A brown, fluffy blur whizzed by in front of me. Shiratama-san and I had come to a cat café in the mall. We sat on a wooden bench, a latte warming my hands. I guess this technically counted as private.
“I’m sorry for lying.”
“Huh? I mean, cats aren’t people, so we’re technically alone.”
“I meant the part about you being my boyfriend.”
My life was a lie. Not that I’d actually expected any different. Obviously, we weren’t actually dating and she’d said that for a reason, so I wasn’t surprised or anything, but like, did we have to drop the act just like that?
I took a sip of my latte before I could think myself into a depression. “What was that about anyway?”
“I wanted to show off. To the both of them. The reason I suggested we come here is because I knew they were coming to pick up their rings.”
She went quiet again.
“Okay. But why?” I asked.
“They treat me like a kid. I wanted to shove it in their faces that I’m not.”
So that was why she’d dragged me away from the arcade. Not that I’d expected any different. Nope. Not me…
“I know where your sister’s coming from,” I said.
“Do I really look that immature?” She pouted at me.
I laughed a little and shook my head. “I just mean I have a little sister myself. She’s never really stopped being, you know, little to me. Even though we’re only two years apart.”
“And my sister’s ten years older. Doesn’t help, I imagine.” She took a timid sip of her own latte, careful not to burn her tongue. Then she sighed. “She’s so nice to me. Spoils me, honestly. I love her a lot.”
“Sounds like a good sister.”
Shiratama-san smiled. It was the most genuine expression I’d ever seen her make. “Yeah. When I was little, I actually thought I had two moms. The things kids think, right?” She giggled, but it quickly faded. Her voice dropped. “But she chose Tanaka-sensei. And I should be happy for her.”
I noted the phrasing. “Should” be.
“You and Sensei have a history?”
“Oh, yes. A long one.”
I flinched. Uh-oh. What in the world had I just stepped in? I gripped my latte in an effort to stifle my shaking.
Shiratama-san shook her head. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. He’s our neighbor. He’s tutored me on occasion for a long time now.”
Oh, thank god. I was not mentally prepared for where I thought this was going. All we had here was a typical case of little sister syndrome.
“Guess that means he’ll be your brother-in-law pretty soon,” I said.
She twitched. “I…guess it does. Once they’re married.” Then she got real quiet. Had I touched a nerve?
“It sounds to me like you’re on good terms. I-is that right?”
She slowly looked up. “It’s sort of a long story. Do you have time?” I nodded. Her expression softened. Uncharacteristically so. “So Tanaka-sensei is our neighbor, right? Some days our parents would get home late, and he would take care of us in the meantime.”
“‘Us’ implying your sister too. So he’s older?”
“Five years older. He’ll be thirty this year. Ancient, right?” She laughed joylessly. “For as long as I can remember, they’ve looked after me. It was their faces I looked for when someone came to pick me up from day care.” I caught a glimpse of a smile as she remembered. “He was in college, and she was in junior high. There were nasty rumors, but obviously they weren’t together back then.”
“They were friends for a long time is what you’re saying.”
She nodded. “It made me jealous. I was always trying to insert myself between them. Always snapping at him whenever he got too close. Sometimes I’d even throw tantrums at my sister for spending too much time with him.” Another nostalgic smile.
“You must care about them a lot.”
“I love my sister. Very much.”
I was immensely relieved to hear she was just a normal girl with an affection for her family, as opposed to the conniving gremlin Yanami had her pegged as. But one thing still bothered me.
“So you and Tanaka-sensei are on good terms.”
“I hate that man.”
“Oh.”
Silence. Intensely awkward silence. I looked at the clock in desperation. Lunchtime. Yanami sprang to mind. So naturally, a tortoiseshell decided now was the best time to curl up in Shiratama-san’s lap.
“He thinks I’m his little sister. Like, genuinely,” she went on, stroking the cat’s fur. “I’m still that girl next door he used to babysit, while Oneechan got to grow up. And now she calls him Yuuji-san.” The cat flicked its ears and began to doze. “But I call him Sensei.”
She kept on stroking.
If she was calling him “Sensei” by the time they started dating, that would mean…
“They got together pretty late, huh?”
“Only after my sister graduated high school. And I know he’s a good person and he treats her well, but I just…” She scoffed at herself. “I thought maybe it was me he was waiting on. God, I feel so stupid.” She tried to laugh. Failed. Only a broken voice remained. “I keep thinking: What if I were born first? What would I be calling him right about now?”
