"...it is now 1990. You are just the young ordinary pianist Nancy Culzu. You never met Omniya, you never met her parents, especially the doctor, and most importantly, you never met her sister Sekiko..." 

Nancy stirred in her sleep, her head propped on the window. Her brownish red hair resembled a plate of spaghetti, except upside down; the paper boat hat basked on her head as it was exposed to the sun outside the window. A bit too suddenly, her eyes fluttered open and she jolted back awake as if she woke up from consecutive dreams- nightmares, if you please. She clutched onto her head while a pained expression crossed her sunkissed ingenue like face. "My head feels like it will split into two..."

She craned her neck one hundred and eighty degrees towards the back window like an owl, breaking every law of the human anatomy. She looked out at the sight of the quaint houses and rocky mountains of Kuril Islands petering out. The neighborhood looked like it had been through war, which was a stark contrast to the picturesque alpenglow and mountains off the distance.

Nancy flinched like a startled cat when a feminine voice from beside her piped up, "How was your sleep?" 

Nancy snapped her neck towards the source of the dulcet voice. She rubbed her eyes groggily and said, "It was ample and now I'm well rested. I was very tired for some reason. Either way, thanks for asking, Natalia."

Natalia's lips curved to a sly grin, "You're welcome. You were nodding off on my shoulder, so you needed every bit of it." It was no question that Natalia was a good-looking girl, with her silky auburn hair complimenting her brown eyes and her purple peplum accentuating her curves. However, her chaste body language and forced smile always seemed to contradict her attractive appeal. 

A freckled boy who was fiddling with his flannel buttons as if to keep his hands busy said,"I hope it sufficed to make up the hours you stayed up for, silly goose. Too much dedication for one piano recital. Too much!" Nathan was the middle sibling, though he very much looked like he was born the youngest. With his adorable freckles stippling over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose and his dark doe eyes, it was safe to assume that he came across as a cheeky and outgoing man.

Nancy pouted and leaned forward while glowering at said boy, "Nathan, shut up! You know how I had to pour my heart and time into practicing." 

Nathan zipped his mouth gesturally, earning a wry chuckle from Natalia. Natalia said while chortling, "Getting riled up for nothing, huh Nancy?"

Nancy rolled her eyes and before she could retort, Nathan said, "Even if you were practicing for the piano recital, you shouldn't be putting all of your eggs in one basket."

Nancy blinked wearily and huffed before looking out the window again. A very faint reflection of a girl whose soul was sapped from her appeared before her very eyes. It was her reflection and she was familiar with it, but it felt...foreign to her. It did not look like her at all. The reflection faded away.  The sprawling houses zoomed in Nancy's line of sight and that is when she realized she was experiencing motion sickness.

Nancy covered her ballooned mouth with her hand and looked at Nathan desperately, "Speaking of basket, can you get me a basket?"

Nathan raised a brow and said with a cadence of surprise, "You are about to throw up?"

Nancy nodded as her feet began to convulse in the car. She uttered with difficulty as the apples of her cheeks got larger and greener, "Just, get me something, like a basket."

Nathan grunted while taking out a bowl that looked like it would cater to...a pet? Not paying attention to whatever it was, Nancy pulled it from his hands and immediately puked out cuds into it. 

Natalia disregarded the situation all together with a neutral expression as she looked straight ahead of her. Nathan was watching the girl vomiting as the glowing radiation that omitted from his face subsided. He stuck out his tongue in disgust as he exaggeratedly turned away and closed his eyes shut. "Seeing and hearing people barf is my pet peeve!"

Natalia's eyes widened all of a sudden and she jabbed at Nathan's chest while looking at him squarely. "Then how do you, as a pilot, tolerate with hearing passengers barf into plastic bags?"

