Flecks of Gold

"Rin! Rinnnnn!"

The sound of footsteps on the stairs snapped Rin's attention from her nails and to the door, spotting her brother.

Out of breath, his sentences were incoherent.

"OhmigoshRinyoucan'tbelieve." Takes a breath. "Whatifound." Takes another. "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod."

Rin looked back on the table, blushing as she saw her brother.

"Len... would you mind putting on some underwear?"

Len looked down and saw that his towel has indeed fallen in his haste to tell Rin about his discovery. "Forget the underwear! This is more important!"

Rin kept her gaze to her newly painted nails and blew on it.

"I don't care how important it is. Go back upstairs and put on some pants. Or a towel at least."

Len grumbled, "Fine…" as a drop of shampoo dropped from his hair and into his eye.

"AURGH!" He clutched his eye to his hand. "OH MY GOD! IT BURNS!"

Rin began to giggle, and stood up from her chair.

Grabbing a bucket from the stove, she dashed back to her blinded brother and poured all the contents from the bucket all over her brother to wash away the shampoo from his hair and soap from his body.

Len spit out what liquid went in his mouth. "What is this?"

Rin blinked. "Chicken stock."

Len wiped his tongue. "Ewwww..."

Rin grinned. "At least I didn't put in the turkey yet." Tossing the bucket, she took off her shirt and wiped her brother down to get rid of the excess liquid.

"R-Rin! What are you doing?" Len said, blushed and looked away.

"Don't worry about it. I'm wearing another shirt. Besides, you're the one who's stark naked."

Len looked back at his sister to realize that she was, in reality, wearing another shirt. He scratched his head.

"Oh... my bad."

Rin just sighed as she continued wiped her brother with her shirt.

"So?"

Len blinked. "Huh?"

Rin sighed. "What's so important that you had to end your shower and tell me right away?"

Len slapped his cheeks together. "Oh my gosh! I almost forgot! It must have been the pain and the possibility of being blinded that made me forget."

Rin bonked on his skull and placed her shirt over Len's body.

"Enough of the excuses. What's up?"

Len looked around. "Where is it?"

"Where's what?"

"The thing I wanted to show you."

"I don't know."

Len rolled his eyes. "Hang on, give me a second." His eyes darted around the floor when he found it. "Found it!"

He made a reach for it and showed it to his sister.

"Lookie at what I found!"

Rin blinked. She didn't see anything.

"What is it?"

"Look!" Len placed it closer to her face. "It's gold!"

Now that Rin could see it, she stared at it. She was silent.

Len continued, "See? Gold I tell you! I found it in the shower. There was a glimmer and there it was! There's so much more in the shower! We're gonna be rich!"

He was surprised when his sister began to laugh.

"What?"

"W-what you..." Rin continued to laugh.

Len waited patiently for her to finish.

When she was finally done, she wiped the tears from her eyes and placed her hand on her brother's soaked, smelly head.

"Len, sweetie, that isn't gold."

"W-what? B-but, of course it is! Look at it!" He looked at her, who began to laugh again.

"I'm guessing you didn't hear me this afternoon."

"Huh?"

"I told you, I was going to redo my nails today."

"Huh?"

Rin showed Len her half-finished yellow manicure.

"I know it's bad, but I didn't realize that we ran out of nail polish remover until I got home. So I peeled it off."

"So that's why you took a shower and spent three hours in there?"

Rin smiled and nodded.

"So... all these flakes of gold... are just your peelings of your golden nail polish?" He was devastated.

"Yellow." She corrected.

"Oh..." Len looked down in defeat.

Rin just pat his back.

"Why don't you go and finish your shower?"