Ch.277If Side Story. Tokyo Slayers: Final Chapter (15)

Souta’s sister Shii’s reaction to him bringing a bunch of girls his age home was a bit more than expected.

“…Brother?”

Before, when he brought Yuka, Nanami, or Hagiwara-senpai home, she’d been wary but never showed such disbelief.

After all, those three were all excellent students despite their quirks. They looked diligent just from their appearance.

But the girls following Souta today—

Nanami and Yuka weren’t much different from usual. They’d gotten used to coming here, so they just accepted Shii’s suspicious glances.

But Kurosawa and Fukuda behind them were different.

Kurosawa maintained her expressionless face. She had long bangs in front, while her back hair was tied into twin tails by Nanami.

She looked somewhat gloomy, but if her expression had been brighter, she wouldn’t have seemed so dark. A person’s impression is determined by their appearance along with their expressions and actions.

But her pale skin—likely from rarely leaving home—and the dark circles under her eyes—perhaps from staying up late—didn’t match her lively hairstyle at all.

Anyone seeing her for the first time would find her strange.

And Fukuda, who entered behind her, was openly looking around the house with her hands in her skirt pockets and her head turning. Her slightly protruding lower lip made her look displeased. Perhaps she was looking around to hide her discomfort.

Beyond her attitude, Fukuda’s overall impression was that of someone who “looks like she parties a lot.”

Of course, everyone present knew that wasn’t really the case.

“Brother.”

Shii called out again to Souta, who was looking back.

Souta quickly turned to look at Shii in that chilly atmosphere—

“Brother?”

But before Souta could answer, someone else reacted to Shii’s form of address.

Fukuda, who had been entering last, suddenly pushed forward. Nanami, who was bumped into in the narrow entryway, grumbled in complaint, but Fukuda didn’t seem to care.

After pushing to the front, Fukuda stared intently at Shii.

Shii seemed a bit frightened and took a step back.

Souta knew he should explain that Fukuda wasn’t that kind of person, but once again, he didn’t have time to defend her to Shii.

“Did you just call him ‘brother’? Do you really call him that? Even normally?”

“…Is, is that wrong?”

While Shii might appear to have low self-esteem at first glance, she actually had quite a strong will.

She was clearly aware that she and Souta were the owners of this house.

When guests came, she wouldn’t chase them away. Especially if they were Souta’s guests.

However, she wasn’t one to stand by and watch someone invade their home, so she straightened her chest, looked up at Fukuda, and said:

“I call him that because I want to. Why?”

In fact, “brother” was a form of address Souta had never heard used around him. At least, among his friends who had younger sisters, they rarely heard such a term.

If siblings were only a year or two apart, they might not even talk to each other much, let alone use such formal address.

In that sense, Souta thought Shii was a really good sister, but—

“My brother is the most dependable brother in the world. Of course he deserves to be called that!”

—even so, this was a bit embarrassing.

“Dependable? Him?”

“O-of course! He’s the most dependable family member in the world to me! If you’re denying that—”

“…No, I wasn’t denying it.”

Fukuda interrupted Shii mid-sentence.

“What?”

Shii blinked, apparently expecting a rebuttal.

“I said I wasn’t denying it. If you think he’s dependable, then I guess he is.”

“…”

Fukuda, looking as if all her energy had drained away, answered like that and then walked past Shii straight into the living room.

She plopped down on an empty spot on the sofa.

Kurosawa stared at Fukuda’s back for a moment before following her inside. As usual, she didn’t say anything.

Shii looked at Souta with an utterly bewildered expression.

Souta scratched his head, feeling somewhat embarrassed.

“Um… sorry.”

“Haah.”

When Souta apologized to Shii, she sighed deeply and looked up at him again.

“Brother, you’re too nice for your own good.”

The same could be said about you.

Of course, Souta had enough sense to know he didn’t need to counter with that in this situation.

*

Though somewhat wary, once guests had entered the house, Shii made sure to treat them properly.

She quickly brought out tea and snacks from the kitchen. Given the location and condition of the house, the tea was cheap, but no one seemed to mind.

Green tea was placed in front of each person, along with discount store snacks. Still, she had opened the packages and carefully arranged them on trays for each person, so they didn’t look completely cheap.

“So.”

Fukuda was the first to speak.

Taking small bites of the snacks, which she seemed to find decent enough, she continued.

“You said you wanted to have fun during summer vacation? What kind of plans are you making?”

“Oh, right.”

Nanami murmured, as if she’d completely forgotten why they were here, distracted by the confrontation between Shii and Fukuda.

“Since it’s summer vacation, I was thinking we could go to the beach for at least one night. Everyone can spare one day, right?”

“The beach?”

Shii’s eyes narrowed sharply.

She usually left Souta alone when it came to meeting friends at school. No matter what, even Shii wouldn’t try to control his friendships, or so Souta had thought to himself.

But staying overnight was a different story.

Shii always called Souta her “dependable brother” and treated him as such, but she seemed to have decided that didn’t apply to his relationships with women.

Souta couldn’t help feeling wronged. After all, he had never made a move on any girl.

Well, if we’re talking about physical contact, that might not be entirely true, but obviously that’s a completely different matter.

It would be absurd to talk about “womanizing” when Souta had never even had a girlfriend, let alone kissed anyone.

“It’s not that I don’t trust my brother—I don’t trust the girls!”

Shii had said that once before.

Then her face had turned bright red, and she’d quickly fled to the kitchen.

…Well.

To be fair, if anyone heard about a boy going to the beach alone with one or several girls, it would inevitably raise suspicions.

Souta was just an ordinary high school boy with healthy thoughts, so he had no reason to do anything inappropriate.

“Don’t worry, Shii.”

Nanami spoke to Shii in a very gentle voice.

Shii continued to glare at Nanami.

Nanami’s eyebrow twitched slightly at that look, but she maintained her kind demeanor as she spoke.

“Of course we’re planning to take you too. It wouldn’t be right for siblings to be separated when Souta is going, would it?”

“…”

Shii’s eyes narrowed, but her expression suggested she was at least willing to listen, so Nanami nodded with satisfaction.

Watching Nanami, Yuka put a hand to her forehead, and Fukuda just looked exasperated.

For reference, Kurosawa took one sip of green tea and then didn’t touch it again.

Fortunately, she was eating the chocolate chip cookies little by little.

…I wonder if I could add sugar to the green tea? I’ve heard of adding sugar to black tea, but never to green tea.

Seeing occasional green tea sweets, green tea ice cream, and sweet drinks made with green tea, it probably wouldn’t be that strange.

Some people don’t like tea, but it’s a bit disappointing when someone doesn’t even taste the drink that was served.

From Souta’s perspective, Kurosawa seemed to have missed out on many experiences.

As soon as Souta stood up, all the children’s eyes turned to him at once.

“I-I’ll just go to the kitchen for a moment.”

“Then I’ll go, Brother.”

Shii said, standing up.

“You don’t even know where things are in the kitchen, Brother.”

At those words, Fukuda gave Souta an incredulous look. Her expression seemed to say, “Didn’t you just call him your dependable brother?” but Souta couldn’t bring himself to object. After all, Shii was much more familiar with household matters.

“Do you need something?”

“…I was, um, wondering if we have sugar cubes.”

“Sugar cubes?”

Shii tilted her head but headed toward the kitchen.

Still feeling the stares directed at him, Souta sat back down with a slightly embarrassed expression.