far with the questioning and triggered something".

"No, I'm fine. I swear. It's just normal for me, lately." I looked down at my pillow and saw some wet stains. I wiped my face thinking it was drool but it was tears. The tears were crusted now on the left side of my face where the dried up stain on my pillow was. "Sorry for making you worry".

"It's alright. I was just scared that you contracted a fever with all these bodies down here".

"No, I'm immune to everything", I said.

"I don't know. You weren't immune to periods until I gave you that shot", he laughed. I laughed along thinking back to when we were still bickering like crazy. Kai stood up, making the bed dip slightly before resigning to it's normal form. "Well Leela, It's been great but it's time to leave now. Alyse and the other miscreants checked outside and the rest of city. Everything's clear."

"Are you sure? What if the people are just hiding? What if they bugged Fog?". I felt slightly paranoid about putting people in danger since Kai made it very clear that that would be the final straw.

"You don't think we checked?", he drawled on. "Of course, we checked for everything under the sun, or the people up there, really. The Foxes already checked the upper world as well."

"What about the ladder?".

"We take the ladder down before those days so the upper people don't think that there are people living down here". That bit of information reassured me that I was safe down here. 

Kai was packing up his belongings as he talked. he moved here and there, cleaning up everything we ate. As he was finishing his packing, he looked over at my side of the dorm and asked, "Aren't you going to pack up?". I walked over to him and gave him a hug.

He was frozen in place as if he never had physical contact with another human being since he was a baby. I held onto him for a couple of moments before he placed his hands on my back awkwardly. "Leela, what are you doing?", he asked into my ear. I chuckled knowing that his face contorted into a strange clumsy one.

"I'm giving you a hug".

"I know that... but what for?", he questioned.

"It's for taking time out of your day to help me adjust down here even though I didn't make your job easy at all. It's for getting to know me and starting over with me because of those misunderstandings".

He interrupted me briefly, "you mean the photos and spying?"

"Yes, those too", I said happily. I tightened my hug around him. "And it's for saying thank you, Kai". I pecked him on the cheek before letting him go. His face turned seriously unfazed. At this point, I knew that his serious and oblivious face was there to hide his emotions that could easily show. His voice let me know that he felt light and warm inside due to the fluctuation in his tone he let slip out. 

"You're welcome, Leela".