“Hey,” I said quietly, “next time it’s nice out, do you want to show this off? Maybe we could go to a mall or something.”
She whipped around to face me. “Can I?!”
“Yeah. With the doctor’s permission, of course.”
Now that I thought about it, it wasn’t all bad that Shizuku had discovered the truth. With my new status, I could now pamper her with all its privileges. She wasn’t fit to travel long distances by train or car, but in a limousine? That might just work. “Okay, then it’s decided. We’ll go on a date—as twinsies,” I decided.
“Yes!” she said ecstatically. “I can’t wait!”
Seeing Shizuku so genuinely happy now, I marveled at what a little bit of hope could do for a person in dire circumstances. I wondered if I offered Miyu that same glimmer of hope, would she have the courage to undergo the procedure?
“Shizuku, question for you,” I began.
“You have a question for me?” she replied, sounding a bit too surprised.
“I can ask somebody else if you like?” I shot back, unamused.
“No, no. Ask me, ask me.” She shook her head. “Ask away, dear sister of mine!” she added with a dramatic flourish, before bursting out into laughter at her theatrics.
Was she always like this? I mused, smiling to myself. It might have been because I was finally asking her for help on something. Or perhaps she was still feeling the high from her new outfit. Either way, she was enjoying herself—thankfully not to the extent of overexertion, but I’d have to keep an eye on that. In the meantime, my question.
“I have this friend who has this sister—well, not a biological sister, but she’s like a sister to her,” I quickly clarified. “That friend’s sister needs surgery, but is hesitant about it.”
“Oh,” Shizuku muttered, her eyes dimming slightly. “Is the procedure a complicated one?”
“No. It’s really minor but necessary.”
I then shared more about what I had learned from my research, as well as Nonoka’s efforts, but ultimately failed to convince her.
“So, she’s scared then,” Shizuku muttered.
I nodded. “The risk of complications is small, but it’s still there. I understand that surgery can be terrifying, especially for someone so young, but the alternative could be worse. I was just thinking…maybe there’s a way to make this decision easier for her.”
Shizuku hummed thoughtfully, then fell silent. The thought occurred to me that this might be a bitter conversation for her—here was a girl with a shot at life yet refusing to take it, while she had been denied even that opportunity. I’d thought my promise of a cure had eased that feeling for her, but perhaps I was assuming too much.
“Listen, Shizuku—”
“Mio, I think—”
We both spoke at once. I smiled and gestured for her to continue.
“I think you might be going about this the wrong way. Tell me why you think she’s scared of surgery,” she continued.
“Because she’s afraid of something going wrong?” I ventured.
“See that’s the thing. I don’t think that’s the real issue.”
“It’s…not?” Invisible question marks began popping up above my head.
“Like, if I were in her shoes, I’d probably hesitate too.”
“Because making that choice frightens you?”
I was suddenly reminded of the trolley problem. What that infamous thought experiment suggested was that people often lean toward inaction, even when it results in objectively worse outcomes. Do nothing and kill five people, or do something and kill three. I’d read that most people would choose inaction, allowing five to die rather than having the blood of three on their hands.
A similar parallel could be drawn to a personal decision involving risk. Imagine being terminally ill, and there was a twenty percent chance on any given day that you might just keel over and die. You’re presented with a button that removes this daily risk, but pressing it has a ten percent chance of killing you instantly. Would you press it? What if the odds were changed to fifty and five percent respectively? Would you press it now? It might seem like a no-brainer given such good odds, but as they narrow, more and more people might prefer to leave their fate to chance. This, in essence, was the point Shizuku was trying to raise, wasn’t it? The operation was the proverbial button.
I tried to explain this to her, and…she just stared at me like I was an alien. “Mio, for someone so smart, you can be real dense sometimes.”
“Did you just call me dense?!” I shouted, more in disbelief than anger.
My little sister just called me dense… Of all the shocks I’d experienced these past few months, this one hit the hardest.
