The girl in front of me who was wearing a relieved expression wasn’t Haruka. Still, you’d be hard-pressed to think otherwise—everything about her, from her hairstyle down to her long legs, resembled my girlfriend to a tee. In spite of this, the way in which she looked at me was different. In the case of Haruka, I always noted a certain sparkle in her eyes. From that single difference, I knew instantly this wasn’t my girlfriend.
And with that realization, it was as if a veil had suddenly been lifted. Things I hadn’t noticed until now were suddenly visible. For starters, she was wearing different clothes. Underneath her brightly-colored cardigan, she wore a sailor outfit, but it wasn’t Seiun High’s uniform. She also wore loafers, not Haruka’s usual sneakers. And the most glaring difference was what she was carrying—she held a supermarket bag in one hand and a large suitcase behind her.
In this situation, even a dumbass like me knew there was only one possibility.
“Um, is something wrong?” the girl asked. “Is there something on my face?”
“Are you... my new stepsister?”
“Yep! Nice to meet you. I’m Shigure Oeyama. Whoops... I guess I’m Shigure Satou now, aren’t I? I’m Tsukiko Satou’s daughter, and, starting today, I’m also your new stepsister. Here’s to the future, Big Bro.”
✦ ✦ ✦
X X X
My father had suddenly remarried, and, in the blink of an eye, my stepsister and I were living in the same apartment by ourselves. The shock of my father’s phone call had left me powerless and writhing on the ground. And yet, somehow, that had only been the icing on the shit cake I found myself in. The real cherry on top was the shocking twist that my stepsister was the spitting image of my girlfriend.
This isn’t good. No, it’s terrible. Absolutely horrendous. I can’t even.
I’d be living with a girl who looked exactly like my girlfriend. God, what had I done to deserve such a cruel fate? I could practically sense a mysterious entity’s malicious intent lurking behind my back. How was I supposed to deal with the reality that stared me directly in the face?!
These repeated upheavals had left my emotions completely torn and frayed. While I stood at my doorway, utterly dumbfounded, Haruka’s doppelganger spoke to me anxiously.
“Um, you heard that I was coming today, right?”
“Y-Yeah,” I replied. “I did hear about that... a minute ago.”
“A minute ago?! Talk about abrupt. Still, I’m glad you got the message. Um, may I ask your name, Big Bro? I did hear it from my mom, but I must’ve forgotten.”
“Um, I’m Hiromichi Satou.”
“Hiromichi, then?”
“Ugh. I’d prefer if you... didn’t call me that,” I muttered. Having Haruka’s lookalike also address me by my given name was dangerous for my sanity.
“How about I just stick to ‘Big Bro’?” she asked with an odd, inscrutable expression. “That would be easier for me, too. Well, now that we’ve finished our introductions, would you kindly let me in?”
“Uh, no. Wait here a sec.”
“Huh? How come?”
Crap.
I’d mistook her for Haruka and ended up opening the door, but the room was still a disaster. I couldn’t let her in right now, so I spread my arms out and rushed to block the entrance.
“Like I said, I didn’t get the call until just a minute ago,” I explained. “The apartment’s still pretty messy. Do you mind waiting here for a little bit?”
“Oh, is that all? No worries. We’ll be together from now on, after all. I’ll help you clean up. I’m coming in!” she replied, brushing past my defenses and entering the apartment.
“Ah! H-Hold on a second!” I cried as I frantically followed her.
Since a loser like me couldn’t exactly shove a girl he’d just met, I had no way of guarding against her invasion. Of course, grabbing her delicate shoulders and pulling her back outside was completely out of the question, as well. Given how modest my lodgings were, the hallway at the front was rather short. The moment you failed to make the first move, catching up became impossible. Still, even though it was too late to chase after her, I definitely needed to hide the incriminating magazines before she found them.
Unfortunately, she’d already walked into the living room and immediately looked down to find a lewd magazine I’d left wide open for the world to behold.
“Heh,” she snorted.
Agh! She’d laughed! She’d definitely laughed at me just now—right through her nose even! Like a child mocking some dumb apes at the zoo!
Aaah... I want to curl up and die.
“Oh, sorry about that,” she apologized. “It was just my mom and I for a long time, so I’d completely forgotten about this sort of thing. But, yeah—I guess this is a boy’s apartment, after all. It’s obvious there would be things you wouldn’t want a girl to see. Sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you or anything. I was being careless.”
“Thank you for understanding,” I muttered under my breath after a pause. Kindness really could be incredibly painful sometimes.
“Well, I guess I’ll let you clean the room,” my stepsister said. “And while you do that, I’ll prepare dinner. You haven’t eaten yet, have you?”
“No, I haven’t. Thanks.”
“You’d better look forward to dinner with bated breath! I’m a pretty good cook, I’ll have you know.”
