About

"Riku found out." My father's voice over the phone was dark enough to make me realize the gravity of the situation instantly. Riku came to our home when I was in elementary school. I still remember how I, a child without a shred of shyness, easily accepted the baby—the child of my aunt who died in an accident—and held him without really understanding the circumstances. Because I left home for high school, the years I spent with Riku weren't that long, but my parents treated us equally, and I doted on him like a real younger brother. During my student years, I felt a twinge of loneliness every time I went home to see his height shooting up and his language becoming more rebellious, but once I started working, I barely had the chance to see his face at all. My mother and father said they would tell Riku everything when he turned 20. They felt that while he was a child, he wouldn't have the emotional capacity to accept the truth. The peaceful family dynamic shattered a month ago. With a little over two years left until Riku's 20th birthday, he learned the truth at a time my parents never intended. It happened when he requested a copy of his family register to get a passport for an overseas trip with friends after finishing his university entrance exams. My parents said it was a complete blind spot. I knew I had to go home even if I had to force it, so I took paid leave and literally flew back. Riku, whom I hadn't seen in two and a half years, was anticlimactically normal, interacting with my parents and me just as he always had. If anything, we were the awkward ones. I read the room, avoided mentioning the family register, and spent time with the family as normally as possible. After my whirlwind two-day trip, my mother called to say "thank you," but honestly, I didn't know if my visit had any positive impact. ◇ Opening the front door of my apartment, I was momentarily speechless at the sight before me. "...What happened to your hair?" "...Well, just a change of pace? I graduated high school, after all." A young man in a coat with unfamiliar blonde hair stood before the door; the innocent brother in my memory was nowhere to be found. However, seeing his ears and nose turn red in the freezing cold overlapped with my nostalgic memories of playing in the snow back home, which was much colder than Tokyo. "Is it... weird?" "...No, it suits you, but..." Perhaps because of his sharp features, the new color blended in surprisingly well. As his sister, however, I couldn't help but suspect there was a deeper meaning behind why he dyed it. "Sorry I couldn't pick you up at the station." "Nah, I'm not a kid, I'm fine." I forcibly took the Boston bag from Riku, who insisted he could carry it himself, and led him into the warm room. Riku, who would be attending a private university in Tokyo starting in April, was staying at my place for three days to look for an apartment. "You haven't had dinner yet, right?" "Yeah. I'll make it." "Eh, Riku, you can cook?" "Well... just simple stuff." The image of him in my head was frozen at the time we made pancakes together as children. To think he would offer to cook dinner himself. While I was marveling at the passage of time, Riku began taking vegetables and meat out of his bag. Riku tied his long hair back and rolled up his sleeves. His forearms were much more muscular than I remembered, and for some reason I couldn't explain, I found myself staring intently. "...What?" He must have noticed my gaze, as he gave me a suspicious look. "Nothing," I said, hurriedly looking away. It felt wrong to just stand there watching, so I decided to at least clear off the dining table.