Don’t Call Us an Ex-Couple
“I really hated that about you.”
“...”
“...”
I stood at the front door of my house, doing my best impression of a delinquent’s angry glare. The target was a girl my age—nothing more, nothing less. Well, actually, as much as I wish that were true, it wasn’t. She was—and still is—something much, much more.
“Where are you off to, Mizuto-kun?”
“How about you? Where are you going, Yume-san?”
We exchanged words and then fell into a silence for the third time.
Truth be told, I didn’t even need to ask. I knew she was going to the bookstore above the burger place at Karasuma Sanjo. A new mystery novel had come out today, and it seemed that both of us wanted to go buy it.
However, leaving the house at the same time posed a problem. We would have to walk there together, head to the same section in the store, and line up behind one another at the checkout.
If that happened, how could anyone see us as anything but a couple that had the same taste in books?
Both of us wanted to avoid being perceived that way at all costs, but right now, we were at an impasse. All we had to do was leave at different times, but the question was who would get to go first. This little nonverbal back-and-forth mind game we were currently having would determine that.
Sure, we could have just talked it out, but also, no. No way. Not a single thing in this world could be resolved by talking things out with this girl.
“Oh, Yume and Mizuto-kun?” Yuni-san emerged from the living room, dressed in her suit. “What are you two up to?”
Yuni-san had just become my stepmom a little less than a week prior. In other words, she’s both the woman who married my father, and the mother of the girl standing in front of me.
“Are you two heading out?”
“I was just about to,” I said, smoothly trying to use Yuni-san’s question to push myself into the lead.
“Oh, you wouldn’t happen to be going to the bookstore at Karasuma, would you? I know how much you love books! That’s where Yume’s going too, right? I swear, she only ever leaves the house to go to the bookstore or the library.”
“Uh...” I faltered.
“Mom!” Yume protested.
“Don’t tell me you’re going there together! I’m so happy, Mizuto-kun! You’re really doing your best to be friends with her! Please keep being good to her. She’s just so gosh darn shy!”
“S-Sure...”
If looks could kill, I’d be dead from Yume’s death glare. But what else could I have possibly said after all that?
“Well, I have work, so I’ll see you all later. Be good siblings to each other, okay?” Yuni-san said as she left, slowly disappearing out the door.
That’s right. We were siblings. Stepsiblings. The children of our remarried parents.
“Why did you agree with her?” Yume asked me.
“With the way that conversation went, how couldn’t I?”
“Why do I have to be on good terms with someone like you?” she hissed.
“Bite me. I don’t want to be buddy-buddy with you either,” I retorted.
“I really hate how you just roll over for anyone and everyone, you shitty bookworm.”
“And I hate how you’re always so self-centered, you shitty fangirl.”
Our parents had no idea about our true relationship. Only she, Yume Irido, and I, Mizuto Irido, knew that we used to date and had just split up less than two weeks ago.
◇
I’d been involved with her from eighth to ninth grade, in what can only be called a folly of youth. We first met at the school library. It was the end of July—the start of summer break. She was standing on a stool, trying her best to reach for a book on the highest shelf. I’m sure you can already guess what happened next. I reached up and got the book for her instead.
If I had the power to go back in time, I wish I could tell my past self to not get involved with her. But tragically, he had no idea what the future would hold. He foolishly grabbed the book and struck up a conversation with the girl.
“You like mystery novels?”
I’m the type who will read anything. Proper literature, romance novels, light novels—you name it. If it has pages and a spine, it’s mine. So that’s why, when I grabbed that book and saw its title, I already knew it was a classic mystery.
I’d heard of it before, but it wasn’t necessarily my kind of book. Regardless, as an avid reader, if I saw someone getting a book that I knew, it was like an automatic hit of serotonin—like a bull seeing red and going wild. It was that kind of loss of oneself. More than likely, this was some kind of trap that had been set by a higher power.
In other words, it was destiny. It was destiny that brought the two of us together, led us to hit it off, and rendezvous in the vacant school library throughout summer vacation.
Then when school started again at the end of August, she asked me out, I said yes, and that’s how I got my first girlfriend. Her name? Yume Ayai—or at least, that’s what it used to be.
