A few days had passed since I’d wound up with a little sister who was the spitting image of my girlfriend.
Thanks to her incredible communication skills, Shigure had fit into AP class in no time at all. Even from a distance, I could perceive her impressive skill at making and maintaining relationships. Whenever we had breaks, she consistently found a group to hang out with. At the same time, she never made herself the center of attention. She excelled at remaining neutral and balanced, aiming to avoid both excess affection and any animosity.
Just as Tomoe had suggested, she analyzed and conquered her surroundings with precision and ease. It must have been related to her skills in martial arts. Regardless, that had been Shigure’s secret to surviving in this world, and she was admittedly quite impressive at it.
Back at home, our relationship as siblings was progressing rather well. “Hiromichi,” you might say, “you had zero experience interacting with women before you started dating Haruka. How can you now deal with having an impish little sister who looks exactly like your girlfriend?” Well, let’s just say it hadn’t been smooth sailing. Fortunately, humans could adapt to almost anything that was forced on them. It was thanks to my tentative plan—or rather, my resolve to welcome Shigure with open arms—that I was able to do so.
Although the awkwardness had disappeared from our normal interactions, I still hadn’t gotten used to anything that drew attention to Shigure’s feminine side. It was precisely because she looked so much like my girlfriend that things became incredibly dicey whenever those instances cropped up. Despite my better judgment, I occasionally confused the two, and—as a result—I was constantly nagging at Shigure to stop acting in certain ways.
“Oh, so now I’m not allowed to act as spoiled as I like?” she would ask, disregarding me.
Waving around the “get of the jail free card” I’d so foolishly given her, she acted with total indifference to my plight. Whenever that happened, I would curse my own thoughtlessness. Yet each time I caught a glimpse of her gleeful expression, a stupid little voice inside my head would assure me that everything was fine.
Who would have pegged me for such a kind older brother? Not anyone I knew, that’s for sure.
During our first weekend together, Shigure and I took the afternoon to visit the electronics store. Since our apartment only had a regular microwave, she’d been dying to buy a convection one.
After we had arranged for the delivery, we walked to the supermarket and bought a mountain of ingredients.
“God, this is heavy,” Shigure whined. “What kind of demon makes their little sister carry all these groceries? Help me out here!”
“I’m carrying the water, meat, fish, and rice. You can at least handle the vegetables,” I pointed out.
“C’mon—at least take this squash off my hands!”
“Hey, don’t unload the heaviest thing on me! Plus, my other hand is completely full because someone decided they needed four bottles of soda since they were on sale.”
“Big Brooo...” she sobbed feebly.
I ignored her crocodile tears and courageously scaled the apartment building’s steel-framed staircase. The metal plates, which looked as tattered and hole-ridden as ever, creaked more than usual.
This isn’t going to fall out from under my feet, right...?
I managed to scale the last few steps with some trepidation and finally arrived at our apartment.
“We’re home,” I said. It’s something I’d started saying recently, regardless of whether someone was already home or not—like right now. Obviously, it wasn’t a habit I’d practiced when I lived alone. For some reason I couldn’t quite place, I felt moved.
“Yeah, we’re home. And I’m exhausted,” Shigure whined.
I left my little sister in a grumpy, collapsed heap by the entryway and headed for the kitchen.
“Well, guess we should start by putting away all the raw food into the fridge,” I declared, placing the mountain of groceries down.
“Stop right there, Big Bro! What the hell are you trying to pull?!”
In the blink of an eye, Shigure had leapt to her feet and dashed over to me.
“Huh?” I blurted out. “I’m just dealing with the groceries.”
“The first thing you do when you get home is wash your hands! Even five-year-olds know that!” she scolded.
“Oh, that’s what you’re so worked up about? Talk about sweating the small stuff.”
“The hell did you just say to me, dumbass?” she barked.
Whoa, who’s she calling ‘dumbass’?! Hello, 911? I sense murder in that tone!
“Then I have to ask,” Shigure said. “At any point while we were out today, did you happen to fix your junk?”
“My ‘junk’?! I’ve told you, girls shouldn’t be saying that kind of stuff!”
“I’m not kidding right now. Did your hands go anywhere near your pants?”
“O-Of course not!” I stammered, overwhelmed by Shigure’s serious tone and expression.
“Really? You didn’t unconsciously fiddle around with your twig and berries? I mean, it’s pretty hot for the end of May, and you’re wearing denim jeans. Weren’t you feeling just the slightest bit stuffy under those? Perhaps it got so unbearable, you unthinkingly pushed little Hiromichi to the side while I wasn’t looking. Can you say with absolute certainty that nothing of the sort ever happened?”
“Er, well...” I floundered, since I couldn’t say for sure. As far as I could remember, I was innocent, but there was a chance I had unconsciously repositioned “little Hiromichi”—for men, that wasn’t much different from breathing.
“Suppose you fiddled around down there even once,” she continued. “If you then touched the fridge handle, you would’ve committed a grave act of bio terrorism. As the protector of this kitchen, I must bring down the hammer of justice on your crimes against humanity. So with all that said, I’ll repeat myself—can you swear on your grandfather’s grave that you didn’t rearrange your ding-a-ling at all? Cross your heart, hope to die, stick a needle in your eye?”
“Stick a needle in my eye”? God, she’s not being literal about that, is she?