My Ex-Girlfriend’s Sister Ran Away to My Room, and We Can’t Stop Making Mistakes. - Chapter 14: Gears.

Gears.

Their family had been neither wealthy nor poor; they were, for lack of a better word, ordinary.

“Huh, so your little sister’s family ran a diner?”

I had been talking about it with Vanilla just the other day. In our usual back alley, she was absentmindedly puffing away on a Marlboro.

“What kind of place was it?”

“A small diner. Mostly locals and drivers from the nearby factory. It had been around since her grandfather’s time.”

“Then it must’ve been in business for quite a while.”

“It had a great reputation. The happosai Mii’s father made was incredible.”

“Eight-treasure stir-fry, huh? You know, that’s surprisingly hard to get right if you’re making it from scratch. Man, now I’m really craving some.”

“I don’t know if they’re still open, though.”

“Did they close down?”

“It’s not so much that they closed, but…”

I thought back to their father.

He was a man who laughed loudly and often. He’d been a coach for the local baseball team—the kind of cheerful person who was always at the center of any gathering.

To all appearances, their family had been doing very well.

“He just… couldn’t make it anymore.”

“Couldn’t make it?”

“Apparently, the business was struggling.”

“Ah. Yeah, it’s tough these days for independent shops.”

“That’s what they said.”

It happened around the time I started middle school. Their father had opened an izakaya in front of the station in the neighboring town. It feels like that was the moment the gears began to grind and slip.

“It didn’t work out? The pub?”

When I shook my head, Vanilla gave a sympathetic “I see.”

“It sounds like it would’ve been a good move, though. You’d get more foot traffic there than out on the provincial road. Especially if the food was already famous.”

“The initial sales were good, I think. But then a major chain opened up right nearby.”

“Oof.”

“He tried to keep up by lowering his prices, but in the end, it just didn’t work out.”

Ultimately, their father’s health gave out, and he had to fold the business. All that remained was a mountain of debt.

“If you lose your health, it’s game over. What happened after that?”

“That’s as much as I know. I left home shortly after.”

“Gotcha. Man, I really wanted to try that happosai.”

Vanilla exhaled a plume of smoke, looking genuinely disappointed.

That was where I had stopped the story with her.

The rest of it was far more tragic, a tale devoid of salvation.

It was a summer day when my childhood friend and I were in our second year of high school. The day the creaking gears finally shattered and fell apart.

In the very shop he had loved so dearly, their father took his own life by hanging.

And the one who discovered him was Mii, who was still only in elementary school at the time.