“I can’t do that!” Kyouhei declared, far more strongly than needed. “As much as it pains me to play into his hands, things have been strange lately. If I want the sibling thing to hold water, I need to act like any other brother so people don’t have any misgivings about it.”
“Well, if you’ve made your mind up, then I can’t really say anything,” she conceded, placing a glass of iced tea in front of him. “But brothers... I don’t have any, you know?”
Kyouhei gave a sigh.
That was actually all he knew about Kaoruko’s family structure. He hadn’t come to her for advice because he thought she had a brother, but because there was no one else he could think of who would both be able to help and knew the circumstances.
“Well,” she continued, “the general image of an older brother is a guy that’s kind and dotes on his little sister.”
“Kind...” Kyouhei mused, pulling a notebook from his pocket. “Could you be more specific?”
“Hmmm... Well, back at school... my friend was really proud of the lunchbox her brother made for her.”
“Hm, a lunchbox,” Kyouhei said with a grimace as he scribbled it down.
He already made Pamil’s lunches anyway, just while he was making his own, so the suggestion made no difference.
“That lunchbox was sooo cute; you wouldn’t think a guy had made it.”
“A cute lunchbox...” Kyouhei nodded. “Makes sense.”
He frowned as he drank his iced tea.
“Anyway, I think the most important thing is little bits of kindness,” Kaoruko remarked.
“Right, I think I’ve got an idea,” Kyouhei said, engrossed in his notebook.
“You do?”
Well... had there been an unbiased observer, they’d have made the point that normal brothers don’t make lunches for their little sisters. The exact number of older brothers in Japan who made lunch for their sisters was a mystery, but asking most people if that was the norm would result in a negative.
However, Kyouhei was desperate to act like a normal sibling, so he didn’t see anything particularly odd about Kaoruko’s suggestion.
“A cute lunchbox... A cute one... Cute...” murmured Kyouhei as he stood, still taking notes.
“Oh, you’re already heading off? You only just got here, though,” Kaoruko protested with upturned eyes.
Her childish act was oddly effective with her calm and slow nature. Kyouhei almost sat back down, but stopped at the last moment, saying: “She’ll probably get into some mess if I leave her alone too long. Sorry, I’m in a rush.”
He really couldn’t calm down if he wasn’t close enough to rush in and start making excuses for her and her lack of common sense, should something happen.
He gave Kaoruko his thanks for the advice, paid for his drink, and then left the Corvette.
“...I think that was plenty brotherly,” Kaoruko murmured to herself as she watched him leave.
● ● ●
Pamil had stopped.
She’d completely and utterly frozen, like a PC that had hung. Her big blue eyes were wide in surprise, and she was motionless.
In front of her...
“Your lunchbox today is really cute,” said her classmate, Youko Minebe.
As you might surmise from the previous narration, Youko was indeed talking about a lunchbox in front of Pamil.
The box itself was a girly pink. That was the same as always, though, what had frozen Pamil and earned Youko’s judgment as cute was its contents.
“...Pamil-chan... you’ve got a handmade lunchbox from Nanbu-senpai...” muttered Sanae. She was also sitting next to Pamil, and had a finger between her lips in rapturous delight at such a sight.
Sanae had her usual set of something from the school shop and some milk. She was hunched over, eating her 80 yen jam sandwich. That, coupled with her plain—or frankly rather gloomy spectacled appearance—made her seem rather miserable. Despite them sitting around the same table to eat their lunches, Sanae and Pamil were polar opposites.
Still, the target of Sanae’s jealousy was probably the “from Nanbu-senpai” part, though.
Youko also had a lunchbox, but hers was made by her mother.
“Whoa, it’s so detailed. And there’re little squids! Squids!” Youko exclaimed.
“Look, and some crabs. Ah, the apples are bunnies too!” Sanae said excitedly.
Eventually, though, Sanae noticed Pamil’s odd reaction. Well, she was always odd in one way or another.
“Pamil-chan...?” she asked.
Of all the things that could have happened, Pamil started to shake.
“Wh-What’s wrong, Pamil-chan...?”
“It’s terrifying...” Pamil managed.
“T-Terrifying?”
That seemed to be far from how such a cute lunchbox should be described. Though if it had been given to a male highschooler, then it would have been more humiliating than anything.
“What... What on earth has happened to Kyouhei...?”
“Senpai? Something’s happened to Nanbu-senpai?!”
Sanae couldn’t contain herself when the conversation shifted to Kyouhei. Let’s ignore her utterly silent stalking—or heavy observation, rather—of him.
“I don’t know, but...” Pamil was at her wit’s end, “he’s been strange lately.” Kyouhei would have yelled about not wanting to hear that from her, but let’s ignore that. “Actually, this morning...” Pamil began.
● ● ●
Pamil had just changed into her uniform and blinked at the sight of Kyouhei in the kitchen.
“Hmm...?”
It wasn’t so rare to see Kyouhei in the kitchen. In fact, he was the one that prepared all of their meals. Though there were many things he’d skimp on in the mornings, he’d usually at least fry some eggs or warm up some soup.
But that day...
The cause of Pamil’s surprise was that, before they headed out—or in other words, during what should be the busiest time of his day—Kyouhei was making an elaborate lunch.
He hadn’t used any leftovers from the day before, nor just simply heated up something from the fridge.
Fried chicken, omelet rice, salad, and many other things. Each of them had been painstakingly put together, creating a literally handmade lunch; the various cooking utensils arranged around Kyouhei made that completely clear. A stainless steel vat he’d probably used for frying and a salad spinner were among them.
“What’s going—”
“Hm?” Kyouhei turned around.
When she saw his face, Pamil’s question died on her lips, and she froze with her eyes wide.
He was bright, cheerful.
An unidentifiable something, a change in his expression, transformed the whole atmosphere around him. He seemed to be sparkling.
“Morning, Pamil, did you have a pleasant night?” Kyouhei asked softly.
In a shoujo manga, there’d probably be flowers in the background.