Chapter 4:
There’s No Freaking Way I Can Be a Big Sister!
I HAD A DREAM THAT FEATURED a crying little girl—that was, my sister. Back when she was real little. She tugged at my sleeve and sobbed, “Oneechan, Oneechan!” She must have wanted me to comfort her, but of course I didn’t have the words to make her stop crying. It was all I could do to keep myself from crying as well.
Man, I didn’t remember this ever happening. Maybe my new extroversion-seeking life was so rich and flavorful I’d forgotten all about it. Or maybe it never actually happened. Maybe my brain cooked this up just because. But I didn’t think so. The image of my sobbing sister looked too real to be just a dream.
When I thought hard and tried to place it, everything started to come back to me. I had been in third grade, and my little sister and I had gotten lost. I saw a crepe truck turning a corner and decided to chase after it to see where it’d go. I guess my thinking was that there must be a crepe land somewhere in the world, a place where all crepe trucks convened.
Anyway, my baby sis—still a first grader—came running after me. She may have overtaken me in height at my current age, but we were young enough back then that our two-year age gap let me call all the shots. My sister was way tinier than me, and she was always following me around.
Like a bubble rising to the surface of the water, another memory resurfaced in my mind. Having a little sister used to depress me. Every time I went up a new grade, gained new confidence, or learned something new, I always had to rein myself in to make sure my little sister could keep up. I thought she was the ultimate hassle.
So, on the day we chased the crepe truck, I purposefully ran so fast my sister couldn’t keep up. I heard her crying behind me, and I completely ignored her.
Honestly? Right from day one, I didn’t have what it took to be a big sister. I asked my sister for favors or used her whenever it suited me, so it’s no wonder she eventually pulled away from me. How could she ever open up to me when I treated her like this? If only I wasn’t a constant screwup. If only I’d been someone she could fall back on. Someone who cared about her from the bottom of their heart.
But it was no use. There was no changing the past, and even if I could make a new future, my sister knew me too well already. She knew just how much I sucked. How could you trust someone so irredeemable? I was supposed to watch out for Haruna, but I had failed, and it was too late to wish I’d done differently.
In my mind’s eye, my little sister tugged on my sleeve and wailed. I was supposed to be the big sister, and yet I let her cry.
So now, thanks to Seira-san, I knew why my sister was avoiding school. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to Haruna all evening. I wound up going to school the next morning with too much left unsaid. Even a full day after the talk, my head was going in circles.
When Ajisai-san asked me, “Are you okay, Rena-chan?” I snapped to attention.
“Wha—oh, sorry!” I said, “Wh-what were we talking about again?”
We were all sitting at our desks eating lunch, and by we, I meant the Quintet. Every single one of them was staring at me.
“Um,” I said. So much for disguising my zoning out. I gave up, and I let my doom-and-gloom mood show up on my face. “Sorry. I’m still hung up on that thing about my sister.”
The others all exchanged glances before Ajisai-san looked back at me with a concerned frown.
“Mm-hmm,” she said. “You’re worried about her, huh?”
I didn’t say anything, but deep inside, I disagreed. It wasn’t worry. At least, I thought it wasn’t. I was more hung up on, well… You know.
It took some nerve, but I managed to say, “Hey… If you guys found out someone in your family did some bad stuff, what would you do?”
It was only after the conversational ball was in the conversational court that it hit me—this basically implied my sister had done something awful! I mean, she had. But that wasn’t the point! This wasn’t about me; I wanted to hear everyone else’s take.
Kaho-chan was the only one with the full context, so she jumped right on the question. “You’re mixing up your words again, Rena-chin. You meant, ‘What would you do if some bad stuff caused your li’l sis to stop going to school,’ right? Ya big goof. Don’t get so caught up in your own head.”
“Hm? Oh, uh, yes. Exactly.”
I clung to that lifeline. To heck with dignity! Not like I had any dignity to begin with.
Mai put a hand to her chin, deep in thought. “If someone in my family did something bad…” she mused.
Then Satsuki-san said, “I’d tell them off, of course.” And it sounded like she meant it.
“Even if it was your mom?” I asked.
Satsuki-san’s expression turned steely sharp for a split second. Eep.
