CH 48

From the summer when the death game was supposed to be held, particularly without my brother causing any incidents, time passed, and spring arrived. The trees surrounding the pond where I used to frequently jump into were all dyed pink, and cherry blossom petals fluttered down. While cicadas were singing during the summer, now even on weekdays during the day, the place was bustling with people enjoying flower viewing parties and social gatherings, seemingly made up of company employees. Please read this at ChocoCats.

“Look, Ojii-chan, the cherry blossoms are already at their peak over here. They’ll probably bloom soon over there too, won’t they?”

I pointed my smartphone camera, connected to Grandpa, towards the cherry blossom trees. Grandpa apparently had completed rehabilitation without difficulty and was now forming a band with the locals. On the other side of the screen, I could see acoustic guitars and microphones.

“They have bloomed already, huh? They look even more beautiful this year. Is it because Mai passed the high school entrance exam?”

As for me, I had passed the exam without incident and had been accepted into the stage of “Sayo Jigoku”, the same high school as my brother.

There, I saw students who I had never seen in my brother’s study group, which had appeared in “Sayo Jigoku.”

But there’s something different about the people from “Sayo Jigoku” and sometimes I feel like my brother wouldn’t have caused the tragedy that night even if I hadn’t done anything.

The protagonist, Hiroshi-kun, who was supposedly an ordinary guy, had also become one of the top-performing students after my brother. And despite supposedly having feelings only for Himegasaki-san, he dated his childhood friend.

I met him once in the library, but when Hiroshi-kun saw me, he muttered “So that’s the reason.” and left without saying anything else. Please read this at ChocoCats.

T/N: IS THIS A HINT THAT HIROSHI-KUN MIGHT BE A REINCARNATOR TOO?!

“Ojii-chan, you weren’t that happy when it was my turn…?”

My brother muttered beside me. But Grandpa, who apparently heard him, laughed cheerfully.

“Well, I thought Makoto would definitely pass the exam.”

“That means you were worried I was stupid enough to fail, right!?”

“Hahaha. Well, because Jii-chan believed that Mai is a person full of miracles!”

“Are you just plainly trying to gloss over it?”

“Come on, you guys have school, right? Don’t waste your time talking to an old man on the phone and go study well!”

“Ah!”

Grandpa finally hung up the call. I glanced at my brother.

“He hung up…”

“That’s perfect, isn’t it? I also wanted to spend some time alone with Mai soon.”

My brother said so while squeezing my hand tightly.

I successfully passed high school entrance exams, and my brother didn’t end up holding a death game. It was peaceful as if it were drawn in a picture, but my brother’s actions towards me were becoming intense day by day. Please read this at ChocoCats.

The morning started with my brother’s wake-up call, and we were always together when we were at home. We went to school together, had lunch together, and even after school, we were always together. I was worried about whether I could make friends if things were like this, but some students found my brother’s behaviour amusing, so I haven’t felt left out in class.

He separated when our parents were around, but when they were not, we were always so close. Even when we were sitting next to each other, there used to be a distance of a fist’s length between us, but now it was either my brother was completely into me or I was completely into him.

“Onii-chan, aren’t you been too close recently?”

“Do you not like it?”

“It’s not that I don’t like it, but I feel like I have fewer chances to interact with people other than you.”

“Isn’t it too late for that now?”

My brother laughed as if he was making fun of me. He was completely deliberate about it. I felt like I wanted to get back at him, so I thought about what surprise I could come up with today.

Even though the death game had been cancelled, I was still giving my brother “unexpected offerings” in a slightly different form.

Because I had been violently creating surprises all this time, if I suddenly stopped, it might cause him mental stress. Even though my brother was crazy, he could still feel stressed. Please read this at ChocoCats.

So I had to be considerate of my brother. I gradually reduced the frequency of the “unexpected offerings” from every day to every other day to every three days.

“Oh, make sure you open today’s bento from the small side.”

“There’s an order? What happens if I open it from the reverse?”

“It won’t open.”

I still continued making bentos. I had never once surprised my brother with them and it was frustrating.

“By the way, the weather is really nice today. There are even cumulonimbus clouds.”

I looked up at the sky while stretching my hand. Large cumulonimbus clouds floated in the sky, just like the ones I saw last summer, coupled with being near the small pond made me feel nostalgic.

Last summer, I dived into the pond. I thought, ‘maybe I’ll surprise him if I do it now,’ but I stopped because I was going to school.

“Stop it. Don’t do anything dangerous.”

Surprised by the reply that correctly guessed my thought inside, I turned around and found my brother chuckling. 

“It’s annoying that you keep surprising me when I’m the one who wants to surprise you,”

“Why? I’m surprised every day,” he replied.

“You are lying.”

“It’s true.”

He said that as he covered my lips with a kiss. “Even now it’s surprising,” he said, pinching my cheek.

“No, you are not surprised.”

“That’s not true. Come on, let’s go, Mai.”

“Okay.”

My brother took my hand. I was frustrated but happy, so I held his hand tightly. My brother laughed like a child as we walked together down the road with rows of cherry blossom trees. Please read this at ChocoCats.

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Author’s note:

Thank you for reading this. How was it? Sorry for the inconvenience caused by the change of location for this post. Originally, I wanted to publish this story as a book, so I have to revise it. Copying and pasting it amounts to about 300 pages in manuscript format, so I didn’t plan to post it here at all…

If it’s difficult to write your review, it’s okay to just give some stars. Please let me know if it was good or not.