Well, it goes without saying that was where things started falling apart. But seriously, what middle school romance hasn’t fallen apart? Couples have something like less than a five percent chance of their relationships actually working out after confessing. Realistically speaking, there’s no way that a middle school couple would stay together for the rest of their lives.
But back then, we truly believed that we would. Neither of us stood out too much at school, so we were able to date without being bothered. We grew fond of one another through our hobbyist conversations in the school library, the public library on our days off, and at a bookstore café.
Of course, we did couple things as well. We went on dates, held hands, and shared extremely clumsy kisses. For better or worse—definitely worse, looking back at it—we did all the stereotypical couple things slowly, one by one.
Our first kiss was when we were saying goodbye on our way home from school against the background of an orange-tinged sky. Our lips barely touched—it was more like they brushed up against each other—but even now, her slightly flushed cheeks and smile are firmly burned into my mind.
However, there was one thing my present self would like to have said to that memory.
Go to hell. To both her and past me.
At any rate, we continued dating and getting closer to one another, but began to drift apart when we entered the ninth grade.
It all started when Ayai became more outgoing. Thanks to all the time we’d spent together, she’d gotten better at communicating and made a lot of friends in her new class. It was hard to believe that this was the same girl who hadn’t even been able to find a partner in gym class just a year before. Her growth was astonishing.
She was really happy about it, and I told her I was too. Right, that’s what I’d said, but it wasn’t what I felt. Confession: while I was congratulating her, I had felt an uncontrollable possessiveness welling up within me. I was supposed to be the only one who knew her cuteness, her smile, her cheerfulness.
But that was a problem. One time, I accidentally put those feelings into words, resulting in a bewildered Ayai who tried to assuage my feelings without really understanding. That had just irritated me even more.
Yes, I know. The catalyst leading to our breakup might have been her growth, but the actual cause was my stupid possessiveness. She’d done nothing wrong. I have no problem admitting that it was all me from beginning to end.
But, that being said, I wasn’t completely at fault. Even I—being the idiot I was back then—saw that I was the problem. I tried to apologize and explain to her that it was my fault that I’d grown jealous for various reasons. I apologized for taking my emotions out on her and asked her to let this all be water under the bridge.
And then, that girl... What do you think she said?
“So, you can be friendly with other girls, but you get mad when I try to be friendly with other people?”
I don’t think anyone could blame me for having reacted with a dumbfounded, “Huh?!”
According to Ayai, I had apparently cheated on her in the very same school library that we met in. But with whom? I had no idea. She probably saw me talking to a librarian or some random person and misinterpreted that as me cheating, as me definitely cheating, as me cheating without a doubt in her mind. She wouldn’t listen to me at all.
In the end, I apologized.
I have no clue why, though.
Had I been at fault for lashing out at her way more than what was necessary? Yes, that’s why I apologized. It was up to her whether or not she forgave me. That much, I understood.
But on what grounds did I deserve verbal abuse due to her own baseless misunderstandings? Everyone, especially me, has their own impulsive verbal outbursts, and I’d already apologized for that. So where was my apology? Why didn’t she apologize to me like I did to her? I certainly deserved it after she unfairly turned it into the Nonstop Mizuto Apology Show. It made absolutely no sense that not even a single word of remorse came out of her mouth.
We’d ended up superficially making up with each other and continued dating for a few more months, but I couldn’t drop the negative feelings I held against her. In the end, what once was broken could never be mended. Things that we had once found endearing about each other became annoying. We began shooting sarcastic comments at each other to the point that it became a pain to even text one another. Despite that, we’d get mad at the other person when they didn’t respond, which just added another wedge into the growing divide between us.
The only reason our relationship lasted until we graduated middle school was because neither of us had the courage to break up—we were both cowards. We were just trying to cling to the times when we had been happy together. When Valentine’s came and not a single word was exchanged between us, that’s when we knew for sure that it was over. That’s when we knew that there was no going back to the way things were. That’s why, when we graduated, I took the opportunity to say it.
“Let’s break up.”
“Yeah.”
Just like that, it was over without a single tear shed.
She wasn’t angry at all. If anything, her expression seemed to say that she’d been waiting for this. My expression probably said as much too.
