Episode 11: Big Sis’s Reactions Are the Cutest ※
Dinner was simmered vegetables.
The daikon had absorbed the flavour all the way through; the aburaage had soaked up the dashi just right.
The chicken fell apart at the touch, and burdock root and konjac added their bite. Each warm mouthful, and the hardness lodged deep in my chest loosened just a little more.
Even so, there was a mountain of things I had to get done.
I finished my bath, and was about to head to my room with the laptop to start on the work I’d brought home, when:
“Big sis, come here.”
I looked back. Yuno was sitting on the sofa, patting her own thighs lightly. Posu. Posu.
A lap pillow again. And today, because she was in the shorts — bare legs. Even I was a little ashamed of myself for noticing that.
“No. I’ve got work, I’m busy.”
“Aww? Just for a little.”
Still wearing the cat-ear hood, looking up at me from below. Her eyes seemed to sparkle a little more than usual — or maybe I was imagining it.
I was going to walk straight past and ignore her.
I was.
But before I knew it, I had been drawn in like a magnet and dropped my head into Yuno’s lap with a soft thud.
Smooth skin against my cheek. Warmer than I’d expected. Softer than I’d expected.
Yuno began to stroke my head again, slowly.
The rhythm of it, the warmth of her hand — somehow so comfortable.
“…Oh, that reminds me.”
After a while, Yuno said it idly.
“People tell me I’m good at cleaning ears.”
“…Is that so.”
“Want me to do yours?”
“No. I don’t need that.”
“Aww.”
A small pause.
“…Hey, where do you keep the ear pick?”
“Were you listening? I said I don’t need it.”
“In the first aid box?”
Without waiting for an answer, there was a rustle of movement, and my head was gently lifted from her lap. The sound of a drawer being opened, rummaged through.
“Found it. Here we go.”
Yuno came back and settled my head into her lap again as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“I told you, I don’t——”
“There now, hold still.”
Yuno slowly brought her fingers to the edge of my ear and began.
…It feels good.
Frustratingly good.
I was a little startled at how good. Having someone else do it is nothing like doing it yourself.
A strange, lulling pleasure, and my thoughts began to come loose at the edges.
The towering task list stacked up in my head collapsed like a game of Jenga, piece by piece.
My eyes closed of their own accord.
My mouth, without my permission, went slack and soft.
After a while like that, I felt a gaze on me.
I opened my eyes just slightly and looked sideways. Yuno was peering steadily at my face.
“Hehe.”
“…What.”
“Big sis, you’re cute.”
“What?”
“Just now you had the most melted-out expression. You were, like, dissolving.”
“Be quiet.”
“You made such a fuss about not wanting it — that’s what makes it funny. Hey, turn the other way?”
Doing as I was told, I turned the other ear toward her. The same sensation spread through me again. I tried desperately to pull my expression together, but my facial muscles simply wouldn’t cooperate.
And then —
Fuuu——
“Hyah…!?”
A breath was blown into my ear.
Soft and warm, it slipped all the way inside. A strangely high sound came out of me. I had completely let my guard down — that was all it was.
Following it, Yuno’s cool fingertips traced slowly along the rim of my ear.
“Hey, that’s — enough, stop——”
“You know, big sis.”
Yuno brought her lips close to my ear and whispered.
Something soft and pliant against the ear.
A sweet, slightly husky voice, mixed with breath, resonating right inside it.
“Your ears are sensitive, aren’t they.”
A shiver ran the full length of my spine.
The next instant, something warm and damp touched my earlobe. It took me a moment to understand it was her tongue.
Then the rim of my ear was caught in a gentle, teasing bite.
“Nn… hey, stop… you — you were doing this on the very first night too.”
“Ah, you noticed.”
I felt the quiet tremor of Yuno laughing.
“Big sis’s ears are so small and cute, I just want to nibble them.”
“…What is that.”
“Hehe, they’re going red.”
Low and sweet, whispered right at my ear. The vibration of that voice felt like it was travelling directly into my brain.
“…Have you done this… with the others before…?”
I didn’t even understand myself why I’d asked that.
A brief pause.
“…Yeah, I have.”
Something scraped, faintly, in my chest at that.
Genuinely, only just a little.
Her voice, just beside my ear, went slightly softer.
Yuno gave a quiet laugh and continued.
“…Hey. Why are you asking something like that?”
Something pleading in it, and something a little forlorn.
“Just… stop talking right next to my ear like that.”
I said it and tried to push Yuno away, but Yuno caught my arm and pressed me down into the sofa.
Slender as she looks, she’s unexpectedly strong.
“I’m just talking normally. Come on, tell me. Why did you ask that just now? With the others before?”
“I told you… it’s nothing. That’s enough. Move.”
“Hey. Could it be.”
Her voice went sweeter still, a little more hoarse.
“Are you maybe just a tiny bit jealous of Yuno?”
At those words, something in my chest throbbed sharply. Almost painfully.
And as she said it, her tongue traced slowly from the rim of my ear around to the back of it.
“I’m not — that’s not——hyaah.”
My body jolted.
An impossibly sweet, high sound flew out of my own mouth. The embarrassment was beyond all remedy.
Yuno’s tongue didn’t stop. It continued along the curve of my ear, deliberate, unhurried, drawing it out.
“Ahh, you’re so cute… big sis makes the loveliest sounds at times like this.”
Yuno’s hands cupped my face gently as I sat up. The warmth of her palms was pleasant.
Yuno was looking straight at me.
“Your eyes are all shiny, you know?”
A quiet voice.
“Out of everyone before — big sis’s reactions are the cutest.”
Yuno’s drooping eyes narrowed softly. A bewitching smile, I thought.
And at the same moment, my heartbeat quickened at those words.
The hard, packed thoughts about work that had been filling my head dissolved, one by one, replaced by this sweet time with Yuno.
This is bad. At this rate I’m going to lose my mind.
I have a mountain of things I need to do.
And yet she just sits there enjoying my reactions like this. The thought made me unreasonably, suddenly furious.
“…That’s quite enough.”
I pushed Yuno aside, stood up, and headed for my room.
“I’m going to work. Don’t you dare interrupt me.”
Bang.
I shut the door, a little roughly.
The room, just me in it, was quiet.
I opened the laptop and looked at the screen.
Emails, a flood of them.
Two hundred…
I forced my eyes through them, but the contents wouldn’t go in. The sentences were just strings of characters.
The whole time, the sound of my own heartbeat was loud enough to echo in my head. My ears were hot.
On my cheeks, on my ears — the warmth of Yuno’s fingers, the feeling of her tongue, still there. Refusing to fade.
There was no way I could work.