“I have finished my inspection. The results are...” Mina cut herself off midway, building up the tension and slowly looking at Yuuki and Yui’s faces in succession. “Bzzzzt, you failed!” she finished, pursing her lips and giving a dramatic thumbs down.
Yuuki and Yui’s eyes met before Yui turned to face Mina, her lips curled up in a wry smile.
“I-I failed? What did I do wrong?” Yui questioned.
“You passed, Yui! You’re a five star SSR character without a doubt!”
“Then why did you say that I failed the—”
“You didn’t! Yukkie did!” Mina explained, vigorously pointing her finger at her brother.
“How’s that even possible? You didn’t even test me,” he said.
“Hmm, how do I explain this... Yui is just too good for you.”
She’s definitely not wrong, he said to himself. Regardless of Yui’s occasionally eccentric behavior, she was still one of the most popular and beautiful girls at school. On top of that, she was strangely good at handling household chores, much to Yuuki’s surprise. Still, he settled upon keeping these thoughts to himself, because he’d risk her blowing a fuse otherwise.
“You know, I do honestly think we might not be the best match,” Yuuki said.
“R-Really? I-I disagree, personally," Yui mumbled.
Right, she’s a fantastic actress too, I guess. That’s another thing to add to her repertoire.
As it was, Yuuki was simply nothing but another guy who happened to sit next to her. Mina—who knew nothing of Yui’s reputation—objected and shook her head in disagreement.
“How should I put it... Like, somehow I can sense how much Yui loves you, Yukkie. But I don’t get the same feeling from you at all.”
“Y-You can sense that?! Th-That I love him?!” Yui panicked, her face reddening, and her eyes jutting to Yuuki and back.
“Hm?” Yuuki looked back at her, confused.
“Ah, I mean, yes, I guess you can sense, uh, that,” Yui stammered.
Yuuki figured that whatever Mina was talking about was merely a product of Yui’s impeccable acting skills. Of course, Yuuki himself couldn’t sense if love was in the air or anything of the sort, but he concluded that it was probably something that women understood about one another.
“Also, you guys feel too distant to be a couple,” Mina added.
While she probably didn’t mean it in the physical sense, it was still true that Yuuki and Yui were sitting three whole seats apart. Yuuki himself wasn’t exactly well-versed in how close couples should be sitting, but he still didn’t want to render all of Yui’s efforts meaningless.
“Nah, it’s all in your head,” he replied, taking matters into his own hands and scooting so close to Yui that they could almost rub shoulders. “How about this?”
“How about what?” Mina asked suspiciously, inciting him to do more.
“Umm, well then," he stumbled, desperately trying to come up with another couple-type behavior. He glanced at Yui next to him, but she looked just as baffled. He realized that they were going nowhere by simply staring at each other like this, so he tried the next best thing: he wrapped both of his arms around Yui’s shoulders.
“Eep!” Yui let out an odd yelp and twitched like a chill had run down her spine.
Maybe I went too far? Yuuki thought to himself. He noticed that her cheeks had turned a burning scarlet, but that ludicrous expression of hers made it difficult for him to judge if she was okay with this or not.
Her shoulders were soft to the touch, but there was something more pressing that stood out to him now that he was in such close proximity to her.
“You smell nice. Are you wearing perfume?” Yuuki questioned.
“N-No! I’m not," Yui timidly replied.
“You sure? Hm. Weird,” he said, continuing to sniff her.
Mina’s high-pitched shriek put an end to that uncomfortable show of intimacy between this faux couple.
“STAHP! No flirting in front of little sisters!”
“Hey, you asked for this, Mina,” Yuuki said.
“I didn’t ask you to turn into a gross perv!” Mina protested angrily. She then nudged her way between them, separating the two. Yuuki seemed shocked and hardly resisted. Apparently, being called an “old fart” by his little sister had done a number on him.
“What I meant was that, like, I want to know what you like about Yui, Yukkie,” Mina explained. It was a sensible question, and one that Yuuki had expected. Unfortunately, as before, he had failed to discuss it with Yui beforehand, so he was at a loss on how to answer.
He glanced at Yui to find that she was staring directly into his eyes and blinking rapidly. Clearly, she wanted him to pick up on something, and she was silently mouthing that thing at him. Being the veteran lip reader that he was, he was able to understand what she wanted him to say without a problem.
“I like her... buffalo wings!“
“My everything! Who are you calling a buffalo?!”
“Your everything, heh-heh,” he chuckled.
“Whatchu laughing at?” Yui probed, poking his shoulder. Yuuki just kept laughing, though. “No seriously, what’s so funny?! There’s no joke here!”
“It’s just kinda funny that you want me to love every little thing about you,” Yuuki responded.
“Th-That’s not what it is! I-It was something I thought up in the heat of the moment! You should’ve known that! Besides, you could’ve just said that you liked how cute and caring I am, smartypants!”
“Good idea. Okay, I like how cute and caring she is.”
“Wow, so convincing. How about we try again, but with actual emotion this time? For example, how do you feel when you’re with me?” Yui asked.
“Hmm. It’s fun being with you... I think?”
“Good, good. What else?”
Yuuki thought for a moment before saying, “I like how you’re pretty annoying?”
“You’re pretty annoying,” Yui coldly replied.
She didn’t like that last one, I suppose, Yuuki pondered. The “couple” would continue their quarrel until Mina—who had been watching silently—raised her arms in the air to stop them.
“Timeout, you two! That’s enough! I understand everything. You can stop now,” Mina said. Yuuki wasn’t sure what she meant, but was more nervous that his sister may have seen through their act.
“So it finally happened... Yukkie got himself a girlfriend. They grow up so fast,” Mina added, wiping a nonexistent tear from the corner of her eye.
“Spare me the drama. Now it’s your turn,” Yuuki admonished.
“My turn for what?”
“Your turn to make friends,” he replied, to which Mina rolled her eyes and averted her gaze. Yuuki was more than aware that she tended to be a sore loser, so he needed to make sure that she stuck to her word. “You said you’d do it ‘for realzies,’ remember? You can’t back out now.”
“S-Sure I do! Making friends is nothing. I could do it with my eyes closed!” she exclaimed, standing up.
“And where are you going?” Yuuki inquired.
“To the bathroom,” she said, leaving the living room in a hurry.
Yuuki let out a sigh of relief and smiled at Yui. “I had my doubts, but it looks like she bought it.”
“Well, you know, I think we look pretty natural, all things considered,” Yui responded.
“Yeah, all thanks to our own local Hollywood star.”
“It was a great performance, if I do say so myself!” she laughed away, clearly elated. Judging from the excitement in her voice, her mood had noticeably improved in the last few minutes.
I hope that this whole gag was enough to bring a positive change to Mina’s social life. Yuuki mulled things over in the back of his head while waiting on Mina, who didn’t appear to be returning from the bathroom anytime soon.
✦ ✦ ✦
Mina leaned heavily against the living room door. She could hear Yuuki and Yui’s faint laughter coming from behind it.
Yui is a good person. I know she won’t hurt Yukkie, she thought to herself. I’m so happy for you, Bro. She never anticipated that her brother would be able to get a girlfriend so quickly. She was undoubtedly fundamentally different from her precious older brother.
“We’re not alike. Not one bit,” Mina muttered in a fragile voice. She then closed her eyes and covered her ears in a feeble attempt to cut out the lively voices leaking through the cracks in the doorway.