She used to be so dear to me. I liked her so much, and then she became my mortal enemy. Romance truly is a flight of fancy, and I sure was glad to be free of it. With that heavy burden lifted, I was able to graduate from middle school as light as a feather.
One fateful night, my dad came to me with a serious look on his face and told me that he was thinking of getting remarried.
I was taken aback. It became apparent to me that people lose their minds when they hit the age that my dad did. Of course, I had sympathy for him as a single father, so I wasn’t opposed to the idea of remarriage, or rather, marriage in general. I had no objections whatsoever. I’d just completed my compulsory education as it was, so I was already in a great mood and feeling open-minded. Maybe that’s why I kind of just shrugged off his question about whether I’d be okay if the woman he was going to marry had a daughter.
I was going to have a stepsister my age! It was like something straight out of a light novel. I couldn’t help but laugh because, if anything, I was excited.
At this point, I had probably lost any and all rational thought. So that’s why it felt like a splash of cold water in my face when my stepmother-to-be brought over her daughter so that we could all meet.
“...”
“...”
Of course, the one standing there was Yume Ayai—no, now she was Yume Irido.
We just stared at each other, flabbergasted, while the same thoughts probably ran through each of our heads.
“God, why?!” I shouted in despair.
And that’s how my ex became my stepsister.
◇
“Thanks for the meal,” Ayai—I mean, Yume said curtly before stacking her dishes and utensils and bringing them to the kitchen.
Dammit. The timing could not have been worse. I had just finished eating, but I couldn’t keep sitting here to avoid her. That’d be weird.
“Thanks for the meal,” I said, grabbing my own dishes and bringing them to the kitchen as well. When I arrived, there was Yume. Between her borderline unhealthily thin body and her annoyingly long but well-kept jet-black hair, I thought that instead of washing dishes in the kitchen, she should be crawling out of a well after seven days.
As I walked in, Yume said nothing but gave me a quick glance, her long eyelashes barely moving from their closed position. The only sound coming from her was the clatter from the dishes being washed. I didn’t have anything to say to her either, so I silently stood next to her and began to wash mine too.
I really wanted to avoid a situation like this where I had to stand next to her in the kitchen, but blatantly avoiding her could lead to problems of their own. Especially since...
“Phew, I was worried about two young adults living together under one roof, but I’m so glad that they’re getting along so well,” my dad said cheerfully.
“Seriously! Did you know that Mizuto-kun and Yume went to the bookstore together today? I guess things are easier when they have a shared hobby,” added Yume’s mom.
“It’s such a relief. I was so worried about whether they’d get along.”
Our parents happily discussed our relationship at the dining table. After getting married, they’ve spent every day happy—the exact opposite of us two.
“You understand?” Yume asked in a low voice so that she couldn’t be heard from the dining room over the sound of the water.
“Understand what?” I asked.
“We can’t give them any reason to regret this.”
“Of course. I’m taking our secret to the grave.”
“Good.”
“When did you start getting so high-and-mighty over every last thing?”
“If I wasn’t like this in the past, it’s one hundred percent your fault I’m like this now.”
“Excuse me?!”
“What?”
“Hey, what are you two talking about?” We immediately reset our angry facial expressions as we heard dad call us from the dining room.
I quickly tried to explain. “We were just, like, talking about the book we, like, bought today.”
“Yes, that is right! We were discussing the book,” Yume said in a cheery voice while delivering a low kick to my leg at an angle that no one else could see.
“Ow!”
“What are you, a valley girl? You don’t need to use ‘like’ that much. Are your language arts grades all right?” she snapped in a whisper.
“Sorry to disappoint, but I placed in the top one hundred on the national mock exam,” I whispered back.
“I hate how past me would have praised you for that.”
“I hate how past me would have just accepted your praise.”
In front of everyone else, we played the parts of stepsiblings building a better relationship. This was due to the single shared opinion that we had: we didn’t want our parents to regret getting married. That was truly the one thing we agreed on.
I was in my room reading the book that I’d bought that day when I heard a knock on the door.
“Dad? Need something?” I called out.
