Chapter 26

“I’m home……good night.”

“Welcome ba—hey, wait a sec!”

When Satoru arrived home, he tried to walk straight past his little sister, who had gotten back earlier, and head directly to his room.

However, she stepped in front of him, blocking his way.

She made a rather cute gatekeeper, but if he tried to force his way past, it would only cause more problems down the line.

“For ignoring me earlier, you’re going to properly tell me how things went now, right?”

“Just ask Reika, will you…”

“Reika-neesan just recovered, so I don’t want to do anything that pressures her into replying!”

“Why is it that you can be that considerate toward her, but not even a little toward your own brother…”

Though Satoru was impressed by how thoughtful his sister could be, he couldn’t help but lament how merciless she was toward him.

“Anyway, let’s go over to the living room and talk in detail, shall we…!”

“I just got caught by the worst kind of police…”

It was a hassle, but if he brushed her off too hard, she’d probably get really depressed. That was just how she was.

And besides, she had played a helpful role in all of this, so Satoru decided to just go along with it.

“So, how did things go the day before yesterday and yesterday?”

“Day before yesterday, we obviously slept together. Also, I dried her hair.”

“D-Details, please!?”

“There was some silly back-and-forth, and then she just told me, ‘You do it.’ I figured she might not like it or something.”

“Oh? So you do know that even girls with boyfriends can be kind of uncomfortable with that kind of thing?”

“Well, yeah.”

Apparently, his little sister and Reika had similar things that caught their attention.

“That’s nice. You made sure to do it properly, right?”

“Of course I did.”

“Hmm. I might ask Reika-neesan about your technique.”

“If you’re gonna ask that much, might as well ask her everything.”

“So, what else besides drying her hair?”

“You’re not even listening… She used me as her body pillow for the whole night.”

“That’s… kinda lewd…”

“Uh, it was completely wholesome, thank you.”

Sure, she did say things like “Don’t move away,” but there was nothing that would require embellishment.

“And yesterday!?”

“Ate breakfast with her, thanks to the meal her aunt made. Then she helped me study a bit… that kind of stuff.”

“Huh? You paused a bit after the studying part. Something happened, didn’t it!?”

“Your intuition’s too sharp…”

“Spill everything!”

Cornered by her overly intense demand, Satoru reluctantly told her about how Reika had praised him.

“This is… beyond shoujo manga…! I feel like I’m gonna get a nosebleed!”

“I’m the one who said it, and I feel so embarrassed I think my blood pressure’s about to make me get a nosebleed too.”

“Judging from your reaction, I bet you’re still hiding some juicy details. Maybe I should go ask Reika-neesan after all.”

“You should’ve just done that from the start…”

He also went ahead and told her about the weekday date they shamelessly went on during the day.

“I see. I’ll let you off the hook for now.”

“Finally, I’m free. So… can I go rest now?”

“Wait a sec—why are you this tired when you literally took yesterday off?”

“Everyone keeps asking the same thing, huh.”

“Of course they do. Acting all gloomy like that just makes you seem like a downer, so you might want to tone it down.”

“Oof, honesty is harsh…”

It was true—if someone saw him from the outside, they wouldn’t think kindly of him.

“Did something annoying happen?”

“…Man, you really are sharp.”

“Come on, talk to me. I’m sure you’ve already told Reika-neesan.”

“I told you before about that girl who’s been keeping her eye on me, right? It’s about that.”

“Ah, I see. So that thing made a move, huh.”

“That thing… well, yeah, she did.”

“Since you were absent yesterday, she probably pulled the whole ‘I was worried about you’ act, right?”

“Exactly. On top of that, she’s popular and has a habit of going through boy after boy. So her approach was… intense.”

“Ugh, I don’t want to imagine it, but I totally can. So you’re exhausted from dodging that?”

“That too, but she also seems to have noticed that Reika and I often take the same days off.”

“Whoa. Things really escalated right after break. Though to be fair, it was bound to come out eventually.”

“It’s tough…”

“Well, continuing to dodge her forever would be even tougher, no?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right…”

“Being popular sounds nice, but in practice it’s a pain. Especially for someone like you, Mister Goody-Two-Shoes.”

“Totally agreed.”

“And Reika-neesan’s probably leaving the handling of this up to you because she knows you’ll do the right thing.”

Just as his little sister said, Reika had this air of “I’m fine with whatever you decide.”

“I guess once the truth’s out, we’ll just have to own it…”

“You say that like getting found out would be the end of the world.”

“Wouldn’t you hate it too?”

“Why? Is it because you think you’re not good enough for Reika-neesan?”

“That’s part of it.”

“That’s ridiculous. You protected her. Back then, no one but you could’ve done what needed to be done.”

“Even so, no one else knows about that—and they can’t. If it gets out, there’s no telling what people might say to Reika.”

Satoru didn’t say this with dramatic emotion; rather, he just calmly laid out the facts.

“So basically, people are gonna gossip. But if we try to shut them up, the reason we’d have to give might end up hurting Reika-neesan instead.”

“Exactly.”

His sister neatly put his concerns into words.

When Satoru nodded, she let out a dry snort.

“How dumb. Then just let people say whatever about how you’re ‘not a good match’ or whatever.”

“Dumb, huh…”

“Seriously. No matter what anyone says, Reika-neesan isn’t going to leave you. If anything, you’re the only one who could change her, not the other way around.”

“That… does sound like her.”

“You’re too serious. Always worrying what others think. Why do you have to listen to them when you and Reika are on the same page?”

“I’m not saying I want to listen to them…”

“When I think about it, it just proves how insanely powerful you were back when you were in your ‘dark phase.’”

“I wasn’t powerful. I just wasn’t thinking about anything.”

“And that is what made you strong. Reika-neesan sometimes teases you by calling you ‘knight-sama,’ right? Back then, you were totally like a dark knight or something.”

“That’s just your chuunibyou talking.”

“Maybe. But the stuff you did was anything but normal.”

Why does his little sister talk about it like it’s some legendary tale?

And what exactly happened that brought Reika and Satoru together?

It was something deeply connected to the recurring nightmares Reika still has.

That incident occurred during the winter of their third year of middle school—just before entrance exams began.