CH 65

[Good morning, Kanata.]

[……]

[Oh, I knew you’d be up.]

Since that day, a few things have changed. I’ve been calling out to him more often. I’ve been able to get back to my normal self after taking a good rest in addition to Kanata taking care of me. And I feel closer to him by throwing away formality. Thanks to this, I was able to face him in a more positive manner.

I noticed a few things as I began to face him. I noticed a difference in the rhythm of his life and mine.

I used to call out to him in the room where he would shut himself in. At first I thought he was rejecting me and ignoring me, but it seemed that he was sleeping at that time. Furthermore, it seems that the bath and toilet are done while I go to school or after I sleep.

(Besides, the room was never locked from the beginning.)

The door to this room is locked. I thought his room was locked up tight, but apparently he had not locked it from the beginning. I was just under the impression that it was locked.

(I thought I was being rejected. Yes, at that point, I was convinced that it was over.)

Apparently, I was more interested in Kanata than my father. But he didn’t want to be directly involved, so he tried to avoid matching our living hours as much as possible. What a contradictory state of mind ! I don’t know if it’s his own consideration or if he’s really trying to reject me.

The only thing I can say is that our relationship is slowly changing. At least for the better, as far as I’m concerned.

[You don’t eat breakfast?]

[……I already ate.]

[Jelly, right? I can’t believe you’ve been eating like this.]

There is a new fact that I discovered when I was able to enter Kanata’s room. Unfortunately, he was asleep when I made dinner and called him in front of my room, but he seemed to be drinking a moderate amount of jelly drinks. The jelly beverage in the plastic bag yesterday was probably something he was going to eat by himself. Where in the world did the money come from?

[Don’t close the curtains, why don’t you get some sunlight? You’ll turn into a zombie at this rate.]

[That’s not a problem.]

[Geez…..I don’t care if you get mold on your body.]

I said so and closed the door of the room. Even if I can open the door, I don’t have the courage to step inside. However, I think I’ve earned a certain amount of trust because Kanata has never rejected me from the beginning. Otherwise, I would have been ignored from the beginning and left alone when I had a fever.

[You have to wake up for dinner today.]

[……]

[Sometimes I just want to eat with someone.]

[……]

With that, I quietly closed the door to his room and headed off to school. I had to make up for the delay in class for the time I took a break, and I couldn’t even show up at club activities. It doesn’t change that I’m busy, but now I’m full of motivation. The reason for this was definitely Kanata, but I don’t know the details. Maybe I’m overlapping the traces of myself when I was alone in that boy.

(I’m sure he’d be embarrassed to hear me say such a thing.)

I’m sure that Kanata has had a more painful experience than I have. Childhood experience of course, and his middle school, even though I haven’t heard about it. So, I would be there for him and take him out into the sun. It’s not to lick each other’s wounds, but to support each other.

[I’m going to have to work hard for that.]

I don’t know if he’ll eat it, but I’ve made him something simple, like toast. I opened the door again, told him that, and went straight to the front door.

[…….I’m off.]

I usually don’t greet people, but this day was special. No, it was going to be special from now on. In order to change him, I had to change myself first.

I was so motivated that I headed off to school. I must become the best sister I can be, so that I can be a role model and a source of pride for my little brother. Otherwise, that boy would never even talk to me properly. But I have no fear of being given up on. I just have to fall down and rest again then.

(In any case, do everything I can now and put off what I can’t do until later.)

I’m not a skillful person by nature. So I do the best I can and tackle the things I can’t after I get home. Home study and homework is supposed to be such a role. It’s not necessary to understand everything in class. You don’t have to hit every target with every arrow. As soon as I thought of that, I was able to concentrate more quickly.

Perhaps because I was more relaxed, I was able to easily understand the class that day, even though I was behind in the class. I feel like the arrows hit the target more than usual even in archery. It was probably because my mind was calmer than usual. My seniors and my advisor were unusually complimenting me.

[I’m home.]

I do a greeting, which I usually don’t do when I come home earlier than usual. In a voice that could reach Kanata who was on the second floor. As expected, there was no response, but just saying the words made me feel different from usual. Yes, Shiina Haruka is no longer sweltering in loneliness at home.