“Okay, let me put it this way,” Shizuku continued. “Why do you think she’s afraid of something going wrong during surgery?”
“Because…she’ll…die?”
“No! Okay, look. Of course, she’s afraid of dying. So am I. Which is why if there was an operation that even had a fifty percent chance of working for me, I’d take that in a heartbeat.”
“Okay,” I nodded, following her logic so far.
“But,” she added with a dramatic pause, “if it was you who told me I should get that operation, I would refuse.”
“Why?” I exclaimed, the shock bleeding into my voice. Did she not trust my judgment? She didn’t trust me, did she?! As I watched my relationship with my sister crumble before my very eyes, she said something that shocked me in a very different way.
“Because what if something went wrong and I died? You’d blame yourself, wouldn’t you?”
I gasped. The image of me crying over Shizuku’s lifeless body flooded into my mind. Without a doubt, I would be plagued by regret for the rest of my life if I had, even inadvertently, contributed to her demise. “That…” I swallowed. “That, um, yeah. That might be a lifelong trauma.”
“And it’s not just you,” she added. “I’d be scared too. Scared that you might never forgive yourself after I’m gone.”
The picture Shizuku was trying to paint was now vividly clear. If our roles were reversed, I wouldn’t want her burdened with regret either. Thinking about it from her perspective, I realized I’d already given her more than enough cause to worry. I had promised her that if she hung on for three more years, she’d be able to kick this disease for good. What if she couldn’t hold on for three more years? If she passed away before that time, I’d be crushed by the weight of my regret over not having acted fast enough. She was already considering such grim possibilities, fretting over the impact on me.
“Shizuku, listen…”
I felt like I had to say something, but what? My thoughts ran into dead end after dead end. Then, amidst my stumbling, Shizuku smiled at me. It was an elusive, almost spectral smile—a smile that was hardly an expression of her own feelings, but more like an assurance crafted for me. “I know. I understand more than anyone the sacrifices you’ve made for me. So, I’m not giving up, okay? I won’t let you down.”
I sat there at first, just soaking in her words. Then, a slight shake of my head came almost involuntarily. “No… No, you won’t. And neither will I. I won’t let you down either, Shizuku.”
“Yeah. I love you, sis,” she said, the tiniest bit of emotion seeped into her spectral smile, making it waver.
Without another word, I hugged her. Feeling her arms wrap around me in return, I silently renewed my vow to myself and to her—to guide myself to whatever doom awaited me to save her. But at the same time, our earlier conversation triggered another troubling thought: What if Shizuku discovered that I had traded my life for hers? Would she ever forgive herself? Could she move past that grief?
No, these fears were naught but distractions from the real task at hand. I had to shield her from this reality forever. She could never learn of the true sacrifices I made for her sake. As my arms tightened around her with the force of this resolution, I noticed her squirm in discomfort. “I…I can’t breathe.”
“Ah! Sorry. So sorry.” Letting her go, I redirected the conversation back to Miyu. “You make a good point, but the girl’s only in elementary school. Do you think she’s given it the same amount of thought you have? And I think it was her doctor that first recommended she undergo the operation, not my friend.”
“True,” she conceded. “It’s just my take. But if they are as close as you say, it’s at least a possibility, right?”
I suppose so… Miyu might have felt typical anxiety when her doctor suggested surgery, but Nonoka’s endorsement could have amplified it into the more existential type of dread Shizuku described. “Yeah… I think so,” I murmured to myself, increasingly convinced—after all, it sounded exactly like the kind of plot beat that would arise between a heroine and her sister. With that settled, there was only one thing left for me to do: meet Miyu and hear her concerns firsthand.
“Thanks,” I said, ruffling Shizuku’s hair. “I’m glad I talked to you today.”
“Any time, sis. Any time,” she replied, her grin wide and cheerful.
Yep, my sister truly is an angel.