My Ex-Girlfriend’s Sister Ran Away to My Room, and We Can’t Stop Making Mistakes. - Chapter 37: Let's Get Meat Buns.

Let’s Get Meat Buns.

We bought coffee and meat buns at the FamilyMart. Mii tried to pick up some alcohol while she was at it, but I reminded her of the doctor’s words and put a stop to it.

Returning to the park we had just been at, we sat side by side on a bench and ate our meat buns.

“What did you talk about with Onee-chan?”

Having eaten only about half of hers, Mii handed the rest of the bun over to me. “I don’t want any more.”

“I’m full already.”

“Eat it properly. The doctor said you’re anemic.”

“I got tired of the taste. So, what did you talk about with Onee-chan?”

“Nothing that major. She’s coming to pick you up tomorrow. We made plans to meet.”

“Onee-chan sounded happy, didn’t she? Getting to talk to you, Saki-nii.”

“Who knows. I couldn’t tell.”

“I bet she definitely was.”

Mii brought the coffee cup to her lips.

“Are you guys meeting up somewhere?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow, at the Starbucks in Tokyo Station.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“You don’t actually have to come along, Mii.”

“Huh?”

“If you really hate the idea, I can go handle things with her alone.”

“Why? Did Onee-chan say that?”

“Yeah. She’s the one who suggested it. She said if you’d rather stay here, you don’t have to force yourself to come back.”

I opened up to her about how Ayumu had said it was fine for Mii to stay with me for a while. At first, Mii’s eyes went wide with surprise, but she gradually lapsed into a brooding silence.

She placed her cup down on the edge of the bench.

“I see… Onee-chan really said that.”

“Only if you’re okay with it, of course.”

“Won’t it cause trouble for you, Saki-nii?”

“Not at all. Besides, you’ve finally gotten used to your part-time job at Vanilla-san’s place, haven’t you? It’d be good to keep it going a bit longer.”

“Yeah.”

Giving a small nod, Mii rubbed her numb palms together.

“It’s not like I actually hate Onee-chan or anything.”

“I know. At least that much.”

“I just… couldn’t stand watching her.”

Mii understood Ayumu better than anyone. It was something Mii herself might not even realize.

Whenever she spoke about Ayumu, Mii became just a little more talkative.

“Onee-chan, you see… she tries to take everything upon herself. The hardships, the responsibilities—she tries to shoulder them all on her own.”

“True. She’s always had that kind of personality.”

“You’re pretty much the same, Saki-nii.”

She let out a soft chuckle as she said it.

“Claiming it’s for someone else’s sake, you’re both completely fine with sacrificing yourselves. But to me, that’s incredibly terrifying and creepy.”

Her voice trembled slightly as she spoke. I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or from her emotions. Mii exhaled a remarkably white plume of breath.

“For the person forced to sit there and watch that kind of self-sacrifice right in front of them… it’s honestly the absolute worst.”

I knew the exact emotion Mii was giving voice to. When Ayumu dropped out of school, and when I found out she was getting married—I was crushed by that exact same unidentifiable emotion.

“It doesn’t stop with you; it hurts other people, too. That’s why I hated that house. A house built on top of the corpses of Onee-chan and Papa.”

“You were just a child back then, Mii. I think she wanted to be with her family, including all those parts of it.”

“If that’s the case, then I want to grow up faster.”

She stretched her legs out far in front of her. It really must have been freezing; goosebumps had formed across her thighs.

I stared at our shadows cast upon the ground.

“Onee-chan was supposed to end up happy with you, Saki-nii.”

“What do you mean, ‘supposed to’?”

“Because you two were so deeply in love.”

Averting my eyes from those words, I looked up at the sky. Narrows my eyes, I could see a star that looked like a tiny dot.

A thin layer of cloud quickly rolled in, obscuring it from view.

“You know… I used to love watching Onee-chan and Saki-nii when you were together. I envied it from the bottom of my heart, wishing that I could connect with someone like that too.”

“No relationship lasts forever. There’s no such thing as a love that goes on eternally. You’re not a kid anymore.”

“But Saki-nii, you still love Onee-chan, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Answer me honestly.”

She spoke with a sharp, unyielding tone. It felt as though she were pinning me down, making sure I knew that trying to dodge the question wouldn’t work.

“Yeah… I still have lingering regrets.”

The moment I confessed, Mii let out a massive sigh—a heavy “haaa”—and crumpled the meat bun wrapper into a tight ball.