Episode 2: A Childhood Friend Becoming My Sister Is Just Too Convenient!
First, and above all, her face is amazing! Champion tier!
Her eyes are gorgeous! Just looking at them calms me down!
Her manner of speaking! You barely see anything like it these days!
Her hair! Black, long, silky!
Her cheeks! Soft and squishy!
Her hands! Warm!
Her smile! Should be illegal!
Her voice! Pure healing!
Ugh, my vocabulary’s completely failed me.
But that’s not even enough to cover it.
When I’m in trouble, she helps me!
When I’m down, she stays right beside me!
When I’m sick in bed with a cold, she worries over me!
She laughs even at my dumbest jokes!
She’s watched over me this whole time!!
She’s kind!!
She’s cute!!
It’s completely unfair!!
A girl like this, right next to me this whole time!!
Together every single day!!
Holding hands more times than I can count!!
Suddenly hugging me out of nowhere!!
Having someone like this so close to me all the time — that’s just too convenient!
Is there anyone who wouldn’t fall for her?!
There isn’t, right?!
…Is there?!
But I’m the one who’s in love with her!!!
Got a problem with that?!!!
I was practically hyperventilating in my own head when the clock hit five.
“…Makina, should we head home soon? Mom and your dad are probably already getting things ready.”
“Right! Dad said he was making hamburg steak, we’d better hurry!”
Just as we’re about to head to the register—
“Yotsuka, Makina-chan. Figured you two would be here again this year. Happy birthday.”
A voice I know all too well, and my feet just stop.
Mom, standing next to Makina’s dad.
“Huh? Wait, why are you two here?”
“Well, we were short on ingredients for dinner, but actually, there’s something the four of us should talk about first.”
“Huh? Right now, here?”
“It won’t take long.”
Prompted to sit back down, I do.
What is this farce.
Mom’s expression is a little more serious than usual.
“So, what is it?”
“We’ve been talking, the two of us—”
“Uh-huh.”
“—and we’re thinking of getting remarried.”
For a second I genuinely can’t process what she said.
“…Wait, who is?”
“I am.”
“To who…?”
“To Makina-chan’s dad.”
…Huh.
…Huh?
It’s so sudden my brain just isn’t organizing itself at all.
“Remarried, as in… that kind of remarried?”
It takes me a few seconds to force the words out, and Mom nods, easy as anything.
“That’s right. The remarried you’re thinking of.”
“W-why now, all of a sudden…?”
“We were basically family already. Figured it’d make things simpler this way.”
It’s true — both Mom and Makina’s dad lost their partners back when we were little kids.
Ever since then, living next door to each other in the same building, they’ve raised us together.
Before we knew it, birthdays, New Year’s, trips — we did everything together.
Calling it “close like family” doesn’t even do justice to how close we already were.
“Wait, what about Uncle?! Are you okay with this?!”
“Yeah. Though, if I’m honest, she pretty much wore me down in the end, ha…”
“Hey— Mom…”
Seriously, she’s always been like this.
Once she’s decided something, there’s no arguing with her.
“Makina, you’ve been quiet this whole time — don’t you have anything to sa—”
I glance over as I say it, and Makina’s face is a complete mess, tears streaming down.
Right there in the family restaurant booth.
Sobbing, dramatically.
“Daaad, I’m so happy for you…”
“Wai— hold on?! Makina, you’re seriously crying?! H-hang on, tissues, tissues!”
“sniff… thanks.”
I swear the waiter glanced over at us just now.
I’d really like to believe I imagined that.
“I kind of already had a feeling. That Dad and Yotsuka’s mom seemed close.”
“Wait, seriously? Was I honestly the only one who didn’t notice…?”
“Dad always lit up whenever he talked about your mom.”
“H-hey, Makina, don’t—!”
Makina’s dad, flustered in a way I’ve basically never seen, and Mom finds the whole thing hilarious.
“Ohh~? So you actually didn’t hate the idea~?”
