episode_0076

In the deep darkness.

Only the faint moonlight seeping in from outside the window and the chirping of crickets broke the low, heavy silence in the room.

Akari hugged the small, trembling body in her arms even tighter.

Just a moment ago, Yuu had been sobbing, knocking on her door, and clinging to her, saying he had a scary dream.

In the end, it was only after she brought her younger sibling to her bed and soothed him for a long time that his trembling finally subsided.

“Are you… feeling a little better now, Yuu?”

“Yeah. A little… better, thank you, Noona.”

At his youthful voice, still tinged with sleep, Akari involuntarily let out a small laugh.

“Seriously, you had a nightmare and came to Noona’s room begging to sleep together. Are you a child or something?”

Then, suddenly realizing anew that Yuu had truly become younger, Akari continued speaking with a faint sigh.

“So… you dreamed I was leaving? Do you remember it clearly? What kind of dream was it?”

Rather than simple curiosity, her question was laden with the hope of finding even a tiny clue to resolve this strange phenomenon.

At her question, Yuu buried his face deeper into Akari’s soft chest and mumbled.

“My Noona, who was very little… somehow became a big Noona… and was about to leave the house.

I cried and called out, telling you not to go, to stay with me, but Noona just left without looking back once…”

“Big Noona…?”

“Yeah. Just like Noona now… wearing pretty clothes, and makeup…”

At that answer, Akari momentarily held her breath.

Though there was no clear evidence, Akari was certain that it was herself at around twenty years old, leaving for Tokyo to attend university.

A distant past scene that the current young Yuu could never have known.

That means…

“No way… Yuu, do you, by any chance, remember…?”

“Because it was a dream… I can’t really remember anything else, Noona. I just… felt so, so sad and scared that Noona would leave me alone…”

Of course, for Hyeonseong, it was merely a meticulously calculated act, designed to dig deeper into Akari’s heart.

But for Akari, Yuu’s words took on a completely different meaning.

‘Could it be… just as Fumika-ssi said, that by fulfilling Yuu’s desires… very slowly, his original lost memories are returning?’

Thinking that, the guilt she had felt and the confusion swirling in her mind seemed to dissipate like a receding fog.

Perhaps this forbidden act might truly be the only way to restore Yuu to his original state.

Such a dangerous hope began to grow uncontrollably within her.

“Noona… why did you leave back then? Did you not want to live with me, Mom, and Dad, all of us together?”

When Yuu looked up at her, asking with tear-filled eyes, Akari was speechless.

“That was…”

She couldn’t bring herself to say the real reason.

Even if the other party was her younger sibling, who had reverted in age.

No, she couldn’t confess it to anyone else either.

Realizing that her feelings for Yuu, her step-sibling, were not simple sibling affection.

That she had left, as if punishing herself, to escape from those forbidden feelings.

And that she had deliberately met Daiki, whose image was the complete opposite, to forget Yuu.

“W-well, Noona was an adult back then, and there were so many things I wanted to do. Rather than spending the same old days in this small rural town, I wanted to go to a big city and have lots of new experiences.”

As if all her problems would be solved by going to the city.

An answer packaged as if a sparkling future awaited her there.

It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it wasn’t a completely honest truth either, free of any deception.

“New, experiences?”

“Yeah. When you become an adult, Yuu, you’ll understand Noona’s feelings too.”

Just saying this, a question suddenly popped into Akari’s head.

What about Yuu himself?

By the time he was an adult, he had been listless, as if he had given up on everything.

He was so bright and lively when he was little.

‘Now that I think about it, I’ve never asked him.’

It was while Akari was lost in thought, gently stroking Yuu’s small head.

Suddenly, Yuu, who was in her arms, threw out a completely unexpected question.

“Then, Noona, are you happy now?”

“Huh?”

It was an utterly innocent voice, but that single question became a sharp blade, piercing Akari’s chest without mercy.

Happy?

Happy? Am I happy now?

Her relationship with Daiki was faltering.

Unwanted secrets were steadily increasing.

Her heart was confused every day, so had her life in the city truly brought her the ‘happiness’ she dreamed of?

Akari couldn’t choose an answer.

It felt like she was confronting her own pathetic truth that she had painstakingly tried to ignore.

As if reading her wavering eyes, Yuu whispered in a small, but clear voice.

As if seeping into Akari’s ear, and the deepest part of her heart.

“I… I can make Noona happier.”

It was a resolute yet somewhat provocative voice, hard to believe it came from a child’s mouth.

‘Is this kid… perhaps jealous?’

