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Chapter 84
Chapter 3 — Dry scrape, burn and perforate! • Episode 3–2 — Dependency ③
Translated by KaiesV
Edited by KaiesV
Mizukami Futaba is my younger sister, just 10 years apart from me. She has the same birthday as me, so that makes her 20 years old now. She has grown up a lot while I haven’t seen her. We haven’t kept in touch with each other for eight years since I left home when I started working, and of course we have never met, so it was no wonder that we didn’t recognize each other immediately.
And while we are indeed brother and sister by blood and family registration, in reality our relationship is more like that of strangers who just used to live in the same house together rather than a family.
For some reason, such a younger sister came to visit her brother, Mizukami Ryōichi, who is supposed to be almost a stranger to her. I hadn’t even given her my address or contact information, so how did she manage to find me?
No, that’s not the point. The question is, what was she up to now? She didn’t care about me at all, so why now?
For a moment, I wondered if she was in need of money and had come to beg for it, but she quickly denied that was the case. Those two did almost nothing parental, but they were the only ones who never gave us a hard time about money. If this girl got into debt because she was a host or got into gambling or something, she would have gone to those two, not me.
「Uhh… Ojou-chan?」
「…I have heard about it, but my father is not here right now, so please leave.」
As I had fallen silent while contemplating Futaba’s purpose, she called out to me again in a worried tone.
No matter how much I think about it, I can’t give an answer in the current situation where I haven’t heard anything. However, it would be troublesome and time-consuming if I refused to say that I don’t know anything about her and started to prove that she was Mizukami Ryōichi’s sister, so I must ask her to leave since she know me but my father is not around. I decided to go with the strategy. This would be a mature way to withdraw and visit again at a later date.
I have nothing to say to Futaba and would like to tell her not to come back, but Chisaki-san might come while I’m asking and answering such questions. I don’t want to be disturbed when Chisaki-san comes to visit me, so my priority for today is to have her leave quickly.
「Well, could you please let me wait in the house?」
「…He won’t be back today.」
I hadn’t expected her to say such a thing, so I replied without thinking too deeply, with the sole intention of going home as soon as possible.
If this was the case, would it have been better to pretend that I didn’t know about Futaba and pout that I couldn’t raise someone I didn’t know? Even if she said she could prove it, the best she could do would be to provide proof of identification.
Whatever it is, just go home!
「Do you know where your father goes?」
「I don’t know.」
「Did your father say when he was coming home?」
「I don’t know!」
「Hmm, then, will you let me stay with you until your father comes home?」
「I told you, I don’t know when he’ll be back! Please go home soon!」
I am getting more and more frustrated with Futaba, who doesn’t show any signs of wanting to go home, and my words become more and more clumsy and my tone more and more rough. Finally, I no longer had any intention to hide my displeasure, and yelled at her to hurry up and go home.
I’m sure Futaba had never shown such a persistent attachment to me before. Why, after all this time…
「Is your mother there?」
「Y–You’re persistent! I’ll call the police, you know!?」
I usually pretend that Mizukami Ryōichi is my father in my current girlish form in order to turn away sales people and the like, but there’s no way I’m thinking about the details of the setup, and I’m sure I’ll be exposed if they pursue it too much. If I told them that I myself am Mizukami Ryōichi they would not believe me, and I have no intention of telling them in the first place. So I said that as a threat to prevent her from pursuing it further. I thought this would make her back down.
I just don’t know what made it happen, but Futaba’s reaction went beyond my expectations.
「Okay, I’m sorry… All these years, I’ve been alone… you know? I’ve been lonely…」
The words were spun out of the blue as if squeezed out through tears, words that I never want Futaba or those two to say to me.
「——After all this time!! What is it now!? You rejected me! You didn’t give a shit about me! Now you come out of nowhere! You talk like you know what you’re doing!! Don’t screw around!!」
I don’t think she realized I was Mizukami Ryōichi.
She probably don’t know that I am a Magical Girl transformed into such a young girl’s figure.
I don’t know what on earth Futaba was thinking when she threw such words at me in the form of a girl.
Even so, I felt as if Futaba’s words were spoken to me as Mizukami Ryōichi.
From Futaba’s point of view, she may not know what she is talking about when she is told such a thing by a girl she just met. But I had to say it.
I couldn’t allow myself to say that I had been alone and lonely for so long, as if I was someone else’s problem, since those two didn’t pay attention to me and Futaba rejected me.
「Um, what are you doing? Is there something you want from Ryō-chan?」
「Eh, who are you?」
「Chisaki-san!」
Since I was screaming like I was having a tantrum with the front door open, it was only natural for those around me to think that there was some kind of trouble, and then, whether the timing was good or bad, Chisaki-san apparently arrived.
