My Ex-Girlfriend’s Sister Ran Away to My Room, and We Can’t Stop Making Mistakes. - Chapter 9: The Scent of Summer Twilight.

The Scent of Summer Twilight.

By the time I stepped out of Chuuka Sei Zanmai, the world had been swallowed by total darkness.

It had been a significant hit to my wallet, but if it meant changing the dynamic between Mii and me, it was a small price to pay. I’d even walked away with a coupon for a free request fee on my next visit.

I stood before my door, tentatively turning the handle. It was my own home, yet I felt a surge of tension, as if I were trying to avoid waking a hibernating bear.

“Welcome back!”

Inside, the room had been rearranged yet again. The stacks of books and manga that had once claimed most of the floor space were gone.

Mii was currently wearing an apron over her school uniform, busily stirring a pot of curry.

“I tucked your books away in the closet. They were so dusty. Anyway, you’re late. Did you have to work overtime?”

“Ah, yeah. Something like that.”

“Go ahead and jump in the bath. I made curry udon tonight since I made way too much yesterday.”

Mii shot me a bright, innocent smile.

“I added some mentsuyu and dashi. It’s actually pretty good.”

“Sounds great.”

“I’ve already set a towel out for you.”

I gave a nod and started toward the bathroom, but I felt a tug on my jacket.

“Hey, hold on a second.”

Mii pulled me back with surprising force. She leaned in close, her nose twitching as she sniffed me—focusing intently on my face and neck.

“You smell like a soap I don’t know.”

“You’re imagining things.”

“No, I’m not. You smell different than you did this morning.”

“I just… stopped by a friend’s house.”

“That’s not it, is it?”

She watched me with a gaze that felt like an interrogation.

“Who did you sleep with?”

“What?”

“Don’t lie to me. Who did you sleep with?”

The look on Mii’s face was one of absolute, unwavering certainty.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Was it a pro?”

“I—”

“Spot on.”

She leaned back against the kitchen sink and crossed her arms in exasperation. The pink floral apron she’d picked up somewhere was pulled taut across her chest without a single wrinkle.

“What exactly are you trying to do?”

“Look…”

“Are you trying to kick me out?”

“No. It’s not that.”

I couldn’t meet her eyes.

“It’s not about that. It’s just… there’s no need for us to do that anymore.”

“Do you hate having sex with me?”

“It’s not a matter of liking it or not.”

“Then what?”

“It’s wrong. What we’re doing is wrong.”

Evasion wasn’t going to solve anything. I had to be blunt.

“Let’s just stop this part of it. You can stay here as long as you need, but let’s keep things normal. No more of that. I won’t touch you like that again.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Guilt. Every time I touch you, I feel… I don’t know. Conflicted.”

Mii fell into a silence as heavy as stone. She reached over to turn off the heat under the bubbling pot, then finally spoke.

“Hey. Look at me.”

She reached behind her and untied the apron strings. She stood there in her school uniform, the apron falling to the floor like a hollowed-out husk.

She looked up at me through her lashes.

“The way I am right now… I look just like her, don’t I? This uniform. The light makeup. The mint lip balm. My long, straight black hair. And… my untainted heart and body.”

She rose up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against mine.

“The heart and body I gave to you.”

The scent of summer twilight.

That was exactly what my first kiss had tasted like. After a summer rain. Concrete. The setting sun painting her face a vivid, burning red.

“I knew it.”

She reached out toward me.

“You can’t run away from this, Saki-nii. This… what we do… it’s necessary.”

“For whose sake?”

“For yours.”

As she spoke, she gathered the hem of her skirt and lifted it.

She wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

“For that wound of yours that’s never going to heal.”

The lingering scent of her lip balm invaded my senses. It was sweet—a cloying, rotting sweetness that seemed to eat away at my mind from the inside out, melting my resolve into a slurry. As it raced from my mouth through my entire body, every coherent thought I had simply vanished.

And just like that, I took her right there in the kitchen.

I forgot all about the guilt and the conflict. I became nothing more than a beast, moving my body in time with hers.