Change of Plans

A re-upload of my first story, 'According to Plan.' It was sent back a couple I realised I'd included some stuff that violated the guidelines, which is now all gone. Bit of an expository slog in the beginning, but hope the payoff is worth it. I plan on this being around 7 parts, and from part 2 it will all go a bit faster now that I've got the set up out of the way.

Thank you for all the nice comments on my previous story. Hope you enjoy!

Part 1

As I stood outside my parents' house, waiting after I rang the doorbell, I smiled to myself as I thought about my plan for the Summer. It was the last day of exam period at university, and it had been a long few months -- I was entirely ready to waste away in my room, become nocturnal, and play video games with my friends every waking hour.

But then the door opened. "Hey, Luke." Charley said.

Hang on. Charley?

When my stepmum had told me there would be a surprise waiting for me when I got home from my final exam today, I was expecting something like her neighborhood-renowned kimchi stew, although I had secretly hoped that she and my dad had caved and bought me the 4k monitor I'd been begging them for for months. What I hadn't expected was that my stepsister would be back from Stanford.

It made sense, of course -- I knew that she had been in her last year, so she would have graduated recently. But with how much she seemed to prefer it over there, and the fact that she was a US citizen anyway, I had kind of expected her to just... stay. I'm assuming that she preferred it anyway, because it's not like she had ever said it outright. Or said anything much at all.

That was how it had been ever since she left -- I would only see her during the yearly two-week long trip back to London, we'd have a few conversations consisting entirely of small talk and her amazing life in San Francisco, and then back she'd go - with birthday messages being pretty much our only other form of contact throughout the year.

But whatever. She was probably just here for a week or two before she started some ridiculously high paid job in New York or LA. Nothing to worry about.

"Oh. You're back," I replied.

"I'm back," she agreed.

"I guess you're the surprise mum told me about."

She smiled. "Lucky you."

She looked just like she had when I'd seen her last year, when she'd come for summer break. The only difference in her appearance was her hair: she'd dyed it light blonde, and unfortunately it looked really, really good on her.

"I was kind of hoping for a gaming monitor," I said.

She frowned. "And don't you see that I'm so much better?"

"Hmm. You have a 144 hertz refresh rate?" I brushed past her to make my way up to my room. After a grueling two-hour exam on constitutional law, I was ready to kick back and play Elden Ring for the rest of the day.

"Hey, wait!" she called up as I trudged up the stairs. "I just got back earlier today, and was hoping you could help me unpack... Mum and Dad are still at work."

I stopped in my tracks. "Unpack?" She never normally unpacked, it wasn't worth the effort. My heart started beating faster. "You're... you're not flying back soon?"

"I'm not flying back, period," she replied. "Well, maybe to visit. But I'm staying in London -- I'm starting at JP Morgan in September. You didn't know?"

I don't know how she thought I would have stumbled upon this information, given that the only message she'd sent me in the last few months was a gif of a cat jumping out of a birthday cake. "No... I didn't." I swallowed. This was not good news.

"Huh, two surprises in one." She skipped up the stairs after me, and grinned. "You really are lucky."

'Lucky' wasn't the word I'd use to describe how I was feeling at that moment. But I closed my eyes and tried to block it out.

Get over yourself, man -- you're not a child, and she's family

. "Fine. Let's unpack."

"Yay. Fun. I already started, so it shouldn't take too long."

I followed her upstairs to her bedroom, the one right next to mine. Inside, it was about as messy as I'd ever seen it. Translated roughly, that meant that it was just slightly below the level of cleanliness of a surgical suite that had just been sterilized and rigorously deep cleaned. Her suitcase was neatly placed on the floor, her clothes were all folded, and the various books, photos and other small items she'd brought with her were all lined up on her bed.

"Um... what exactly do you need me for?" I asked.

"Just put some of my clothes in the drawers. I'm meeting some friends in Camden soon, so I don't have too long."

So, she'd already made plans, probably not long after touching down from an eleven-hour flight. Still a social butterfly -- she really hadn't changed at all.

I made a start on her clothes, while she put all her books and stuff back on shelves and her desk.