“But of course,” she said. “My mother would go off the deep end without me around to chaperone her. She’s always bringing home odd purchases and getting in the way of my studying, you know. It’s only natural that I inform her of the consequences of her actions.”
Wow. Satsuki-san was clearly the type to drop lectures in casual conversation.
“I bet your logical lectures would do a number on my mental health,” I said.
“If only.”
Mai cut in before Satsuki-san could frown at me too hard. “Oh, you know you’re a softie. You always end your lectures with ‘I’ll give you a pass just this once.’”
“That’s only because I’ve given up completely! I know there’s no room for improvement with some folks—namely you and my mother!” Satsuki-san shouted back. The Satsuki-san Shout was a rarity at school.
Meanwhile, Ajisai-san admitted, “I’d be pretty angry, to be honest. I wish I could let ’em off with a warning, but…mmm…if nothing changed after I said something, I’d lose my patience. Like, come on! Get with the program!”
She frowned hard. Being the big sis to two little brothers must have been tough.
Satsuki-san nodded. “I understand exactly how you feel. However, while your familial pet peeves are children, my mother is thirty-four.”
That came as such a shock that I felt my head go ka-boom. Both Kaho-chan and I yelled, “Oh my god! She’s young!”
Like, if I did the math, that meant that Satsuki-san’s mom had her when she was seventeen. Right? That was only a year older than me! That meant it was technically possible for me to have a kid with Mai next year… Wait. No, no, no. That wasn’t at all possible. We lacked the right combination of bits to make that happen!
But dang. That startled me. No wonder I’d thought Satsuki-san’s mom was her older sister when we first met.
Anyway, we had drifted off topic by this point, so Kaho-chan pulled us back on track. “If it was me?” she said. “I dunno, I’d be like, ‘Girl! What’s your problem?’ But like, as soon as they did whatever the bad thing was. Or else the warning wouldn’t stick, y’know? Timing’s everything.”
“Mm-hmm. It really is,” Ajisai-san agreed.
I wasn’t so sure. Didn’t that mean you only had one shot to blow up at them? Did that still hold true when it came to family?
Well, at least everyone had answered. Except, wait. Mai hadn’t gone yet.
“Really, what would I do?” she said. Oddly, her voice lacked its usual confidence, and she smiled in a distant sort of way. “You know, I don’t think I would be able to say much of anything.”
Satsuki-san remarked, almost offhand, “It’s nothing to beat yourself up about. This is only a thought experiment. Besides, I’m sure your mother is much less infuriating than mine.”
“Oh, no. Your mother is a gem.”
“I might share your opinion if only I didn’t live with her.”
Ajisai-san remarked, “Your mom is Oduka Renée, right? I see her on TV sometimes. She’s so striking, I doubt I’d be able to say a word against her either.”
“Isn’t she? She’s perfectly imposing.”
Ajisai-san did something halfway between a smile and a grimace, but Mai smiled back at her.
As clichéd as it may have been to say so, I guessed every family really was different. The other girls in the Quintet were so much better than me I just always assumed they lived way more glamorous lives. But maybe their home situations weren’t all they seemed cracked up to be. It wasn’t like their talents gave them a free pass through life. They just worked that much harder than I did.
Just then, Mai asked me, “What about you, Renako?”
“Me?” I needed a moment to formulate a response. God. What about me, indeed. “I feel like it’d be a good idea to chew them out. I mean, it feels like the right thing to do. You know?”
“Ahh, yes. The right thing to do.” Mai picked up on the implication of my phrasing.
It was just… You know. As Haruna’s big sister, I was probably supposed to get mad at her for punching someone. The fact that I didn’t represented some sort of failure on my part. If I’d been a better sister, like Ajisai-san, I would have gotten mad. But I couldn’t even do that. I wasn’t cut out to be an elder sibling.
I hung my head and balled my hands into fists.
Ajisai-san’s voice came sliding in. “You know… Rena-chan, I don’t think you need to worry about what’s right or wrong.”
“What do you mean?” I looked up and caught her eye. She smiled at me with a look of complete tenderness.
“I know I tell my brothers off all the time, but that doesn’t make it the right thing to do. I just do it ’cause, well, I feel like I have to,” she explained.
Oh.
“I think the others would agree with me,” she went on. “Right, Kaho-chan, Satsuki-chan?”
Mai spoke up, sounding almost pained. “Well, in my case…”