I pull into the driveway of my parents’ house, and sigh deeply. As much as I love my family, it’s always a drag to drive all this way to see them. But the academy that I attend is perfect for my major, so I put up with it. Besides, I know that my batteries will son be replenished by a certain someone.

I’m not even out of my car yet when the door swings open, and my 18 year old brother comes running out of the house screaming my name.

“Candice! Welcome home!”

My little brother is skinny, with light skin, and long hair. Currently, he’s wearing a denim jumper skirt with a blue and white striped t shirt beneath it. I smile as I step out of the car to greet him, and he jumps into my arms. Despite already being a senior in high school, he’s still only 5’ tall, and is extremely clingy. I don’t mind it, though, because he gives me the energy I need to continue onwards.

“I’ve missed you, Alex” I tell him, patting his head.

“I missed you too, sis! Are you having fun at school? Do you have a boyfriend yet?”

I give an awkward, non-commitmental laugh. I kind of haven’t told them all that I’m dating a girl right now. I’ll get to that eventually, probably. I’m sure they won’t mind, considering that they’re cool with my brother crossdressing, but it’s still kind of anxiety inducing.

We head back inside, and my brother brings me to his room to show me all the cute clothes that he’s gotten while I’ve been away at college. I scowl at a rather mature looking black lace dress. It’s too short and shows too much cleavage, though, I suppose Alex doesn’t have any real cleavage to speak of.

Alex is basically jumping off the walls with excitement. But I’ve been driving for 6 hours, now, and an really hungry, tired, and need to use the bathroom. So, I do that, starting with the toilet, and then a nice, warm, homemade dinner made by my father. I typically only ever eat cheap microwaved meals and such, so the pasta is a welcome break from my typical monotony, though I admit that neither of my parents are quite chefs. They try their best, though, and you can practically taste the love.

Being so exhausted, I excuse myself to my room, on the upper floor. Since I’m mostly at college nowadays, my room is used as extra storage space, as my parents can’t ever bear to part with even their trashiest junk.

“I’m sure we’ll use this box full of old calendars for something, one day,” I mutter sarcastically, shaking my head at the trash that has accumulated in my room while I was gone.

As I change into my pajamas, my brother walks into the room, and sits down on my bed. He’s changed into a his own pajamas, a pink button up shirt and shorts set with cats on them.

“Can I sleep with you tonight?” he asks.

“Aren’t you a little old for that?”

“Does it matter?”

I chuckle. “No, I guess not. Fine.”

I climb into bed, and my brother cuddles up beside me. He wraps his arms around me, and pulls himself into my chest. I lay one hand on his hair, and the other around his shoulder. He’s like a little angel. I can’t help but drift off to sleep easily with him there beside me.

I wake up in the morning, feeling far more refreshed than any amount of sleep back at college will ever get me. My brother is still sleeping, and I watch his face for a bit, before carefully getting up. I try not to wake him, but he moans, and sits up.

“Is it morning already?”

I smile at him. “Good morning, sleeping beauty. Did you sleep well?” He nods his head. “Good.”

I head downstairs to make breakfast, but find that my parents have already beaten me to it. They left for work a bit ago, but left some eggs, hashbrowns, and toast in the fridge for us to heat up. They even did the dishes! Wow. Wish I could have service like this back at college! Whenever my girlfriend cooks, she burns most of the food, and always leaves a mess. We tend to just order delivery to save the hassle.

I sit at the couch to eat breakfast, watching some generic sitcom on the TV just for the sake of having noise. My brother sits beside me, leaning right up against me.

“Have you been going to the beach much?” my brother asks, as my academy is right by the beach.

“No, but I’ve been to the water park a few times. There’s less sand there, which is nice. And less sharks, and jellyfish…”

“But the beach is so charming!”

I sigh. “Yeah. Maybe. But my girlfriend knows a guy who works at the water park, so we can go there for cheap.”

“Oh. That’s nice! Make sure to introduce me to your girlfriend some time!”

“I just said girlfriend, didn’t I?” I sigh deeply. “Okay. Yeah. Maybe you can come down and visit some time.”

“And we can go to the beach!”

I laugh. “You really just want to go to the beach, huh?”

“Yeah! It’s been ages since I’ve been to one! The nearest one is over an hour away!”

“That’s much closer than the academy! It would be 6 hours just one way!”

“Yeah, but then I can also meet your girlfriend!”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, fine! But at least you have the pool in the backyard, right? Have you been using it?”

“Of course!”