There was no answer. I didn’t want to put down my book and stop reading, but I also didn’t want to put a damper on his newlywed life with a bad attitude. I bookmarked my spot and went to the door to open it, but the person standing before me wasn’t my dad, but the girl that I hated most in the world—none other than Yume Irido.
“What?” I asked her in a tone of voice that was a hundred or so degrees colder than the one I’d just used.
Yume raised her head and let out a short huff as if to laugh in my face and say that the coldness in my voice wasn’t even enough to make her flinch.
“I need to talk to you. Busy?” she asked.
“You know what I bought today. Of course I am.”
“I do know, and that’s why I’m here. I already finished reading it.”
I clicked my tongue in annoyance, realizing that she’d come here with the purpose of interfering with my reading.
Her reading speed had always been just a little faster than mine, which is something that never changed while we dated. We’d buy the same book at the same time and start reading at the same time too. But just around the time I would get into the climax, this girl would finish it first. It was an extremely nasty part of her—something I really hated. I’m glad that we broke up.
“Keep it short,” I demanded.
“Let me in. I don’t want our parents to hear.”
“Tsk.”
“Can you stop clicking your tongue every time I say something?”
“I’ll stop as soon as I don’t have to see your face anymore,” I retorted.
“Tsk.”
I cautiously peeked around the hall to make sure that neither dad nor Yuni-san were around before letting Yume inside.
“What a dirty room. Do you have anything besides books? I feel like I’m getting dirty just being here,” Yume quipped, watching her step as she walked inside my room.
“That’s not what you said when you came here while dad was away on that business trip. Your eyes glistened, and you were like, ‘Wow, it’s just like a library!’”
“Nothing is forever. Just seeing the complete Sherlock Holmes series neatly lined up makes me so annoyed I could die.”
“Just die then. I’ll push you off the same waterfall that Professor Moriarty was.” I sat down on my bed that was half-filled with books. “So, what do you want to talk about?”
Yume kept on standing and coldly stated, “I don’t think I can keep doing this. I can’t handle it anymore. How much longer do I have to endure you nonchalantly calling me by my first name?”
I knit my brow in annoyance. After all, there was no reason to hide my displeasure in front of her. “Yeah? I seem to remember you calling me by my first name though,” I shot back.
“Better than having you call me by mine. I can’t stand hearing my name come out of your mouth. I didn’t even let you use my first name when we were dat—when we were in middle school!”
Interesting. You can’t even stand mentioning our time together, huh? Oh, now I see.
“We have the same last name now. What do you want me to do?” I asked her.
“There’s got to be a good solution.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Call me ‘onee-chan.’” Come again? “We’re siblings now, so it only makes sense that you call me ‘onee-chan,’ right?”
“Nuh-uh. Hold up,” I said, cradling my head in my hands. “You think you’re the older sibling? Keep dreaming. You have that backwards.”
“Huh?”
“I’m the older brother and you’re the younger sister. You should be calling me ‘nii-san,’” I said in rebuttal, wondering what the heck she was babbling about.
“Oh no, how terrible. It seems all your brain cells are asleep right now, my little stepbrother.”
“Want me to put you to sleep? Forever?” I snapped back at her.
“Fine! Listen up: as someone who ranked in the top one hundred on the national arithmetic mock exam, I’ll be nice and explain this to you,” Yume said, sticking up her pointer finger as if she were a teacher.
Unforgivable! You don’t deserve to be an avid reader if you score better in math than language arts.
“One,” she continued. “In this world, the one who is born first is the older sibling. Two, I was born first. Therefore, we can conclude that since I was born first, I am the older sibling. Got it?” Yume said all this with a confident, smug look on her face while talking about logic—not math!—but that wasn’t the part I wanted to confront her on.
“If I remember right, we have the exact same birthday,” I pointed out.
This was just another one of the traps that fate had laid for us. We sure do share the same birthday. It might not have been the reason why we had hit it off so well, but it certainly did have a hand in us having that disgusting talk about celebrating each other’s birthdays together and going through the horrible ritual of exchanging presents. It’d be great if I could erase those memories from my head.
“That’s why, between us, there is no older sibling,” I concluded.
“Didn’t you just practically shout at me, declaring that I’m your younger sister?”