“Come on, Yuki-san, don’t tease me too—”
“Ehe, but you’re just so cute when you get embarrassed, Tokio-san.”
Now Makina’s dad has gone red all the way to his ears.
No, hold on!
I can’t sit here listening to Uncle and Mom’s flirty love story!!
And we’re in a family restaurant, of all places!!
“Anyway, I’m definitely not against it! If anything, I’m all for it! Right, Yotsuka, what do you think?”
Makina looks straight at me, tear tracks still on her face.
“I mean, I don’t really mind either… if it’s what you two want, that’s totally fine…”
Yeah. It’s fine.
It’s fine, but, well.
◇◆◇◆◇
“…Mom, when are you actually getting remarried? Soon?”
“No. I figure it should probably wait until you two are both adults. We’re thinking of filing it next year, on this exact day — your eighteenth birthdays.”
“Wait, a year from now? What’s with the consideration?”
“Tokio-san wouldn’t budge on that point, apparently~”
“Hearing it like that, it actually feels pretty far off…”
While I’m still processing that — Makina suddenly launches herself at me.
Shaking my shoulders back and forth.
“Yotsuka! Yotsuka!”
“Whoa?! Wait, Makina?!”
Crying her eyes out a second ago, now she’s weirdly full of energy.
“If Dad and your mom are getting married, that means we’re going to become sisters, doesn’t it?!”
“I— I guess it does, yeah…”
“Amazing! I’m so happy!”
“You’re this thrilled about it?!”
“I always thought — when everyone’s together like this, it’s so fun, I used to wish we could actually become a real family. So this is, it’s really, really… I’m just so happy…!”
The second she says it, tears start welling up in her eyes again.
“—H-hey, no! Too soon to cry again!”
“Hey, Yotsuka.”
“Hm?”
“If we’re becoming family, that means we’ll be sisters, right? I wonder which one of us is the older sister.”
“Huh? That’s what you’re curious about?”
“In that case—”
Mom cuts in.
“Wouldn’t it be you, Yotsuka? You were born a few minutes before Makina-chan. Didn’t I mention that before?”
“Uh, maybe? Maybe not…?”
Makina nods thoughtfully to herself, then takes a small step back from me.
She raises a hand to her mouth.
Makina’s “thoughtful nod” is a warning sign — it means some switch just flipped in her head.
“Looking forward to it… Big Sister Yotsuka.”
“………..”
My brain just stops.
Big sister.
Big sister.
Big si—
“Wha— no! Stop! Stop that, stop it! That’s, like, kind of gross! Just call me Yotsuka like always!”
Gross.
—Like hell it is!!
Makina, of all people, saying something like that?!
And what’s with that face?!
She’s obviously doing this on purpose!
…Wait, no, this is Makina — there’s a real chance she genuinely has no idea what she’s doing!?
“Guess it doesn’t suit me after all…”
“Right, exactly! No need to suddenly get all self-conscious about it! Just — like normal!”
Either way, no good!
Terrible for my heart!
If she keeps doing this every single day I am not going to survive it!!
◇◆◇◆◇
“Sorry for putting a damper on your birthday, you two. Alright, let’s settle up here and go properly celebrate at home.”
Makina’s dad stands.
Mom stands too.
“Ugh, I’m starving! I want hamburg steak already! Today’s not just our birthday — it’s your remarriage celebration too!”
Makina hops up from her seat, full of energy again.
The four of us file out of the restaurant together.
The heaviness from a moment ago feels like it never happened.
Walking a step behind the others, I let out a small breath.
Right.
Well.
…It’s fine. I guess.
I wanted to become family with Makina.
That part’s true. Genuinely true.
And somehow, through a turn of events almost too convenient to be real, it’s actually going to happen.
But.
The kind of family I wanted to become with Makina — it wasn’t sisters.
It was some other shape entirely…
…or at least, that’s what I thought it was supposed to be.