I had nothing to say. What could I say? Love was a lot like dreams. Sometimes, it just didn’t work out. And when it did, when you finally found your little sliver of happiness, it was probably only after letting slip so many others.
The cat started to breathe slow and deep.
“The ceremony is the Saturday after next,” she said. “It’s going to be a beautiful garden wedding.”
“Oh. Um. That’s great.”
“I snuck into the venue one night.”
“Hm?” Had I heard right? “Sorry, I think I missed something. You did what at the venue?”
“I snuck in. The police were called.”
Yeah, okay, I’d heard just fine. Here I thought I’d been listening to the lamentations of the lovelorn. Nope. The confessions of a criminal.
“And why did you do that?”
“Because I wanted to leave a mark. Have the last laugh. Do something before my sister took everything from me. It would’ve been my little secret.”
If that were all to it, it might’ve made for a clean, if not bittersweet, love story.
“So how’d that turn into you getting involved with the law?”
“I was going to put on my sister’s dress and take a few photos at the chapel. Just to say I did it first.”
“And you couldn’t come up with any other way to express those feelings? Something more legal? A little less insidious?”
“I did, actually. Five ways. I went with the least evil option.”
Welp. I drank some more of my latte. I’d had high hopes for Shiratama-san being marginally normal, but good lord. Were all women like this in real life? I made mental plans to pick up some light novels on the way home. The second dimension would keep me safe.
Shiratama-san grinned wearily. “Sorry for rambling. I know this is a lot. It feels good to get it off my chest, though.”
It was a lot. It sure was a lot.
“It’s fine. I’ll, uh, keep this between us.”
“You can tell the others if you want. I’m the one dragging you all into my problems.” She gently scratched the cat’s neck. It looked pleased with this.
I went over everything in my head one more time. From the sound of things, Tanaka-sensei and her sister had sort of been a thing, and been on the same page about that, for a good long while. Shiratama-san, meanwhile, was forced to play the third wheel while she navigated a whole mess of emotions. Infatuation. Loneliness.
“You’ve had feelings for him for a long time, huh?”
Shiratama-san stopped scratching. Me and my big mouth. “What part of ‘I hate that man’ did you not understand?”
“Er, sorry. Shouldn’t have—”
“I mean, really!” She took a big, long breath. She did not take another. “I hate the way he looks at me like he’s my dad. I hate how he doesn’t treat me the way he treats my sister. I hate that she’s wasting herself on him when she could do so much better. I hate that I can’t call him Oniichan anymore!” She finally stopped to breathe, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “And I hate that I’ll have to call him Oniisan soon, and it won’t be the same.” Her tiny shoulders shook.
“H-hey, you can stop. We don’t have to talk about this.”
She shook her head, tears pooling in her eyes. A single drop fell. “He’s excited, you know. Yuuji-oniichan. He tells me he’s excited that I’ll get to be his real little sister soon. That’s all he sees when he looks at me.”
It couldn’t be easy. Your long-time crush becoming family against your will. You can never be honest about your feelings, because what if they find out? So you twist them. You call him “Oniichan” and call it familial love. You live a lie. It couldn’t be easy.
It was no wonder that she cried.
“I…I tried,” she choked. “I tried to make myself cute. I read my sister’s magazines, used her makeup, and I practiced so much. I practically lived in front of my mirror. I tried, I…I tried. I wanted to be cute so maybe he’d…” She hunched over, tears pouring endlessly. The shaking got worse. “I hate that man. I hate him! I hate him!”
“Hey! Don’t wipe your face on the poor cat!”
“Then get closer.”
She didn’t wait for me to. Shiratama-san leaned in and buried her face in my shoulder. I felt the weight. The shaking as she sobbed. She clung to me, and she cried. So I just let her.
All I could do in the meantime was sit and stare. And regret choosing this particular bench to plant ourselves on. We faced the entire mall, and a big damn window gave every passerby a front-row seat to our business. Which wasn’t to say we had anything to hide, but the thought of someone I knew spotting me in this position was a tad mortifying.
So of course I looked up. And I knew true fear. Because we had an audience. Staring with great, wide-eyed, intent-to-kill faces planted right up against the glass were who else but Yanami Anna and Komari Chika.
Fantastic gecko impressions, really.
I looked back down at the girl crying into my shoulder. At Shiratama Riko: the losing heroine that never was. The literature club’s last hope for salvation.