Yeah, but I had no ulterior motive saying that. You just feel more like a younger sister than an older one.
“Either way,” she continued. “Our birthdays may be the same, but it changes nothing. After all, our birth times are different.”
“Birth...time?”
“I’ve already looked into them,” she said, as though she were some kind of detective, while taking out her phone and shoving it in my face. “See?”
Displayed on the screen was a photograph of a baby with writing under it. It looked like it was part of a family album.
“You were born at eleven thirty-four in the morning.” She swiped to the next baby picture and pointed at the time written beneath. “And according to this picture, I was born at least thirty minutes prior. I was born first. Got it?”
Is this girl for real? Did she really dig up my family album just to look for this?
“Yikes, weirdo...”
Yume’s face turned red upon hearing my unfiltered opinion. “H-How?! A perfect deduction requires there to be complete evidence!”
“There they are—the words of a true mystery fangirl. If you like puzzles so much, why beat around the bush? Go solve a real puzzle.”
“Now you’ve done it! You’ve just picked a fight with every true mystery fan out there! Are you prepared for that?!”
“All right. I’ll play along with your mystery game, even though you never come up with your own theories before the solution is revealed. As much as you fuss about what’s fair and what’s not, there’s a hole in your argument.”
“What hole?! You must be talking about those rotten holes in your head that you call your eyes!”
Just like all mystery fans (people who ignore any challenges to the reader), she entered her angry mode because I was right. And so, I presented my rebuttal to her theory: “In your argument, you stated that in this world, the firstborn child is the older sibling. However, that’s just a fallacy. In ancient Japan, when twins were born, the one who came out first was considered the younger sibling.”
“Huh? Why?” Yume said, tilting her head out of genuine curiosity.
“There are lots of different reasons, like the first child born acted as an usher to the other, or that the first child must have been lower in the womb than the other. Either way, in the event that we—stepsiblings who share the same birthday—are determined as steptwins, it would mean that you—the one who was born first—are the younger sibling. Got it? Good. Your counter?”
“W-We’re not really twins...”
“Yeah, and we’re not really siblings either. We’re just the children of our respective parents.”
Yume groaned in frustration in response to my logic, glaring at me spitefully. I wanted to laugh in her face and tell her to just bow down before me, but then she realized something.
“Wait a second.”
“Nope. Get out of my room.”
“What does our birth order have to do with ancient Japan? In modern times, the first one born is the older one.”
“Tsk. You should’ve just kept your mouth shut and let yourself be deceived.”
“Huh?! Y-You tried to trick me?!”
“At any rate, I’m the older sibling. QED. Case closed,” I said, standing up and glaring at her. “Now get out of my room.”
“I’m the older sibling! Just thinking about being your little sister makes me want to throw up!” She returned my glare.
It felt like sparks were flying between our eyes, although that seemed like a bit of an understatement. It was more like we were in one of Futaro Yamada’s ninja novels, furiously clashing swords with one another, blood spraying everywhere.
I let out a sigh and calmed myself as I began to feel Shiro Amakusa or some other warrior reincarnating from hell in Yume’s fierce gaze.
“Us staring at each other isn’t gonna solve anything. I think the rational decision is to settle this with a game or something,” I suggested.
“I don’t like the way you phrased that, but I agree.”
“So, what’s it going to be? Rock paper scissors? Drawing lots? Coin flip?” I asked.
“Wait a second.”
“No. Get out of my room,” I snapped back instinctively.
“Stop saying that automatically.”
Oops. Forgot to turn off my mental response bot.
“Hm...” Yume put her hand to her chin, trying to look smart. “I’ve got an idea.”
“I would like nothing more than to reject you outright, but lucky for you, I’m a rational person. I’ll hear you out.”
“You’re so annoying.” She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, now that we’re living together, we have to hide our true relationship and pretend to be siblings that actually get along, right?”
“Regrettably, yes.”
“We’ve been doing okay, but one day, one of us might slip up and say or do something that isn’t something that stepsiblings would say to each other, right? How about whoever slips up is the loser?”
“Hm, I see. And you’re okay with that?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“These rules make it clear that I’m gonna win.”
“You’re looking down on me!”