"So," I began. "What made you want to come back?"

She stopped and leaned close, draping her arm around me. "I just knew you were struggling over here, missing me so much."

I rolled my eyes. "Nice. So really, why?"

She shrugged with her free shoulder. "It's pretty simple. I had the option of a couple places in the US, and a couple places here. JP Morgan offered me the best opportunity, so I took it."

"But you seemed to really like it there," I replied.

"Yeah, I did. But it's not like I don't love London as well. It was really just a question of getting the best job and sticking to the plan."

Right. The 'Plan.' That's what it always came back to.

"What's with the interrogation?" She let go of me and shot me a suspicious look. "You didn't want me to stay there, did you?"

"Well... I do like having my own bathroom."

She lightly punched my arm. "I've had to use communal showers with twenty other girls for the past four years, and you're here complaining about two people to a bathroom."

"Do they leave wet strands of hair all over the place as well?" While Charley treated her room and belongings like a temple, she was far less considerate when it came to communal spaces. Specifically, ones shared with me.

"More than you know, little brother." She shook her head, and her golden hair gleamed in the sunlight coming through her window. It was

really

annoying how well the color suited her. It's not like she'd ever needed to look any better. "More than you know."

If it wasn't already clear, Charley was beautiful. Like, ridiculously beautiful. And this wasn't a recent development -- while I had lived my teen years kind of pudgy and with bad acne, only becoming somewhat presentable around eighteen or nineteen, Charley had been the most perfect-looking girl I had ever seen right from the moment we met -- when I was eight and she was eleven, and our parents told us we were going to be siblings. And I clearly wasn't the only one who thought this, because as soon as the boys started getting over their fear of girl cooties, she

knew

it too.

As such, Charley had grown up to be one of the most self-assured people I had ever met. The straight A*s didn't do much to bring her down, either.

"Don't worry," she continued. "I'm not gonna be intruding on your bathroom for too long. I'm moving into an apartment I have lined up at the beginning of August."

Huh.

I put down the t-shirt I had just been folding. "So, in a month you're out of here? What exactly am I laboring away for then?"

"A month is a long time! And I've missed living here, I wanted to move back in properly. It could be like the old days!"

I was less enthusiastic about things being like 'the old days.' But this news still meant that things weren't as bad as they had first seemed.

"Anyway, I think that's enough unpacking for now. I should get ready to go." She sighed and got up. "Mum said she's cooking, so I'm not gonna be out too late."

"Okay. See you later."

So, maybe I really was going to get kimchi stew. Silver linings, I guess.

At this point, you may be wondering why I was so worried about her being here. She was nice, funny, and while we weren't inseparable, we got on about as well as two stepsiblings in their early twenties possibly can.

We liked each other. It's just that I didn't like her in the same way that she liked me. In other words, she saw me as her little brother. Whereas I'd been crushing on her since I was eight years old.

So yeah, there it is.

Now, I realized pretty early on that liking your sibling in that way, biological or not, is not exactly ideal. Even if I did have the self-confidence to tell a girl I liked her, and even if Charley wasn't as far out of my league as she was, this was never, ever going to be something that I could pursue. But I was so far gone that it didn't matter. I tried to hang out with her whenever I could, and she was nice enough not to be like most of my friends' older siblings, who wanted nothing to do with them. When we were younger, we were actually really close.

Like I mentioned, I wasn't the best-looking guy growing up, but it wasn't like I had no attention from girls whatsoever. Unfortunately, I was genuinely so infatuated with Charley that I either didn't notice it, or didn't care.

It was only later, as I became older, that I fully felt the shame of it. And so, I resolved to do my best to distance myself from her as much as possible, to try and move on. We ended up growing apart a bit as a result over the rest of our time at school, and when she was finally off to Stanford, we were nowhere near as close as we had been when we were younger. I did miss it, of course -- but I knew it was for the best. And I was hopeful that once she had moved to the other side of the world, I could finally get her out of my head, at least in

that

way.