[I told him to wake up for dinner. I have to cook accordingly.]

With that in mind, I decided to try my hand at cooking pasta. I would have liked to make a sweet dish, but that’s just my preference, so I decided to leave it out of the selection this time.

(He’s a boy, so it’s better to use meat. Well, I had some ground meat and canned tomatoes, so I might as well make a meat sauce.)

That’s how I started cooking with my prestige. I cut the vegetables into small pieces, sauteed the meat, added canned tomatoes, ketchup, and other seasonings, and began to make the meat sauce. In the meantime, I boil the pasta. By the way, my preference is al dente, so I made sure not to compromise on that. I trust that he will not be too picky about the hardness of the noodles.

[Phew, I made it without looking at a recipe, but it turned out just like that.]

Thus, I made the meat sauce by hand and completed my homemade meat pasta. I prepared a simple soup beside it because it looks lonely. All I had to do was wait for him to come down.

Three minutes, five minutes, and enough to wait for him to come down….

[He’s not coming down….huh.]

Maybe he’s sleeping, maybe he’s awake and ignoring me. The pasta that will be left over is not a problem because it can be for my step mother who’s coming home later, but it still makes me lose confidence.

[It can’t be helped. There’s no time limit, and I’m alone today…….]

Just as I’m about to sit down, I hear footsteps coming from the stairs. I turned around and saw Kanata coming down the stairs. When our eyes met, he looked away awkwardly.

(I’m your sister. What are you going to do if I don’t initiate the conversation?)

Then, I made up my mind to talk to him. I decided to change my tone a little to what I imagined to be an older tone.

[Come on, it’s ready. Let’s eat quickly.]

[……I overslept.]

[Oh, well, it can’t be helped. Be careful next time.]

No matter how much time passes, I can’t get it clear, and I ask Kanata to sit down. Of course, I won’t accept objections such as not being hungry. I had decided that we would definitely have dinner together today. I had heard beforehand that he had no allergies, so there would be no problem.

[Itadakimasu.]

[…….Itadakimasu.]

And so we began to eat our pasta together. I made it myself, but it turned out pretty good. I think it tastes a little strong. He too slowly took a mouthful.

[How is it? I think it’s pretty good, don’t you?]

[……Well, yeah, it’s delicious.]

[Oh, you want to say something?]

I was miffed when he started to make a difficult face after putting it in his mouth. I was quite confident about serving it……

He then proceeded to give me a general review of the dish in a fearful manner.

[You should dilute the consommé a little more. Also, you probably didn’t add garlic, so it smells like beef.]

[Ugh.]

[Also, the onions are cut a little roughly. Maybe use oil from……]

[O-okay, I get it !]

I made him say it, but he was so rude to me that I almost cried a little. No, I’m sorry I made it without looking at the recipe, but I didn’t expect him to say that much after just one bite. Maybe my brother is surprisingly gourmet.

[….been…so long.]

[Eh?]

As I was struggling with my inner pride, he started blabbering in front of me. I was horrified to think that he was going to continue to evaluate this dish again, but he looked at me quietly and reiterated.

[……It’s been a long time since I’ve had a home-cooked meal from someone else.]

[……Really?]

I looked at him with wide eyes at the unexpected confession, but considering the family situation I had heard about, it was probably not unreasonable. Even his mother was probably too busy with her work to take care of him. Yes, I can only say that it was all bad luck.

But in that sense, I’m similar to him.

[If you say so, I, too, haven’t eaten with anyone in a long time.]

[…..Eh.]

[If you brag about your unhappiness, I won’t lose easily either.]

[…..Ah.]

[Let’s forget about each other’s bad things, at least when we’re eating together.]

Then they nodded to each other and started eating pasta again. The two of them never spoke to each other, and it was the same quiet dining table as usual, but the presence of someone to share a meal with was still special to both of them.

[Thank you for the food.]

[T-thank you for the food.]

When we finished eating his pasta, I collected the dishes for the two of us and began washing them. At first he was intimidated by having his dishes collected, but in the Shiina household, it’s a rule that the person who made the dish is responsible for it until the very end. Washing the dishes after eating is also an admirable part of cooking. That’s why I insisted that I would do it, and I won over Kanata.