Nathan queasily turned to Natalia. He was irked by her conundrum. He tried to play it cool as he fronted his anxiousness by folding his arms and raising his shoulders in half a shrug while looking out the window. His goofy smile resurfaced and he snapped his fingers while looking back at Natalia with bright downturned eyes, who was disconcerted by his sudden change in demeanor. 

"The door for our cabin is soundproof, so I can't hear nothing while doing my pilot job. Besides, all the faint hearted scaredy-cats are always in the economy class. None of them sit in business class, which is all more reason as to why I don't hear nothing in my cabin."

Natalia pinched the bridge of her nose and said crossly, "First of all, that is clearly false and prejudiced. Second of all, do not put two negatives in a sentence. That is grammatically incorrect."

"Why do you get a rise out of silly things, Grammarly?" Natalia made a gesture as if to say "cut it out". Nathan noticed his slip up and let out an oops as he rubbed his nape with a sheepish smile. "Grammarly was not in 1990..."  Less to his chagrin, he glanced at Nancy who was entrenched in her own puke on the bowl- figuratively and literally- while breathing erratically and wiping her mouth with tissue.

Natalia heaved her chest and turned to Nancy with softer eyes and a gentle smile. "Everything alright?"

Nancy nodded while dabbing the tissue on her mouth which was now clean. "Yea, but..." She glanced at the bowl filled with cuds and vomit (I will not describe for the sake of keeping your appetite intact) with pursed lips before looking at Natalia with a curious look. "Why do we have a pet bowl with us?"

Natalia laughed out of the blue, in which Nancy blinked at rapidly. Natalia noticed her utter confusion and flicked it away by saying, her voice decorous yet keeping a twinge of humor in her end, "We are going to get a pet cat. You forgot about that, didn't you?"

Nancy's jaw hang half open and she sat even closer to the edge of the seat as she gawked at Natalia as if she heard that a zombie apocalypse broke out. "A cat? Since when?"

"The question is not since when, but why." Natalia smiled endearingly as she rested her cheek on her palm, facing the bewildered girl fully. "You see, pets are known for being a coping mechanism with mental instability. Once you own one, it is guaranteed that stress becomes alleviated. Instead of being lost and having to deal with remembering things because of your dissociative amnesia on its own merits, we- as in me, mom and dad- decided to get a cat for the sake of your wellbeing. Plus, we have always wanted a feline friend."

Nathan was thrown off balance when Natalia deliberately excluded him from being one of the advocates for this idea. He grumbled about, but Natalia was too focused on trying to rationalize Nancy's stance if her words did buoy her up even though her heart is already at ease. Nancy smiled brightly and reclined back while clutching at the pet bowl, not minding the stench. 

"That is nice. And from where will you bring the cat?"

Natalia hummed while her brows creased, "I beg to differ."

Nancy laughed under her breath and adjusted her posture while rephrasing, "I mean, is it a stray cat from the streets or one from a shop or..?" 

Natalia grinned while leaning backwards and resting her hands on her lap. "It is a male cat we adopted from my colleague Wisteria. It turns out that she is allergic to cats. We will keep his name; his name is Redrum."

Nancy snickered and tilted her head sideways while repeating with tongue in cheek, "Redrum?"

Nathan's behavior became less hostile and he hummed cheerfully while leaning over, "His name is Redrum because his fur is red like red wine."

Natalia said, "Seems that we let the cat out of the bag, huh?"

The father wearing a ridiculously large fedora hat steering the car took a diversion and cleared his throat, "I don't mean to digress your little conversation here. But, must say;  we've arrived."

Upon hearing that, Nancy averted her gaze out the window and took in the whereabouts as the car decelerated in tandem with Nancy's heartbeat and finally came to a halt. A condominium towered before the family of five with a staircase leading to a gate. 

Nathan let out a whistle as he swung the door open, stepping out of the car gleefully, "Wow, won't you look at that! Skedaddle, ladies and man!" Natalia followed suit and said, "Nathan, childish as ever. After all, he's the farce of the family, is he not?"