And I was right -- a few months after she left, I could my crush began to subside, and I felt like I could move on. Now, I didn't suddenly become a player or anything -- I was still an introvert, and one who spent a bit too much time playing video games at that. But I could actually start to go after other girls I liked, and by the time I started university as well, I was going on dates here and there, and drunkenly getting with girls in clubs like everyone else.

I'd never gone all the way with anyone though. Maybe you could attribute that to me not being over her, but in my humble opinion, I'd honestly disagree. I'd actually come close a number of times and it just hadn't ended up happening.

Every time she would fly over to visit during the holiday, I would feel stirrings of my old feelings coming back up. But before it could actually become a problem, she would always be gone. And with it seeming more and more likely that she was going to stay in America after graduating, I had thought I could go on with my life, maybe see her at a family reunion or cousin's wedding every once in a while, but generally just not have to think about her.

But here she was. Back home, and not going anywhere. And that's why, despite how amazing she was (or maybe, as a

result

of how amazing she was), it was not at all good news that she was back.

Okay, Luke. You just have to make it through a month of living in the same house, easy.

And then there will be years of living in the same city, seeing her whenever she feels like dropping by the house, and then even when you start living alone, every time Mum and Dad invite you over, she'll probably be there too.

Fuck.

*****

I spent the rest of the afternoon getting embarrassed by Promised Consort Radahn, desperately trying to force my mind off of the precarious situation I had found myself in. And it worked pretty well -- by seven o'clock I was so engrossed that I hadn't heard the front door open.

What I did hear however, was my stepmum's voice shouting up from the kitchen and cutting through the boss music like a sword.

"LUKE!!!"

I sighed and turned off my PlayStation. Asking for 'five more minutes' didn't usually go down well with her.

I came downstairs to find the whole happy family already making a start on dinner -- my dad, stepmum and of course, Charley. I took my usual seat next to her, and she beamed at me. I flashed her a weak smile in response and set my attention on the large pot in the middle of the table, full of pork belly, tofu and kimchi -- still steaming, with the spicy, salty and sour smells filling the air in the kitchen. I sighed happily, and with everyone else already set, I began to serve myself.

My dad spoke up first. "So, Luke. How was the exam?" Not wasting any time, as usual.

"Pretty good," I replied.

"

Pretty

good? What went wrong?"

My father, ladies and gentlemen.

Thirty years living in the UK and previously being married to an English woman had mellowed him out a little, but my dad was still pretty much the stereotypical Chinese immigrant parent to a tee -- overbearing and obsessed with success, topped off with a splash of emotional detachment.

I sighed. "My mistake, Dad. What I meant to say was that it was the greatest performance in an examination of my life. I think a Nobel prize is in the cards."

"Well, some sort of prize would be nice for once," he harumphed, clearly not a fan of my sarcasm.

"Hey," Mum chided. "He's doing just fine."

In the same way that Charley really did feel like my actual sister, my stepmum felt like my actual mum as well, which I guess is a little strange since my real mum was still around (with the word 'around' being applied very loosely).

But despite also being Asian (Korean, not Chinese though) my stepmum was kind of the counter to my dad's disciplinarian parenting, being a second-generation immigrant born and raised in America.

Charley's relationship with my dad also led the way for this, because her father passed away when she was very young. As such, she pretty much considered my dad hers too, which had been readily reciprocated given how she was pretty much my dad's dream child. But regardless, their closeness had bled over into my own relationship with my stepmum.

"Right," Charley added. "I know a couple of people from school who did law in the UK, and Luke is way smarter than any of them."

While my mixed British and Chinese heritage had left me looking pretty dissimilar from both my parents, my stepmum and Charley essentially looked like the same person, thirty years apart. They also both still had an American accent from before they moved to London, though Charley's was noticeably stronger because of her recent four years at Stanford.

"How about we leave the academics talks for now?" Mum asked. "It's been a while since we've all been together. We should just appreciate that."

Dad nodded. "On that, we can agree."

"Speaking of," Charley continued. "How would everyone feel about going away for a bit, as a family? I know we probably won't be able to get anything this Summer on short notice, and I probably shouldn't take days off so soon into starting at my new job, but how about later on in the year? Say... Octoberish? Southern Hemisphere?"

