"Oh my goodness you're going to be a dad!" Wrass flails her arms and jigs in a circle, and her wagon--like a giant, open crate with a long handle bar on the front--filled with boxes sinks to the mud. "I can't believe this, you're literally beating me to having children AAAAAAAAAA," she signs the motion for screaming over and over, her voice vibrates the water.

Parro pats Wrass on the shoulder. Ange crosses his arms.

"I'm going to be an aunt, I cannot believe this, oh my goodness," Wrass darts up to me. "Nudibranc, we're going to be aunts," she claps a hand to her mouth. "Oh no, you're literally going to be the favorite aunt because you live with them. This isn't fair. Can I steal your bedroom?"

"No..." I slowly sign.

Ange leans over and mutters something to Parro. He laughs. Wrass doesn't register they've said anything.

"You know what, I can sleep in the kitchen," Wrass signs at me, still bobbing up and down, arm motions huge, red fins and light clothing fluttering. "Under the table or in a cupboard or something. Parro is adopting a child. I can't believe this!" I nod dizzily, but she's spinning back to Parro already. "So have you done all the paperwork? Started going to adoption classes yet?"

"We signed up for a course. It starts tomorrow, actually."

"AAAAAA you're going to be such good parents, I can tell. I'm so jealous. But also happy for you. But seriously, I want to be the favorite aunt, and I will totally sleep in your kitchen if you let me. I don't care if the baby cries and wakes me up ten times during the day, I will do it."

"Yeah, I don't think we have room for two more people in our house," Ange shows his teeth.

"Then I can sleep in the store," she motions to the back door. "Do you guys still keep this unlocked?"

Ange nods. "So what?"

Wrass smirks at me. I blink back.

"Just wondering if I can sneak in or not."

Ange covers his face with his hands.

"Wrass, seriously," Parro signs, "if you want babies that badly, marry someone."

"Love doesn't come easily for all of us," she signs, flicking her head sideways. "Besides, I'm focusing on my career instead of dating guys."

"But not," Parro signs, totally blank-faced, "instead of babies."

Ange curls over laughing.

Wrass mock-punches her little brother in the face, actually barely tapping his forehead. "I will beat you up."

Parro just shows his teeth.

I swim over to the wagon, since it's tipping over in the mud, and push some boxes to the lighter side. One has a label for "bird figurines, two yurees" and I glance back at Wrass. And Parro. They've started laughing at something and Ange's shaking his head. I pick up the box of bird figurines--are they seabirds like petrels?--and carry them inside.

***

Ange and I have the wood handwagon emptied before lunch, and stash it under the back door so it doesn't bob away without any weight in it. Parro shows Wrass around the new store layout and when they return to the back room, she tells us she loves it. She's happy the figurines are selling well, though worries that hanging them from the ceiling might break the delicate ones she's made this month. So we dedicate one of the cubbies low on the right-side wall for displaying those ones.

Wrass stays until late, we go to our house and the four of us make dinner together. Almost, we do it like years ago, before we moved down into the Teardrops and before Parro and Ange finished school and Mum made me quit at about the same time.

Like, Mum and Da would sometimes go on dates, and leave us kids home, and Wrass would be in charge and act more responsible than when our parents were around--she'd make us cook healthy meals and go to bed early, when usually she hated going to bed early. But half the time, we burned the food and just ate kelp cakes and mint candy instead, and Ange started a pillow fight in the kitchen and Wrass and I teamed up and chased him and Parro round in circles until they gave up, giggling.

Tonight, Wrass stays late, and Wrass acts the least responsible, laughing the most and making messes, and we correctly make a complicated tuna and rice recipe without burning anything, and I have mine spiceless but my eyes still itch with the pepper taste floating from the others' bowls. We sit around the counter and eat our burnt-less, healthy food and talk about the exhaustive paperwork of adoption and how the city makes you take classes to learn how to properly parent before you adopt and Wrass hasn't dared go on dates in over a year because she thinks she's too old now, and Ange brings up something random like how our parents made Ange share a bedroom with me, and Parro share a bedroom with Wrass, but if Wrass came to live with us now, Ange and Parro would be sharing the room with a baby and Wrass and I would squish together.

It's just like years ago. Except not at all, really.

The thought sorta makes me want to cry and have years ago back, but it shouldn't; at home, I had headaches all the time because of the light, and the burnt food taste lingering in the water after we tried making dinner made it impossible to sleep when Wrass made us go to bed early, and Ange's bed took up the floorspace I used to have for school books but for the few years he lived with us, those sat on a corner of my bed and kept me awake with their weight, and he wriggled around in his sleep which woke me up a bunch.

But I sorta want to cry over our rice and fish bowls even though I don't really miss home, because of...us. Littler, more innocent, laughing at silly stuff then when now the conversation's all serious about adoption and the future. I miss us, littler.

Like, Mum and Da would sometimes go on dates, so there'd be no one to nag us about cleaning up dishes or doing chores in the tree farm and the rice paddies, but without all that nuisant nagging the dishes still got cleaned and we still ate enough and got enough sleep, like the nights grew soft and perfect and I plus the world fit neatly side by side for once in too many years. We created rare bubbles of time where nothing jaggedly-annoying mattered.

Now, we haven't had Mum and Da to nag us about dishes or chores for years, but the nice, silly-stuff versions of us are all old, signing about who's stuck doing the dishes--aside from Wrass's messes, obviously those are for her to clean up--and how Wrass needs to get the wagon back up to the surface and has loads of work tomorrow so she should get going soon and how Ange's still not going to not use a wagon next month and just string a bunch of boxes with some rope, and how the chores of unpacking the boxes will take a while and how dating is hard and how adoption is hard and it all makes me want to cry.

Since when were we people who cared about nagging and all our chores and boring paperwork?

My fingers fidget under the counter, the tuna and rice are all gone and the pots sit by the stove, dirty, I want to sign this nameless wish for us to act like years ago, but also not, since how strange would it be for Wrass to tell me and Parro and Ange to get to bed early in this place she doesn't even live?

How strange would it be for Ange to act silly like he did years ago, starting pillow fights in the kitchen? Or for me and Wrass to chase them in circles round our counter when we're all too big and can just basically reach across the counter anyway?

My fingers fidget with this nameless wish; I've got bubbles of timeless memories in my head of my older siblings and Ange, all littler and more innocent, taking care of stuff just fine without our nagging parents. But somehow, the vivid images of these same people, years ago; make me sad to see them now, talking about boring stuff, bigger, less innocent, complaining about workloads and nagging themselves to do it.