Dazzled in the Village of Fire.

I was always a bit of a perv when it came to my family. The thing is, you can't really help it. I've got a hot blonde cousin and an adorable brunette little sister and I'm a dude. It's only natural that I'd find them attractive. That doesn't mean I'll ever do anything about it, but it sure makes looking at them a real treat.

I felt like such a creep, but whenever there was something going on at our house, I'd always try to sneak in the bathroom and watch. It wasn't hard, since most of the time they were just changing clothes or getting ready for bed or whatever. But they would always leave their doors unlocked so they could let their friends in if they needed someone to talk to. And that meant I could get right up against the door and see everything going on inside without even having to worry about being seen. It made me feel bad because they were my family, but then again...they were my family. They were practically strangers anyway. So it didn't feel that wrong, as long as I kept it to myself.

That's how I found out that my cousin had been cheating on her boyfriend with his best friend for months now. And she had no idea that everyone knew about it, including her boyfriend's other best friend who was secretly in love with the balding little bastard who got dumped for his best friend. It was juicy stuff, but the thing that shocked me more than anything else was how much *fun* everyone seemed to be having with all these secrets and lies!

I mean, we're all family here so we're not gonna go spilling our guts about this kind of thing to each other just because we saw something we weren't supposed to see, but it seems like we should at least try not to act like total psychopaths or something, right? And yet here we are with deep dark secrets and lies going around like wildfire behind each others' backs and not even caring!

It was incredible really, how fast things spread around the house by word of mouth alone! And yet nobody ever talked directly about what they knew! We'd all talk in secret code so that anyone listening in wouldn't know what we were saying, even though we all knew perfectly well that we were talking about what everybody else already knew without us saying it outright! It was crazy!

Even when I started telling people things about what I saw them doing in the bathroom or wherever else I happened to be lurking unseen that I thought no one else knew about and found out later that everyone did know about anyway *except* for them! Some things went around faster than others of course; some things never left the confines of the bathroom where I watched them happening in secret through cracks between the door and its frame.

The thing is, though...I think this little game might have had a real impact on our lives as a whole! For example: My parents used to fight all the time when I was younger. But after they got remarried and had another kid together who they used as a way to reconcile their differences and work through their own personal issues with one another while still maintaining an air of professionalism so as not to set a bad example for their one child between themselves and his two step-siblings (whom he didn't see much since both new parents lived thousands of miles away), they started getting along better than ever before!

They stopped fighting all together once they realized how much they enjoyed passing notes back and forth using their kids as messengers instead! Of course there were rules: No talking openly about what either parent wrote down lest their children repeat things verbatim (which many did), especially when one parent accidentally left their note open for everyone else in the room to read instead of hiding it under their pillow where only the other parent could find it (which no one did).

And sometimes my grandparents would get caught up in all these games too, which gave my mom all kinds of ammunition to use against my dad when he'd start grumbling about her having invited all her relatives over for Christmas dinner every year despite his protests that he couldn't afford providing extra food for an army when there would be plenty enough for everyone already staying at their house for Christmas Eve itself! She'd send him off with a note telling him who exactly she'd invited this year without asking him first (and conveniently leaving out anyone he might have wanted left out) so he wouldn't know until Christmas morning whether or not he could afford buying presents for any extra guests this year until then at least!

That's just two examples out of dozens really...but you get the idea. This silly game might not have changed our lives drastically or anything...but it sure made us all smile more often than not when someone would unexpectedly show up wearing a shirt or dress that matched whatever outfit we were wearing today without knowing it ahead of time or even realizing that we'd tried on similar clothing today ourselves before deciding on something else instead! Or when somebody showed up wearing an accessory similar to ours without knowing it beforehand!

Sometimes people dressed alike on purpose too just because they liked each other's outfits even though neither one intended for anyone else around them to notice until after they were gone...but those moments were rarer than the accidents by far. Still rarer still however were those times when someone managed to get close enough behind another person without them noticing until after they'd passed by them and found themselves wearing matching clothing or accessories by sheer coincidence alone even though neither one had meant for anyone else around them nearby at the time to notice until after both had already gone home later tonight and put away whatever clothing item(s) matched each other earlier today before resuming living their everyday lives unaware of any sort of strange connection between themselves from earlier today seeing as how none of this mattered anyway since none of us cared anyway because...we're all family here after all!