Believing She Has Been Reincarnated into a Baseball Game, My Little Sister Is Aiming for the Koshien, While I Give It My All to Keep Her from Finding out That It’s Actually an Ntr Game - Chapter 55

Anyway, there’s a lot I want to say to Riko, my most precious little sister in the world.

But before anything else, I have to say this first.

“I’m sorry, Riko…”

“Onii-san…”

Riko gazes at me as I rest my head on her thigh. Just as she’s gently stroking my head, I softly stroke her cheek with the same kindness.

“I left you alone for two whole years… and not only that, after coming to this world, I made you wait all by yourself for two weeks… I really am sorry for making you wait.”

That day we were reunited, at the entrance of this house, Riko greeted us with a smile.

But behind that angelic smile were two years and two weeks of loneliness… Just thinking about what she must have felt makes my heart ache. She must have felt incredibly uncertain—no words could truly describe it.

No amount of apologies could make up for the pain I caused Riko.

Deep down, I’m sure Riko resented me for being such a failure of an older brother. With a pout, she said,

“You don’t get it at all! You’re not understanding what I’m saying! I’m telling you, those two years while I was dead, I was happy!”

“…But still.”

There’s no way I can accept that. That’s something I—and surely Maika as well—can’t accept. After hearing Riko’s long confession, it’s the conclusion I can’t avoid.

No matter how complicated Riko’s feelings may be, no matter if it’s our fault that she ended up feeling this way—if she thinks she was happier while she was dead than living with us—if she’s saying she’d rather die again—there’s no way I can acknowledge that.

That’s why I have to keep apologizing. All I can do is bow my head.

“I’m really sorry, Riko. I’m apologizing, so please don’t say you want to die. Please don’t think that. I’m sorry.”

“That’s why! Stop it already! I don’t need apologies! Really, no more groveling! If there’s anything to apologize for, it’s the fact that you just moved away from my lap pillow without my permission! Escaping from your squishy little sister’s squishy lap pillow is incredibly rude! The squishy is very upset! If you’ve got time to bow your head, you should be lying here even a second longer!”

Having been scolded by squishy Riko, I obediently rested my head back on her squishy lap pillow. It was, indeed, squishy.

“Riko, you’re acting strange. Calm down. I really don’t understand what you’re saying. As long as you can live with Kyugo, isn’t that enough?”

“Maika-chan, please be quiet. For as long as possible.”

Looks like this isn’t working…

Of course not. There’s no way we could ease the complex feelings Riko has been holding on to for years with just a few words, without even knowing what she’s been going through.

But even so, I have to get her to understand. Letting Riko die is unthinkable. I need her to stay by my side and be happy.

For that to happen, she needs to understand. I have to correct the misunderstanding. From the beginning, Riko has had the wrong idea, and if I can just correct that mistake, everything should work out.

In the end, Riko’s goal is just one thing—to become my most important.

If that’s the case, then the idea of her wanting to die is just wrong.

“Listen, I’ve been telling you all along, Riko. You’re my most important little sister in the entire universe. Whether we’re blood-related or not doesn’t matter. You’ve always been, and always will be, my number one, Riko and Maika. You have no reason to die.”

That’s my true, honest feeling. In fact, I was quite shocked that Riko didn’t fully understand that.

Of course, it’s all my fault, but still, couldn’t Riko have accepted her brother’s words a little more straightforwardly?

Despite my frustration, Riko lets out an exasperated sigh.

“That’s it, Onii-san. That’s exactly it. You just don’t get it. That must be the fatal disconnect between us.”

“Huh?”

“Even Maika-chan will agree with me on this. Maika-chan has felt the same way all along.”

Following Riko’s gaze, I turn to look at Maika.

After blinking in surprise, Maika scratches her head as if she’s given up and sighs deeply, just like Riko.

“…Well, yeah. Kyugo, you’ve always had that problem. You keep saying, ‘I’ve been telling you all along,’ but the ‘most important’ you’re talking about isn’t the ‘most important’ we want.”

“Eh…”

Once again, my wife is saying things I don’t understand… I look to Riko for help with my eyes, but—

“Exactly. Maika-chan is absolutely right.”

“Eh…”

It was an unexpected alliance. They nodded with determination.

For over a decade—since before they could even remember—Maika and Riko had lived together. They were like oil and water, constantly at odds. This was the first time in my life that I had ever seen them join forces. It was a historic moment. I had become a witness to a once-in-a-lifetime event. A miraculous alliance formed solely to take me down. It was the Mochimochi Alliance. Ehh…

“Onii-san, listen carefully. When we say ‘the most important,’ we mean just that—the one most important person. There should only be one person who can hold that position. But you always lump me and Maika-chan together, saying that we’re both number one. How ridiculous.”

“My Mochimochi Riko is using scary words… She’s gone off the deep end…”

“You really are ridiculous, Kyugo. You get it, right? Having two people tied for first place means nothing. In soccer or other sports, they might settle ties with goal differentials or something, but in baseball, you can’t decide the standings like that.”

“If there were fair play points in baseball, I would have won.”

“Huh? If anything, you’ve been the one committing the most fouls. If there were fair play points, I would’ve won.”

“And on top of that, even when you claim we’re tied for first place, in the end, Onii-san always picks Maika-chan as his number one.”