We have an inground pool in the backyard, along with a privacy fence, so my brother can wear a swimsuit freely without worrying about others seeing stuff they shouldn’t see. I’ve also skinny dipped in the past, but it’s not something I particularly like. I spend lots of money on clothes, so I would rather wear them.

“It’s pretty hot, and I’ve got nothing to do, so do you wanna head out to the pool now?” I ask him, and he nods his head. He runs off to change, but I go ahead and finish breakfast first before heading to my room. We’ll have all day to swim, so there’s no rush.

After changing into a red polka dot two piece bikini with tied ribbons on the side and behind the neck, I head to the backyard, where my brother is already swimming. He’s wearing a one piece bikini with thin black and white stripes and pink hearts. When he sees me come out, he runs over and hugs me, then drags me towards the pool.

“Hold on, hold on!” I shout, smacking him over the head with a bottle of sunscreen. “Safety first!”

He groans, but pauses long enough to let me smear sunscreen on him. He’s really pale, and burns easily. Hopefully he’s been remembering to wear sunscreen when he comes out by himself. I chastise him as I rub the sunscreen on, reminding him that it’s important to wear it.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters as I finish off his legs.

“Trust me, I’ve gotten sunburnt enough for the both of us,” I tell him.

After I finish him off, I hand him the bottle, and lie down on a pool chair. I’m about 4 inches taller, and have a lot more exposed flesh, so it takes him a bit to finish rubbing the sunscreen on me. Of course, I make sure that I personally get the more sensitive areas, such as between my breasts, because Alex is such a baby about it. He even complained when I got too close to his butt. Please! Like that’s nothing I’ve never seen before! Whatever.

Once we’re done, we head into the pool, and splash around for a bit. He also has some water guns, so we play with those for a bit. I think those might be more effective if you’re not already wet, though. Still, getting a stream of water into your mouth or eyes isn’t exactly fun.

After about two hours or so of swimming, shouting, and playing, I get out to take a break and reapply the sunscreen. As I rest on the pool chair, my brother lies down next to me, and hugs me tight, his wet one piece bikini cold against my arm which I JUST dried off and put sunscreen on. He clings on for a big, head practically in my armpit.

“Alright, don’t go falling asleep, now,” I chuckle, patting his back.

“Sis, we’ll always be together, right?” he asks.

“Of course! What would ever make you think otherwise?”

“Well, I’ll be going to college soon, right? And you’ll be graduating college in a few years. When you do, then what happens?”

“I don’t know. But one thing is for sure: no matter what, we’ll always be together!”

“Even when you have a girlfriend?”

“Of course! Look, things may be going on at college that you don’t know about, but that’s fine! I’ll always return, and we’ll always be together, if not necessarily physically right now. Although, right now, I suppose we couldn’t be more together physically. Anyhow, what I’m saying is that even if we live far from one another, we can visit often!”

“But I can barely stand this as is!”

“No worries. I don’t know the plans for the future, but we’ll figure it out. We can live nearby, or even together, maybe. I don’t know. But you’ll always be my number one priority, okay?”

He nods his head, gripping me tight. His nails almost pierce into my skin, so I carefully pry him off.

“Sweetheart? Look at me for a second.”

He lifts his head to look at me. He looks just like a sad little puppy. I pat his head, then lean down, and hiss his cheek. Then I hug him tight, and rub my hands down his back.

“You’re my precious little brother, alright? I’ll always be here for you. Now, how about we get back to playing?”

“Yeah!”

As he runs over to the pool, I tell him to hold on, and he turns to face me.

“Uh, by the way. I know that we’ve got this fence here, so it’s fine here, but uh. There’s a pretty obvious bulge in the swimsuit. If we ever go to a public beach, you should wear a swimming skirt or something.”

“Oh!” he blushes a bit as he takes note of that. “Right. I do have swimsuits with skirts, but like you said, since nobody can see me out here, I figured, well… I did buy a lot of swimsuits, so…”

“Better not to let them go to waste?”

“Right.”

“Right. Well, it’s no problem. You shouldn’t be ashamed of your body, but we should also be careful not to draw unwanted attention. I’ll also be sure to find a beach that not many people go to, but let’s worry about that another time, alright? For now, let’s have fun!”

Alex nods his head, then jumps into the water. We go right back to shouting and having fun, but I can tell I kind of upset him with my warning. I feel bad, but he probably should know to be careful.

I nearly cry when my time visiting is over. I wish I could just shove my brother into my suitcase and take him back to college with me, but he’s still got school work to do. I promise everyone that I’ll see them again soon, and start my long 6 hour drive back to Tangerine Academy.