I’ll Call You “Garbage” for Life

“That’s what happened.”

I was talking to Reika, who was facing away from me and listening intently. Without realizing it, I was telling her about what had happened between Mari and me.

Mari proposed living together.

She said she had enough money to support me for life.

I don’t know why, but I couldn’t accept her words.

…If I were to say it’s pathetic, it’s truly a pathetic story.

It’s really embarrassing to talk about this to my sister.

Even so, Reika didn’t say a word until I finished talking, and I took advantage of that to pour out everything that had happened between Mari and me.

Reika and I aren’t particularly close siblings. I find her annoying, and she doesn’t hold back from calling me annoying and gross every day. She might really hate me to the bone too.

Even so, at times like this, whether I want to listen to her story or want someone to listen to me… the fact that I can feel this way might be the strongest proof that we are siblings, and as I speak these thoughts to Reika, it’s also a fact that I can’t deny.

“Well… how should I put it… I think I probably got freaked out just now. Mari is an amazing person, and the fact that she lives in a completely different world from someone like me…”

Reika’s back, which was in my line of sight as I was pouring out my pathetic thoughts, didn’t move at all.

I couldn’t see her face, but she must have had a sullen expression. Still, she didn’t say anything and listened quietly, which was probably her way of being considerate.

“Mari… Mari, you know… she’s definitely different from me, she’s amazing. She keeps getting results, and before I knew it, she had climbed up to an incredible level… At first, I thought it was awesome, really awesome, but somewhere along the way, I probably subconsciously got scared. I thought, ‘If this continues, she’ll go somewhere I can’t reach.’ So, I panicked and tried to hold on to her, confessing to her before she went somewhere far away…”

“…”

“I thought that if we became a couple, maybe I’d feel like I could stand on the same ground as her… Maybe, just maybe, that’s all I was thinking…”

I confessed to Mari because I liked her.

I didn’t care if we weren’t compatible.

That’s what I thought when I confessed. But it was a lie.

I didn’t confess to Mari because I liked her even though we weren’t compatible. It’s the other way around.

I confessed to her because I knew we weren’t compatible, I wanted her to stop.

“But before I noticed it, everything was already going at Mari’s pace, and I was just being dragged along by her…”

Then came Mari’s invitation to live together.

That’s when I started to feel confused about everything.

“Mari accepted my confession, but I wonder what she likes about me… Why does she like me… How does she like me…”

“…”

“Because, it might be too late to say this, but no matter how you look at it, we’re not compatible. Mari and someone like me…”

I sent my gaze to Reika’s back, expecting her to say, “Yeah, you’re not compatible.”

But there, she glanced back at me, and the words she spoke were different from what I expected.

“So, what do you want to do, big brother?”

“Huh?”

“The story you just mentioned, big brother, was about what happened between you and Asakura-san, and how, compared to Asakura-san, You’re lame and uncool—basically just self-deprecating humor. But even though it was supposed to be a joke, there was nothing for me to retort at or anything remotely even funny about it. Honestly, even listening to it, it was just depressing and boring.”

“Wha– You—”

“And now, all of a sudden, you’re saying stuff like we’re not a good match, things that are so obvious. You should’ve been prepared for that much before you guys even started dating. Are you an idiot or what?”

…Correction. She wasn’t listening quietly out of consideration for me.

She didn’t hold back. She came at me. I’m really depressed. Well, I can’t argue with her.

“So, what do you want to do, big brother?”

“Umm, well, I mean, I was wondering why Mari likes me… I mean, does she really like me…”

“Is there any point in thinking about that?”

…She really doesn’t hold back.

“Any point… it’s important, right? Whether the other person likes you or not. Maybe she’s just holding a strange illusion about me…”

I remembered the words D.T. had said before and so I replied like that.

But Reika became even more sullen and said,

“But that’s an issue on Mari-san’s side, not yours.”

And so she said.

“Mari-san tells you everything, like what she wants to do and what she wants. But big brother, you haven’t really done that for Mari-san, have you?”