It might have sounded like that to her, but I was merely stating my logical theory based on the facts. “I’m fine with those rules. It’ll keep us on our toes and help us keep things under wraps. By the way, do the rules count when our parents aren’t around?”
“Of course. The rules even count right here, right now.”
“Uh-huh. So the one who doesn’t act like a stepsibling is the younger one, huh?”
“It’s an ongoing game where if you slip up, you lose, and the winner can decide how they want to be called until the next slipup,” Yume explained.
“Makes sense. It’s no fun if it’s just a onetime game of sudden death.” I nodded. “All right. I’m in.”
“Good, then our game starts now!” Yume said, clapping her hands together.
Not a moment later, Yume moved to my bookcase and nonchalantly began rummaging through it.
“H-Hey, what are you doing?!”
“Hm? Just sibling stuff. Nothing weird,” she said with a devilish smile. As I looked at her, it began to dawn on me what the true idea behind these rules was.
Even if one of us did something to get a rise out of the other, we couldn’t adversely react to anything that was deemed normal for siblings, because otherwise that person would be the one not acting like a stepsibling. These rules were just an excuse for harassment!
Th-This girl! She suggested these rules for this very reason! She’s rotten to her core! Whoever falls for a girl this ill-natured has to be just as twisted!
As I stared at the girl in front of me who was making various reactions at the books she randomly pulled off my shelf, I knew that I was in a bad position. I could sense that I was in danger. As she went through my books, it felt like she was peering into my soul. It made me slightly uncomfortable, but fortunately, the slightly erotic light novels that would make me really uncomfortable weren’t there.
The problem was my desk drawer next to the bookcase. It was the Pandora’s box of my room. Hidden inside were a notebook with my original novel written in it, a certain something I bought at the drugstore with mixed feelings, and a present that I’d received from this very girl when we were still dating.
I could already picture how she’d react. “Ew, you still have this? What? You still hung up on me or something? Huh?! You seriously need to give up, creep!”
There’s absolutely no way I can let her find it. Unfortunately, at this rate, Yume’s attention would naturally move to the desk. I had to do something to draw her attention away from it and do so in a way that was normal for siblings!
I kicked my brain cells into overdrive to look for a way out of this situation. This might’ve been the hardest I’ve thought about anything since the entrance exam for high school. My desperate thoughts brought me to a part of the “sibling rules.”
“Please, stop,” I said in a feeble voice. This caught Yume’s attention, and she spun around to face me, her black hair fluttering in the air.
I stood up from the bed and walked towards her. As I grew closer, she looked up at me, her face becoming increasingly filled with confusion.
“I don’t want to fight anymore,” I said.
“Huh?” Yume’s eyes widened and reflected my meek expression.
“I’m sorry if I made you angry. I’ll leave if you want. Just... Can we please just stop this?” I put my hands on her shoulders and spoke in a clear, serious tone.
Yume shifted her gaze but quickly looked back into my eyes one more time. Her large, doe-like eyes trembled slightly. As she gazed at my face, the confusion from her face slowly dissipated, and finally, she was firmly focused on my expression, and—
“Irido-kun...”
“Aaand you’re out,” I said.
“Huh?” Yume’s mouth was agape.
I smirked. “Siblings don’t call each other by their last name.”
Yume started out dumbfounded, but her face slowly grew redder and redder, like water after you put a teabag in it. Bringing up anything that might remind us of our past relationship was forbidden under the rules and therefore a surefire way to win, and it seemed that she’d finally realized this too.
“Wha— No, th-this can’t— You’re out too!” she stammered.
“How? Not wanting to fight is a very normal thing, isn’t it? We’re siblings, after all.”
“Agh! Waaah!” My little stepsister clutched her head out of vexation, blushing up to her ears while I watched from above, satisfied.
“All right, time for your end of the bargain. Ready to become my little sister?”
“Wh-What are you planning to do?!” she cried, shrinking away from me.
“Stay there and stop holding yourself. That’s not what little sisters do.”
Every last part of my being wanted to humiliate her, but I thought better of it and decided that I would save the cat-eared maid stepsister punishment for another time.
“Let’s keep it simple since this is the first time and everything. You’re going to change the way you address me.”
