Life with a Little Sister

It was the evening of the day after Chihiro revealed the truth to Itsuki, and now there was a spring in her step as she walked to his apartment, a bag full of fresh dinner ingredients hanging from her arm. Tonight would be the first time she cooked at her brother’s place as a little sister.

She was dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and shorts—a unisex outfit not much different from what she used to wear. She gave some consideration to a skirt, but something about going full “girl” overnight met with resistance in her mind. She had made one change—nothing big, she thought—but her friends went nuts over it at school. (“Wow, Chi-hee’s finally discovered what the word fashion means!”)

Wonder how my brother will react…

She was a little nervous as she walked up to Itsuki’s place and opened the door. The moment Itsuki saw her face, his eyes widened in surprise.

“H-hey, Chihiro. You changed up your bangs, huh? It looks good.” He smiled.

“Th-thanks,” Chihiro replied, cheeks glowing slightly red.

“What’re you gonna make tonight?”

She opened up the bag a little to show him. “I bought a lot of potatoes today, so I thought I’d use them to make beef stew and potato salad. Call it potato bliss from your potato sis.”

“Hmm… A little feast from my little sister, huh?”

“Y-yeah… I guess so.”

She’d wanted to make the pun, but having Itsuki react to it still embarrassed her. “Little sister, big taste, am I right?” he continued.

“Oh, stop!”

Chihiro bashfully smiled at her brother’s big grin.

Dinner began as it always did, with Itsuki scarfing down the dishes Chihiro set out with his usual gusto. Chihiro, meanwhile, watched him eat away. It was like nothing had changed. At all, in fact. The situation left her a little confused, a little anxious…and a little dissatisfied.

If he knows I’m his little sister, I would’ve expected…like, something…

She’d be hard-pressed to say exactly what that something was, but seeing absolutely no change at all was a disappointment. So she kept wordlessly watching Itsuki, and then:

“Big Bro!”

“Grpphh?!”

The interjection made Itsuki choke on his potato salad. He needed a minute to catch his breath.

“Haah…haah… What was that for…?!”

“Oh, no reason… I just thought, instead of using your name like everyone else, maybe you’d enjoy something more family-like. I mean, didn’t you have Kasamatsu and Nadeshiko call you ‘Big Bro’ a lot?”

“Y-yeah, uh, uhhh, I guess I did, but…but it’s not like I necessarily think ‘Big Bro’ is better all the time or anything.”

“It’s not?”

“Yeah, like, in a lot of my stories, sisters just call their brothers by name. It’s true with All About, anyway. Sisterly Combat, too.”

“Oh, right…”

“So to me, it’s not really a matter of who takes the ‘big’ and ‘little’ roles,” Itsuki declared. “The important thing is how closely it fits the character.”

Chihiro seemed a bit timid about this. “Then what do you think I should go for? ‘Itsuki’ or ‘Big Bro’?”

“For you… Well, I think either works fine in your case, but if you change your habits out of nowhere, it’s kind of unnerving, so maybe stick with what you’ve been doing, all right?”

“Okay… I’ll stay with ‘Itsuki,’ then.”

But Chihiro still looked a little dejected in Itsuki’s eyes.

“…Did you wanna switch to ‘Big Bro’?” he nudged.

“Not exactly…” Chihiro held her head down, a bit ashamed. “But I finally told you the truth, so I thought, you know, maybe I could act more like a sister now.”

“More like a sister?”

“Yeah… I mean, is there anything you’d like me to do? As a little sister?”

“Whoaaaa…”

The sight of Chihiro looking at him so plaintively was almost too much for Itsuki to handle.

“That… That’s such a knockout punch…”

“What?”

“N-nothing. But something sisterlike, huh? Hmm… Well, you’re already feeding me and cleaning my place… I think you’re already enough of a perfect sister.”

“Oh… Thank you.” She turned away a bit. “But that’s just the same as before, though… Can you think of something more?”

“More…? Well, if we’re talking about my work…”

Itsuki took a good look at Chihiro’s face. Then he started blushing hard.

Chihiro, recalling the kinds of things Itsuki wrote about, began to feel flustered herself. The little sisters in his novels were generally the main heroines of the plot—in other words, the chief love interests. That meant a lot of stuff wildly inappropriate for a maturing real-life little sister, like dating and snuggling up in bed and taking baths together and kissing and sexing.