As her thoughts reached that point, Akari was so dumbfounded that she burst out laughing uncontrollably.

At the same time, her heart began to pound rapidly, as if a drum were beating.

“Pfft…! Where did you learn to say such things? It’s ten years too early for you to say that in front of Noona, you little brat.”

Still, thanks to that, the stiflingly awkward and heavy air in the room seemed to lighten just a little.

Could he have said that intentionally?

The question flashed through her mind, but Akari soon shook her head.

There’s no way a mere ten-year-old kid could think that far ahead.

Yes, it was just a childish, immature imitation of an adult, nothing more.

But that single phrase kept echoing in her ears, refusing to leave.

It was at that very moment.

Between Yuu’s thighs, who was hugging her tightly, something hard poked sharply into her lower abdomen, just like it had at the river earlier.

“…!”

Akari involuntarily held her breath. This not-unfamiliar sensation, this intense heat she could never forget.

“Y-Yuu… you, you again…!”

She looked down at Yuu, as if she couldn’t believe it.

Yuu was hunched over, his shoulders trembling.

“I-I’m sorry, Noona… Today, earlier today, you helped me so much, but it’s, it’s like this again… I really don’t know why I’m like this…”

Instead of getting angry at the child’s sobbing voice, Akari let out a hollow laugh.

In that laugh, there was a clear mix of a kind of resignation to the situation, along with a slight sense of anticipation that she couldn’t deny herself.

Akari, staring at the front of his pajama pants, which bulged as if possessed, unconsciously bit her lower lip slightly.

“Haa… you really… I can’t stop you, seriously.”

Akari murmured, gently patting Yuu’s small back.

The wall of resistance that had been firmly built deep within her heart was already completely crumbled.

Fumika’s advice.

The fragments of ‘memory’ Yuu had shown her.

And the desperate, hot signals constantly sent by this small body.

Everything was already leading her in one single direction.

‘Right, since it’s come to this anyway…’

She slowly, very slowly, slipped her hesitant hand inside Yuu’s thin pajama top.

As warm, smooth bare skin touched her fingertips, a thrilling shiver ran down her spine.

Yuu flinched, and the sound of him swallowing his breath was unusually loud in the darkness.

“Noona?”

“···Just stay still.”

Whispering in a low voice, Akari moved on top of Yuu’s body.

Then, without hesitation, she pressed her lips onto his, which were about to open to say something.

Smack. Slurp. Mmm…

The lips that had met softly, as if hesitant, instantly grew hot with a fervent desire to explore each other.

Akari roughly sucked and licked Yuu’s small lips, as if she had decided not to think about anything anymore.

The sweet breath and the sensation of his tongue mercilessly snapped her last remaining thread of reason.

‘This is all to return my younger sibling to his original state… So…’

Pushing who knew how many excuses at herself, Akari slipped her hand inside Yuu’s thin pajama pants.

The object she had touched countless times before, yet was surprised anew each time she touched it, was grasped in her hand.

It, swollen more fiercely than it had been at the river earlier, throbbed violently as if it had been desperately awaiting her touch.

“Hngh… Noona…”

Gasping for breath between kisses, Yuu — no, Hyeonseong — clenched his fists inwardly.

Akari’s agitation and self-justification.

Her suppressed desires, finally bursting forth.

He had merely waited for her to crumble on her own, with the face of an innocent child.

And that moment had finally arrived.

“Yuu… It’s okay… it’ll be okay…”

Murmuring words of comfort to no one in particular, she stripped off Yuu’s pajama pants, then roughly pulled down her own underwear without hesitation.

Hoo. Hah.

After repeating deep breaths a few times.

Akari climbed onto Yuu’s body and, with trembling hands, carefully guided the stiff, upright object to her intimate area.

As its tip touched her sensitive mucous membrane, a thrilling, electric sensation and unbearable excitement washed over her.

“Hngh…!”

A premonition that she could clearly never turn back if she went past this point pierced her mind.

But it wasn’t enough to stop her, pushed to this extreme.

Squelch.

“Hnghh!”

Soon, a strange foreign sensation piercing her flesh, along with a chilling friction, permeated Akari’s entire body.

Akari swallowed a short gasp at the sensation of being completely filled, deep within her wet interior.

At the same time, an intense wave of pleasure, coupled with the sense of depravity from finally opening the forbidden door, washed over her like a tsunami.

Even as pleasure painted her mind white, Akari instinctively knew one thing.

That she could never go back to how things were before.

Slurp. Slurping.

Squelch. Squelch. Squelch. Squelch.

She roughly explored Yuu’s lips once more, and instinctively began to move her hips.