My dad glanced over at my stepmum, and she coughed. "We'd both love to, dear," she said. "But Luke's going to be away around then."

I paused as I remembered. There actually was somewhat of a get out of jail free card to all this. "Yeah, I'm starting a year abroad in October. In Tokyo. I'll be there until next Summer."

"You're kidding me!" Charley pouted. "I was so hoping we could hang out more now that I'm back."

"It's a real tragedy," I sighed.

"Asshole."

"Language," Dad said absentmindedly.

"Luckily, hanging out with my ungrateful little brother isn't in my plan, otherwise I don't think I could let you go."

"You have serious issues," I said, shaking my head.

Charley snorted. "Says the grown adult with carpal tunnel from playing too much Minecraft."

"Hey, that was like six years ago! And I don't play Minecraft anymore."

"Oh, only

sophisticated

video games for you now, is it?"

"Quit bickering, you two!" Mum exclaimed. "God, our first time together as a family in months and this is how you want to spend it?" I shrugged and made a show of glaring at Charley, who sat on the other side of the table sniggering.

"Finish your food," Dad grumbled. "You can squabble like children on your own time."

*****

By the way, I should probably explain this 'plan' of Charley's that keeps coming up.

When she was thirteen, a year into secondary school, Charley came down to dinner one night and made a big announcement: she had planned out the next forty years of her life. My stepmum looked slightly bemused. Dad cracked a proud smile. Ten-year-old me was probably just staring at Charley's face and drooling or something, not paying attention to what she was actually saying.

But over the next few years, I got the gist. Most of it was to do with academics -- secure the best GCSE and A level results possible, make head girl at school and do enough with her extracurriculars and volunteer charity work to make her college essay so good that she was pretty much guaranteed a place a Stanford, her dream school because at the time she still missed San Francisco, the city she'd grown up in before her mum moved to London for work.

From there, it would just be more of the same, but with the addition of networking and securing internships, in order to secure the highest paying job possible straight out of university, whether that be in the US or UK. Hence JP Morgan.

And then, at forty when she had saved enough money, she would ditch the corporate life and start working for a charity that specialized in pancreatic cancer, as well as donating as much money as she could while still keeping enough to live comfortably on the minimum wage salary she'd most likely be making as a charity worker.

All this was because her real father had died of pancreatic cancer when she was three. I don't think she remembered him very well, but the situation had still been pretty harrowing for her and her mum growing up, so she had resolved to do her best to try and stop the same thing happening to as many people as she could.

So yeah, on top of being hot and smart, she was also a good person. Man, she was really annoying.

Anyway, long story short, Charley had pretty much planned out the rest of her life, to the hour. There was other stuff that wasn't just work related, of course -- some of it to do with meeting her future husband, but I tended tune that stuff out automatically whenever she spoke about it.

If it was anyone else, you would either just view it as childhood naïveté, or possibly book her an appointment with a psychologist to discuss the possibility of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. But the thing is, she just made it work. Year by year, she achieved every single thing she needed to in her plan. And now, ten years deep, she was exactly where she had seen herself at this stage of her life.

Anyway, naturally it was on my mind again later that night, as I brushed my teeth and stared into space. I was only snapped out of my trance by a slap on my back.

"Now this is nostalgic," Charley said. She gently barged me over to make space for her to use the sink as well.

I sighed. "And so, it starts."

"Uh huh. Get used to it." She squirted some toothpaste out on her brush and went to work. She was wearing bright blue pajamas that I remembered she'd had since she was in school, and she'd taken her makeup off, but she still looked amazing.

I shot her a look of disdain, and she grinned back at me as she brushed, foamy toothpaste all over her teeth and gums.

"Just no sense of decorum, whatsoever." I grumbled.

She giggled as she spat out the toothpaste. "

No sense of decorum

," she replied, mocking my English accent. "Man, I've missed you so much."

I did my best to ignore the small endorphin boost that statement gave me and quickly washed my face. "Whatever. Goodnight."