“W-well, no dirty stuff, all right?!”

“I know that!” Itsuki shouted before taking a more serious tone. “…Why don’t we look to someone else with a real little sister?”

“Oh?”

“According to Haruto, his sister always says stuff like ‘shut up’ and ‘you’re gross’ to him. She’s always needling like that.”

“Ahh, yeah, you’re right. And doesn’t his sister make him go out and buy snacks and things for her?”

“Yeah. So a little sister can be like that sometimes, too—yelling at you and making you her errand boy. In fact, isn’t it more natural for the brother to devote his all for his little sister, instead of the other way around?”

Chihiro meekly nodded. “Ohhh… Okay, I’ll try to take some cues from Fuwa’s sister, then.”

“Cool.”

“All right. Um… Here goes.”

“Go ahead.”

Itsuki nervously swallowed, as Chihiro suddenly looked at him like he was a dung beetle.

“Y’know, Itsuki, your very existence is so incredibly disgusting to me. I’d take a squashed cockroach over you any day—at least that’s stopped moving around. How can you stand to keep living the way you do? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

“That’s starting out kind of hardcore, isn’t it?!” Itsuki protested.

“Oh? But Ashley told me that the key to seizing the advantage in negotiations is to try and break the other person from the get-go, so… A lot of bankers and tax inspectors are spoiled rich kids, she said, so they’re pretty weak against verbal abuse.”

“Well, don’t imitate her, okay? A role model, she is not.” The expression on Itsuki’s face said it all. He meant it.

“All right. I’ll tone it down a little, okay?”

“Sure.”

“…Don’t look at me. It’s gross.”

“Oh, um…sorry.”

“Don’t talk to me. You’ll ruin my ears.”

“…”

“Ughh… Can you stop breathing the air in the same room as me?”

“…Um, can you tone it down just a little bit more?” Itsuki asked, anxiety clear on his face.

“Hmm… This is hard to fine-tune…” Chihiro puzzled over this a little, then refilled Itsuki’s empty beer glass.

“Ooh, thanks.”

“I—I didn’t pour it for you or anything, Itsuki!”

“Well, that doesn’t make much sense if you poured it right in front of me…”

“Yeah… It’s hard to kind of force a defiant attitude like that. Fuwa’s sister is pretty good at it.” Chihiro seemed honestly impressed. “…But I guess it’s normal for siblings to fight with each other, isn’t it?”

“I think so.” Itsuki nodded. “Why don’t we practice having an argument?”

“Yeah,” agreed Chihiro, “I’d like to try that. But how do you do that, exactly?”

“Well… Maybe we can start by trash-talking each other.”

“Okay, I already did that, so you go next, Itsuki.”

“All right.” Itsuki nodded, thought for a bit, and…

“……………I can’t think of anything. You’re a good cook, your cleaning’s immaculate, your grades are awesome… If you were a man, I’d be disgusted with how perfect you were, but if it’s my own little sister, all I have for you is pride. Thanks, Chihiro. I’m so glad you’re my sister.”

Chihiro blushed hard. “Oh, come onnnnn! Stop saying all that embarrassing stuff!”

“What do you want from me? I can’t think of anything to badmouth you about!”

“Ugh! You’re so stupid, Itsuki! Stupid, stupid, stupid!” She lightly bopped him on the shoulder with her fist.

“Hey, stop hitting meeee!” Itsuki complained in his best “beleaguered protagonist” voice. “You’re such a violent sister!”

“It-it’s your fault, Big Bro!” Chihiro replied in her best “main heroine” voice as she kept bopping away for a bit. In a few more moments, they were looking silently at each other.

“Hmm… Does that work as a sibling argument?” Itsuki wondered.

“Don’t you think so? It had verbal and physical abuse…”

“Oh. It just felt kind of awkward, though.”

“Yeah…”

“Maybe we’re just not suited for fighting like that. I’m amazed Haruto can put up with that farce day in, day out.”

“I guess it’s something you get used to if you repeat it enough.”

“Maybe… But I guess if siblings get along, that’s the best thing anyway, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I think so, too.”

They grinned at each other and resumed their dinner.

There’s no need to imitate other siblings. We can become our own brother and sister at our own pace.

That, at least, was Chihiro’s way of thinking about it.