My Ex-Girlfriend’s Sister Ran Away to My Room, and We Can’t Stop Making Mistakes. - Chapter 22: Just Hate Her Already.

Just Hate Her Already.

While I finished my curry, she sipped her beer little by little.

Her cheeks gradually took on a pinkish hue. Over the past month, she had grown remarkably accustomed to alcohol. Drinking at every dinner, having sex, and then falling into a sleep as heavy as mud.

From the time I left for work until I returned, I had rarely seen her eat a proper meal.

“Have you been eating lately?”

“I eat. Sometimes.”

“Not ‘sometimes.’ I haven’t seen you eat breakfast or dinner once.”

“I taste-test things.”

“You’re going to ruin your health.”

“I’m on a diet.”

“You don’t look like you need one.”

“It’s visceral fat.”

There was no arguing with her.

“More importantly… was the curry good?”

“Yeah. It was delicious. Thanks for the meal.”

“Are you full?”

“Of course. It might be the first time in a while I’ve had a proper lunch. I’ve been living off cup noodles lately.”

“You have to eat right.”

“I don’t want to hear that from you.”

“I guess that’s true.”

Giggling, Mii took a bottle opener and popped the cap off a beer. The pssh echoed through the empty shop. She slowly poured the foam from the green bottle into a glass.

“Hey. You should drink too, Saki-nii.”

“Is it okay? Drinking the shop’s stock like this?”

“I drink with Vanilla-san all the time.”

“That woman… just because it’s her own shop.”

“We even opened a bottle of wine the other day.”

“If things are that chaotic here, maybe I will have some.”

“What do you want? There’s Black Label or Singha.”

“What was Singha again?”

“The one I’m drinking. I think it’s from Thailand.”

“I’ll have that, then.”

With an “okay” and a smile, Mii handed me a glass. Foam swelled against the cold glass. The carbonation slid slowly over my tongue.

“Good.”

“Right?”

“Alcohol in the afternoon tastes twice as good.”

“I get that.”

“You’re too young to know that, high school girl.”

“I told you, I’m not a high school girl anymore.”

She pressed her lips to the glass and narrowed her eyes.

“Just a minor.”

“What on earth do you and Vanilla talk about?”

“About you, Saki-nii.”

“Stop it. That’s creepy.”

“Talk about when you first came to Tokyo.”

She wiped a droplet from her lip with her finger and played with her glass, swirling it around.

“She said you were like a stray cat that had been thrown away. You didn’t know where the food was. A cat that had grown thin and haggard.”

I remembered my first meeting with Vanilla. I had just arrived in Tokyo, I had no money, and I was desperate just to survive the day. At the job I eventually managed to find, the woman leaning listlessly in the back alley smoking a cigarette was Vanilla.

“She said she knew at a glance that you’d run away from somewhere.”

“Was I really that filthy?”

“It’s not about that. She said the same thing about me.”

“That you ran away from somewhere?”

“Yeah.”

The contents of Mii’s glass were almost gone. The warm light of the lamps reflected dimly on the surface. She tilted the bottle, but it was empty too. A final droplet fell from the rim.

She opened a third bottle.

“I wonder what’s at the end of the road when you run away.”

“Who knows.”

“Maybe it’s fine even if there’s nothing. It’s all the same regardless of what’s there.”

“There’s something there. I’m sure of it.”

“I told you earlier that our family shop is closing,” Mii said, abruptly cutting me off. “Onee-chan is pregnant.”

“Pregnant?”

“A niece or a nephew. It’s supposed to be born around next summer.”

“Well… congratulations.”

I drank the rest of the beer in my glass. The lukewarm liquid slid down my throat. The carbonation was gone. It tasted even flatter than before.

“Are you hurt?”

Mii was watching me. She repeated the same words again.

“You’re hurt, aren’t you?”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I just want to confirm the wound. I want to confirm that there’s nothing at the place we ran to.”

Her long hair swayed in the slight draft from the air conditioner. The strands fluttering about were as thin as silk thread.

“All that’s there is deep, seeping, dirty blood.”

“And? What happens once you confirm that?”

“That’s all.”

She stood up suddenly. The chair scraped loudly against the floor.

“Saki-nii.”

“What? Are you drunk?”

“No.”

Kneeling before me, Mii kissed the back of my hand.

“Saki-nii, just hurry up and hate Onee-chan already.”

“I don’t really feel anything for her anymore.”

“Liar.”

She took my finger into her mouth. She licked it repeatedly, her tongue coiling and swirling around it. My fingertip became slick and wet with saliva.

“You’re definitely drunk. Stop it.”

“I’m not drunk. You’re full of lies, Saki-nii. You lie to me, you lie to Onee-chan, and you lie to yourself.”

“Then it isn’t a lie anymore.”

“Because no one knows the truth?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m not fooled.”

Mii wrapped her arms around my back. Bringing her face close, she pressed a lingering, suctioning kiss against my neck.

“You idiot…”

“Saki-nii, let’s have sex.”

“Here?”

“Here. Right now.”

Straddling my lap, she slowly reached her hand under her skirt.

“If we do, I’m sure you’ll be able to forget about Onee-chan.”

She hooked her fingers into her underwear and began to slide them down.

“Right?”

She let out a sweet, hot breath.

I gently shook off her reaching hands.

“Mii.”

No, that wasn’t it. The truth was, I had remembered.

Stories of her sister. A summer evening.

Damp, sweaty concrete. A train sliding into the platform. Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka. Maybe somewhere that wasn’t even Japan.

We could go anywhere. Her hand in mine was shaking slightly. If we went there, surely there would be something. A place where we could live. A place where we belonged.

Saki-kun, my childhood friend called my name.

But we had learned that there was nothing for us. That it was a dead end. We had learned that beyond that point lay a world that was not one bit different from the one we knew.

“Sorry.”

I had realized that such emptiness was simply what it meant to be an adult.

“I’m going home first.”

I stood up. Mii remained on her knees, staring at me without even blinking.

As if fleeing from those eyes, I hurried out of the shop.