“H-How?”
“However you want.” Internally, I felt like a king. Ha ha! Show me what you believe a little sister is. Ah, delightful. Wonderful! My internal self downed a glass of red wine.
In response to my order, Yume averted her gaze and let out an extremely displeased groan while bringing her clenched fist to her chest. Before long, she looked up at me, her face as red as a baby’s from embarrassment, and in a small trembling voice, her words echoed in my ears.
“O-Onii-chan...”
I immediately looked away.
“O-Out! You’re out!” she shouted. “That reaction—a sibling wouldn’t be embarrassed from being called that!” she exclaimed.
“I’m not embarrassed...”
“You are! How much do you think I’ve looked at your face?!”
“How should I know?! You sure you weren’t looking at someone else? We only just met a few days ago.”
“That’s not fair! That’s so, so, so unfair!” She stomped her feet as if she were a tantrum-throwing child, but I couldn’t look at her. It had absolutely nothing to do with my face being flushed, my heart racing, or me wanting her to call me “onii-chan” again. I had my own reason not to look at her that was completely separate from those reasons.
Yume was still grumbling, but it seemed that we’d made too much noise.
“Yume? You’re being awfully noisy,” Yuni-san called out from the bottom of the stairs—the voice of salvation to my present self.
“Time’s up,” I said with a triumphant grin. Yume replied with a growl.
“Well, I hope you learned your lesson about messing with me. You might’ve had a misunderstanding from all those mysteries you read, but you and I are built differently.” I tapped my temple, emphasizing my point.
Whether it was out of anger or frustration, Yume became even redder, and tears began to well up in her eyes. “You never used to say anything so mean to me!”
Don’t cry. That’s cheap. I fiddled with my bangs. I was starting to get uncomfortable again. Maybe I got a little carried away, I thought. For people like us, going after someone’s reading preferences was one of the most hurtful things we could do. It was like how the media would tear apart a person’s book collection just so they could say baseless things about them. Yeah, I guess I might’ve gone a little too far.
I sighed, reluctantly stretching out my right hand and patted her on the head like one would a child.
“Yeah, I’m a jerk. I’m sorry, onee—nee-san.”
It felt so nostalgic. Back then, whenever something happened, I used to look at Ayai’s shy face just like this, but Yume wasn’t shy anymore. Her body was trembling like a volcano that was about to erupt.
“I...” Yume began, trailing off.
“You?”
“I really hate how you can just apologize like that! Shitty onii-chan!” She spat out her new phrase and ran out of my room, kicking my tower of books over in the process and leaving me completely dumbfounded. The reaction she had was definitely not something that I had ever seen when we were dating.
“Jeez...” You’re not the only one. I really hated how you were so reserved yet so competitive, so mature yet so childish...and just when I’d finally forgotten about you, you showed me a face that I’d never seen before.
◇
In the end...
“Good morning, Mizuto-kun.”
“Good morning, Yume-san.”
We didn’t change what we called each other. In the first place, the rules made it so that the loser could only become the younger sibling once per loss, otherwise it would draw suspicion as to why one person was suddenly being called “onii-chan” or “onee-chan” by the other. But, I guess if something had changed, it’d have to be...
“Mizuto-kun, could you pass me the soy sauce?”
“Oh, yeah. Here you go, Yume-san.”
Our eyes met for an instant as I passed her the soy sauce, and we came to a mutual understanding without even having to exchange words. Although, if we had, it would have sounded like this:
“I will never be your little sister.”
“What a coincidence. I have no intention of ever becoming your little brother.”
This girl and I will never see eye to eye. What had happened between us in middle school was a mistake. It was nothing more than a folly of youth. That had become even clearer thanks to the events of yesterday.
We exchanged low kicks under the table while our parents continued their happy conversation, neither of them showing even the slightest indication that they noticed our fight. The two of us were the only ones who knew our past.
I was living with my mortal enemy, the person I hated most in my world. But even so...
“Yume-san, can you pass the soy sauce?”
“Sure, Mizuto-kun.”
We’d only called each other by our last names when we were dating, but ever since we broke up, we’ve been using each other’s first names. I couldn’t help but think that fate really has a sick sense of humor.
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