“That’s not true. Every time Kyugo says both of us are number one, it’s always been about you, Riko. You’re the one who says that you only became number one after you died, but I’ve never once felt like I beat you and became Kyugo’s most important person.”

“I know, Maika-chan. I know that’s what you’ve been thinking. And that! That is exactly what irritated me even more! I absolutely hated that you didn’t even realize you were Onii-san’s number one!”

“Huh? But that’s just how it was! …Even with that Koshien promise… mine was forgotten, and it was all about you. Kyugo was always going on about how he would take Riko to Koshien…”

“Aah! Aah! Aah! Aah! That’s exactly what I’m talking about!”

Riko ran her hands through her hair in frustration, as if she could no longer contain her anger.

Leaving me stunned, the two sisters once again entered their usual battleground. The atmosphere crackled with tension.

Listening to their argument, I finally understood a little bit of how they felt. Basically, these two just wanted to be my one and only number one. Anything other than sole supremacy was unacceptable.

Yeah.

But what am I supposed to do with that? No matter what they say, Maika and Riko are both genuinely tied for first in my heart…

“Maika-chan, let me tell you something!”

With sharp eyes, Riko glared at Maika.

“I! Absolutely hate hand-me-downs, my older sister, Maika-chan, and most of all—everything related to ‘☆O-Reader-san☆,’ the bottom-tier Kakuyomu author! Especially the fact that Maika-chan, my older sister, is also that bottom-tier Kakuyomu author! Oh, and spiders and snakes!”

Ehh… Couldn’t leukemia have topped the list… How does Maika’s pen name manage to beat out her illness, spiders, and snakes in her “most hated things” ranking?

Hearing this, even Maika’s eyes widened, and she began to tremble with rage.

“Don’t go announcing my pen name to the world!! Wait a second… now that I think about it, ‘Mochiko Mochiko’ was you, wasn’t it?! You’re the one who kept leaving anti-comments on my stories!!”

That’s where her mind goes? Well, I kind of thought the same thing. She’s been writing this long novel with characters based on herself, her brother, and her sister, and the only person reading it was her sister… Wait.

Hold on.

She called Riko petty for using the characters Kyugo and Maika in a game to mess with her, but… wasn’t she the one who started this? She wrote a nearly unread novel where she put a character named “Riko” through all kinds of suffering for her own satisfaction, which is exactly what Riko tried to do by asking Dad for a favor later.

So, in a way, Maika influenced Riko to come up with that idea, which she then passed on to Dad.

Yeah. If we trace things back, we might be able to say that our family ending up in this world is because of Maika’s cringey self-insert novel…

On the other hand, you could say that Maika’s cringey self-insert novel saved Riko’s life.

But Riko is now trying to throw away the life that her sister saved.

“Wait, Riko. Did you think of our promise about Koshien as a hand-me-down…? That’s kind of a shock for me. Did you not really want to go to Koshien after all…?”

“Ufufu, Onii-san, don’t make such a sad face! Didn’t I tell you? I’m hoping more than anyone else that you’ll go to Koshien.”

“So, you’re saying you want me to do it so you can die, right? That makes no sense.”

Maika’s right about that.

To Riko, Koshien was just a means to become my number one, whether it was in our past life or this world. I can somewhat understand her feelings from the past, but now Riko is planning to use Koshien as a way to die and become number one…

Wait, that reminds me. I haven’t asked the most important question yet. I’ve put it off for too long.

This is the point that makes absolutely no sense.

“What do you mean that if I go to Koshien, Riko, you’ll die…!? What’s that about!?”

“Yeah, that’s really been bugging me too. What even is that?”

Like me, Maika tilted her head in confusion.

Meanwhile, Riko tilted her head cutely to the side, smiling innocently,

“Eh? What are you talking about? Did I ever say that if Onii-san goes to Koshien, I’ll die? Ufufu, that’s impossible, right? I’m not going to die. I’m going to go to Koshien with you, Onii-san! That’s the promise, right, Onii-san?”

“That’s way too suspicious!”

Riko started sweating profusely.

There’s no way she can fool us after going on and on earlier about “dying if you go to Koshien.” She’s clearly rattled after Maika saw through her plan and let her pride get the best of her. She ended up saying more than she intended, just to spite Maika, who was acting all smug. Something like, “Ha! I’ve still got tricks up my sleeve! I’m not some shallow girl!”

“Hey, Riko. Now that you’ve been caught this far, why don’t you just tell us everyth—”

“Oh! It’s so late already, Onii-san! You have an important semifinal tomorrow, don’t you? Staying up too late is bad! Come on, Maika-chan, let’s all go to sleep together like we always do, okay?”

Riko suddenly cut me off, crawled into her futon, turned off the lights, and said, “Good night.”

Now that I think about it, Riko’s sudden suggestion that the three of us sleep together until Koshien was probably because she had already decided she wouldn’t be around much longer.

But on the other hand, that might also mean she’s clinging to this life we have together in this world. Maybe she’s not truly ready to die after all?

Yeah, that has to be it. The idea that dying is the best way to be happy is definitely wrong. I want her to live, and I want her to be happy. Let me be the one to make her happy.

I’m not letting her die, no matter what.