With the door chain attached, the door doesn’t open that wide, and since Futaba inserts her foot in the gap where it opens so that the door cannot be closed, it was inevitably covered by Futaba’s body and cannot get a good look at the outside. I’ll know it when I hear the voice.
From the side, Futaba’s current state must be very suspicious. It’s out of the norm when a person forcibly puts one’s body through a doorway and talks to them, and if the other party is an elementary school age girl, it’s not surprising that the neighbors would be informed of a suspicious person.
「I am not like my father! I even have friends! If you understand, please leave quickly! Please don’t bother me!」
「I see, I’m sorry. You had plans to play with your friends. I’m going home today.」
「Eh, uhm, wait!」
「Chisaki-san! You can leave her alone, just wait a minute.」
I don’t know what she felt when she learned of Chisaki-san’s presence, but Futaba, who had stubbornly refused to back down until then, simply left. Chisaki-san tries to stop Futaba from doing so, but I further stop her. It would also be troublesome if she change her mind and come back after she was finally gone. She will probably come back anyway, but if she does, she can use the answering machine.
I closed the door once to remove the door chain and then opened it again. Chisaki-san was still outside the door, still clutching her phone with a slight hint of alarm. Looking closely, the screen is an emergency dial. I think she probably made it so that she could call the police when she called out to Futaba. As expected of Chisaki-san.
「Ryō-chan, is the person who just came in okay? Do I need to call the police?」
「That person is my sister. She had some business with the original me, and we had a bit of an argument.」
「Ehhh!? So I rather interrupted you? I thought Ryō-chan was being pursued by a suspicious person…」
When I showed Chisaki to my room and explained to her that the woman was my sister while preparing snacks and juice, she looked surprised and embarrassed.
「Not at all, you’re not in the way. My appointment with Chisaki-san came first, so it was Futaba’s fault for not going home.」
「She’s called Futaba-san, then what are you going to do? Ryō-chan, are you going to tell her that you’ve turned into a girl?」
「No way. I mistakenly answered the door today thinking Chisaki-san was here, but it’s okay, I’ll use the answering machine from now on. Futaba and I are not that close to begin with, so I think she will give up and stop coming sooner or later.」
I don’t know what she had to do, but it’s not like she had to meet with me. In the first place, I was planning to stay out of her for the rest of my life, and I don’t think we were that enthusiastic about it either. I don’t know why she seemed so obsessed with it today, but I’m sure with time it won’t matter as much as it used to.
「I don’t care about Futaba. Anyway, Chisaki-san, what are we going to do today? In the meantime, I’ve tried to prepare a lot of things…」
「…It’s not alright that you don’t care about her.」
「Eh?」
「Ryō-chan, you should make up with your sister.」
Sitting on a cushion, Chisaki-san looked at me, who was sitting opposite her, and said with a serious expression on her face.
…It may have been a mistake to talk to Chisaki-san about Futaba. It was obvious to me that a kind person like Chisaki-san would not be able to listen to a distorted family like ours.
What Chisaki-san says is basically always right, but Chisaki-san doesn’t know anything about my family. It doesn’t take a genius to correctly judge what she doesn’t know.
「We are not fighting. Ah, we had a bit of a quarrel today, but we are not interested in each other in the first place, and there is nothing for you to worry about.」
「That’s a lie. At least Ryo-chan doesn’t think that you don’t care about your sister, or your father and mother for that matter.」
「That’s not true. I am not lying. All I need is you, Chisaki-san.」
Maybe, if it had been me before, somewhere in my heart I would have wanted to start over. I may not have been aware of it, but I may have wanted it enough to dream of a happy past. I would never have admitted such a thing then, but I know it now. I am sure I felt that way, even if only a little.
But not now. Because now I have Chisaki-san. I have friends. I am always happy when I am playing with Chisaki-san while I am with her. I am having so much fun that I don’t care if I have to start over with my family or not, it doesn’t even cross my mind.
So I want to stop talking about such unimportant things and play with Chisaki-san more. I want to be useful to Chisaki-san. I want to entertain Chisaki-san.
「I see, I see now. I guess that means Tsuru-chan wasn’t wrong…」
「Tsuru–chan…? What are you talking about?」
「No, it’s nothing. Hey, Ryō-chan. I’m not saying you have to. I won’t ask you to make up with them anymore. But will you listen to your sister properly, even if it’s just once? Maybe there is something, or a crossing of paths between you.」
「…If you insist that much, Chisaki-san, just for once.」
I know it’s probably a silly story anyway, but I can’t stubbornly reject it when Chisaki-san tells me this. Since it can’t be helped, I’ll listen to Futaba’s story once in the name of telling it to her father. At all, she should be thankful to Chisaki-san.