She pulled out a frilly apron with a white-and-pink checkered pattern from her suitcase, put it on, and immediately got to work in the kitchen. In between my frantics attempts to tidy up, I’d take quick glimpses at her.
Just as she’d implied, her cooking skills looked to be impressive—she appeared to be right at home in the new kitchen. The comforting sounds of a simmering pot and the rhythmic chopping of vegetables flowed from the kitchen area. Occasionally, I’d even manage to catch bits of lovely humming. For all intents and purposes, it was as if Haruka herself were in the kitchen, and it caused my heart to leap out of my chest.
Wait a second, you asshole. What the hell was I thinking? Would any girl do as long as they had the same face? Mistaking my stepsister for Haruka—my wonderful, irreplaceable girlfriend—was an extremely dangerous delusion. And what exactly lies at the end of that delusion, genius? No matter how I approached the situation, I knew it would only end in destruction. Because the two girls looked so alike, they’d unconsciously overlapped in my head.
“There are three people in the world who look exactly like you,” was a common saying. What were the odds that two of them existed within my rather small, pathetic social circle? At this point, I needed to consider moving somewhere else by myself. Seriously.
As I was busy mentally freaking out, my stepsister spoke up, her back still turned while she cooked. “You got a call about me a little while ago, right? Was it from my stepfather?”
“Yeah. He told me at the very last minute that you’d be coming to live here,” I replied.
“Ahaha. That must’ve been shocking, learning about me just before I got here.”
“That’s putting it mildly. My dad can be a real asshole sometimes. I feel bad for your mom—she can’t be having an easy time with him either.”
Shigure went silent for a moment, then retorted in a sharp tone, “I don’t mean to sound rude, but she’s your mother now, too.”
She sounded upset—more so than she had so far. I’d been so preoccupied with cleaning that I’d been staring at my hands while I talked, but now I glanced up at her. I found her glaring down at me with a displeased expression, her eyebrows raised.
Huh? Is she mad at me?
“I’m not just talking about myself here, but my mother, too,” she said. “You haven’t even referred to me by name since I arrived here. Call me ‘Shigure.’ You are my brother, after all.”
“Y-Yeah, but...”
“What, do you think you’re the only one who’s struggling with suddenly having a new sibling?”
“Huh?”
“Look, even I’m forcing myself to make the best out of this. It’s not fair that you get to grumble and sulk to yourself without putting any work in.”
“Ah!” I gasped.
She was right on the money. Regardless of the circumstances, no one would be able to suddenly accept a complete stranger into their home, much less into their family. And as a girl, her anxiety must have been incomparable to mine. Still, she’d been trying to open up to me, even if only on a surface level. Just like she’d said, she was trying her best to meet me halfway. And what had I been doing this whole time? I’d just been hosting a pity party for one, worrying about my own circumstances.
“Get it together, Hiromichi!” I yelled, slapping my face for emphasis.
“Huh?! Why’d you just slap yourself, Big Bro?! Your cheeks are bright red! Seriously, how hard did you hit yourself?!”
“No worries. I’m okay now,” I reassured her.
“You don’t look ‘okay’ at all! Have you lost your mind or something?!”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine,” I stressed. It was exactly what a serious Loser—with a capital “L”—like me needed to wake up.
It would be easy to just sit idly by the sidelines and let others lead the way, but those weren’t the actions of a true brother. Okay, it was true that I’d never had a sibling before, so my “brotherly qualities” were simply traits I’d conjured up on the spot. Nevertheless, if I was gonna end up being someone’s sibling, I sure as hell didn’t want to be a pathetic one.
“My bad,” I apologized. “I’ll be more careful from here on out, Sh-Shigure.”
It had been somewhat embarrassing, but I’d managed to say her name. Given my lack of experience in the department, calling girls by their first name still made me nervous. But when her expression quickly changed to happiness and relief, it made me feel as though it had been worth it.
“Great!” she exclaimed with a smile that looked exactly like Haruka’s.
My heart pounded in my chest. But this was my problem, meaning I had to get used to it. Rejecting Shigure just because I was too much of a wimp to handle everything going on right now would be extremely disrespectful to both her and Haruka.
“Dinner’s ready,” Shigure stated. “Do you mind pulling out the tea table, Big Bro?”
“No problem, Shigure.”
“Hey, is that the second time? You’ve mastered the art of saying my name already. That’s fantastic—I need you to become my older brother in mind and body as soon as possible. That way, you can spoil your adorable little sister absolutely rotten!”
Her smile, which had been an exact replica of Haruka’s until that moment, suddenly twisted and transformed. She wore a provocative, teasing grin. Although I couldn’t imagine my girlfriend wearing that expression, Shigure seemed quite accustomed to it. I internally felt a sense of relief at the obvious difference between the two.
If only I had known better.