After I finished washing the dishes, I decided to go straight to the living room to study. I had a test coming up, and I needed to make up for the time I had missed. Kanata, on the other hand, did not immediately return to his room, but sat in a triangular position on his chair, playing with his phone.

He has been glancing at me from time to time and maybe he wants to know more about me, his new family member. Come to think of it, I don’t remember having a proper conversation with him until just now, and I don’t blame him.

I would like to talk to him a little, but I’m not confident that I can hold a conversation for long, so I’m reluctant to talk to him. If I try to create an awkward atmosphere, the little trust I have built up will disappear.

In addition, I’m also unable to take my hands off the reference book that I’m working on separately. The upcoming questions of the final exam are so general that if I’m not careful, I’ll end up scoring below the red mark with no time to spare. I have to protect myself from that at all costs.

[Fuu….sigh.]

I unintentionally took a deep breath. Right now, I’m working on math, which is my weakest subject. Just when I thought Mathematics I/A was finally over, II/B started immediately. Moreover, the scope of the test this time includes problems on both sides. So I have to hurry to understand the parts I don’t understand yet.

Therefore, I had to start with the II/B part that I didn’t fully understand yet……

[….Not good.]

I was so bad at math that I couldn’t help but say it out loud even though Kanata was there. It wasn’t like that when I was in middle school, but mathematics in high school is a different matter, and I’m sure I’ll have a hard time. It takes either a prodigy or a genius to be able to understand and solve something like this in a flash…….

[The correct answer to the discriminant equation is supposed to be two different imaginary solutions, but because of a mistake in the quadratic equation, it’s only one real number.]

[……Eh?]

[Because you can’t remember the two sum formulas that should be used depending on whether or not the sequence has exponentiation, you got the wrong answer by confusing 1/2 and 1/6. You haven’t memorized my textbooks well enough.]

[Eh, ah……come to think of it.]

I pointed to the textbook to check and firmly memorized the formulas again. As for the discriminant, I solved it from the beginning while trying not to mistake the inequality sign and the solution formula, and it turned out to be the same.

[It’s solved……I mean, eh, how do you know !?]

[There are just too many careless mistakes.]

[T-that’s rude ! I checked it many times, and I made mistakes on it, so it can’t be helped.]

[Is that right.]

[Yes !]

Somehow, I can’t help but feel like I’m exposing my disgrace every time I speak. At any rate, in order not to give myself any more embarrassment, I started working on the exercises again. This time, I was able to answer all the questions correctly.

[Kanata, are you some kind of genius or something?]

[No, I’m not.]

[If you’re so smart, why don’t you show it off?]

[……]

[Ah, sorry. I know, it’s a little difficult.]

I regret that I have indeed said too much just now. He doesn’t seem to like that kind of thing, and since he doesn’t go to school, he doesn’t have a place to show off his knowledge. That’s why I can’t help but feel sorry for him.

(There’s not a single thing I can do to help.)

I don’t know what kind of middle school life he has had, but it has made him suffer. There’s no way I can fix it, and it’s hindering him from starting a new life. If nothing changes, he will have to live a crippled life. I don’t want to see him like that.

[Hey, Kanata, what kind of high school would you like to go to if you were to go to high school?]

[Huh?]

[It’s just a hypothetical. It’s almost winter break, and kids your age are in the middle of their entrance exam season. So I was wondering what kind of school would be best for you to go to if you were to attend.]

[……people.]

[Hm?]

[A place where I don’t have to deal with other people.]

I realized again at this time that this is a much more serious matter than I thought. There’s no such thing as a school where you don’t have to deal with people, and if that is the minimum requirement, you can’t attend any school. If he doesn’t change his mind somehow, he will never get out of the house.

How on earth can I get him to be more positive? No, how can I create a better place for him to live……

Someone has to take action.

[I have an interesting suggestion.]

I didn’t have any particular idea at the time, it was just a random thought. Yes, I just said it on a whim. But I hoped it would be an opportunity for something to change.

[Why don’t you take the entrance exam for Ichinose High School, which I attend?]