Chapter 3. And in the end, I was still a nobody.

Chapter 3. And in the end, I was still a nobody. CHAPTER 3 And in the end, I was still a nobody.

My older brother was a very capable person—the kind of person one would call a genius. He excelled at everything he touched, yet he never showed off. He possessed a bright, spirited personality and could also get along with anyone.

“Yumi! You have got to see this! I just put a ton of dry ice in the bath, and it is insane!”

“What is wrong with you … ?”

“Yumi! I just made the most amazing mud pie! Here!”

“Ew. No… Is that really even mud?”

He would constantly dote on me, even though I was three years younger than him. I sometimes felt I was at the mercy of his whims, but I adored my brother dearly. However…as I grew older, I found myself unable to openly adore him anymore, for the gulf between us had become far too vast. What came effortlessly to him was impossible for me, and what he mastered in three days took me a month to grasp. Against my brother’s overflowing talent, I was painfully ordinary, bereft of any gifts at all.

“You seem to have no problem when it comes to basic conversation, Naotaka.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Good. Come with me next week when I go to America. It’s time for you to practice using English with native speakers.”

Perhaps my father had recognized this early on. Being someone who valued talent above all else, he only ever had eyes for my brother and had never once turned his gaze toward me.

“Oh my. Naotaka is so smart. It’s hard to believe he’s still in elementary school.”

“Yes, it really is. He’s already at the top of his class, and he’s going to start school at Seirei Academy in spring, right? You must be so proud of him.”

“We don’t have to worry about the Suou family’s future, now! By the way, what about Yumi … ?”

Family gatherings were always unbearably uncomfortable. Adults would always praise and exalt my brother while regarding me with contempt. Even my father would never speak much about me around them.

“Yumi’s a woman, and women have their own roles to fill.”

“Ha-ha! Yeah, good point. She’s beautiful, too. She definitely won’t have trouble finding a husband.”

Looking back, that might have been my father’s way of protecting me, but at the time, I couldn’t see it that way.

Being a woman is all I’m good for?

The only thing I was ever praised for was my appearance, which I was born with. No one expected me to accomplish anything. They assumed I couldn’t even if I tried.

“No, Yumi’s just a late bloomer! Trust me! I’m her brother!”

Even my brother’s kindness only made me feel more miserable. Tormented by my inferiority complex toward him, I hated myself for even sometimes wishing he weren’t here.

“You can’t let these things bother you. You’re special in your own way,” my mother would always say as I hung my head, enduring the shapeless malice.

Unlike my strict father, my mother was very kind and easygoing, always wearing a cheerful smile. Despite being a diplomat’s wife, she rarely accompanied my father abroad or engaged in social activities in Japan. She was always at home, watching over us siblings with that warm smile.

Besides, my mother didn’t understand English. She would often joke that she could hardly even speak Japanese, which made her a target for our relatives’ mockery when my father wasn’t present as well. Yet even when mocked, she would simply smile cheerfully without a care in the world. Some would even wonder out loud if she understood sarcasm because of her demeanor, so one day, I asked her about it.

“Doesn’t it frustrate you?”

I was frustrated, so my mother must have been frustrated, too. That was what I had assumed, but she simply shook her head without a worry in the world.

“Not at all. They just don’t know how amazing I am. That’s all.”

“ … ? You’re amazing?”

“Yep. And they don’t know this, which is why they say those things. But I know that I’m an incredible person, so I don’t care what they say,” she boasted, puffing out her chest with a laugh.

“I am amazing! I mean, look at the wonderful, admirable man who chose me! And look at the two adorable, talented children I gave birth to! Both you and Naotaka are amazing, too, and I know that better than anyone else, so you can’t let it bother you when these ignorant people speak ill of you.”

Seeing my mother’s confidence made me wonder if perhaps she truly was remarkable, but in the end, I couldn’t think the same way she did, so whenever something bad happened, I would always flee to the piano. The piano was my only forte, and the one thing I was confident I wouldn’t be outshined in by my brother. My father remained indifferent, as always, but my mother and brother often praised my playing. And one day, they even exclaimed:

“Yumi, you are so good at piano. Maybe you’ll become a professional pianist one day.”

“Oh! Yeah, that’d be awesome! She’s beautiful, too, so she’d look great in a gown!”

“What? Giggle… I don’t know.”

A professional pianist. Up until that day, I had been playing piano with no real ambition, but those words felt incredibly enticing. I couldn’t follow my father in his footsteps and become a diplomat, working actively across the globe, but perhaps I could become a pianist who performed worldwide. Surely, I would no longer feel inferior to my brother, and my relatives probably wouldn’t look down on me, either. With piano, the only thing I was ever good at, I was sure of it…

“I hear you want to become a pianist.”

When my father brought it up a few days later at the dinner table, I jumped in my seat. I figured he would say it was an unsuitable profession for a Suou daughter, or dismiss it as an unrealistic dream. However…

“If you need anything, you tell me. If you want to study abroad to learn piano, then I’ll arrange for it.”

“Oh … !”

“Give it everything you’ve got.”

For the first time, I felt my father had expectations for me. He was actually supporting my dream. This had to be the only path where I could truly shine, so from then on, I devoted myself entirely to the piano. Through my father’s connections, I found an exceptional teacher, excelled at domestic competitions, and entered a prestigious girls’ school with a music program.

Although I went to a middle school that wasn’t academically prestigious, which earned me more mockery from my relatives, I no longer hung my head in shame and endured their negativity. I learned that having something to rely on, or a place to call your own, naturally granted people confidence and peace of mind. I was amazing. One day, I was going to truly become a great pianist and show them all. Therefore, I could smile and brush off their ridicule. But when middle school started, it was filled with people aspiring to make a living as a musician, and my grades eventually stagnated.

“Don’t worry about it. Slumps are completely normal.”

“You’ve got this. Mom loves it when you play piano, and one day, everyone’s going to feel the same way.”

My mother and brother would always tell me that, but I was in my rebellious teenage phase, so I found both comments extremely annoying. My increasingly talented brother’s words sounded condescending to me, and my mother’s baseless encouragement only made me irritated.

“Get out of my room! I can’t concentrate when you’re here!” I would always say to my mother, driving her away whenever I played piano at home. At that time, everything about my mother annoyed me for some reason. Because her husband was amazing, because her children were amazing, she was supposedly amazing, too? Didn’t that mean she had nothing to be proud of except being a wife and mother? Because she had nothing to take pride in about herself, she took pride in her husband and children. Wasn’t that exactly the kind of person whose only value was being a woman?

That’s not the kind of life I want.

I didn’t want to parasitize other people’s worth and delude myself into thinking I had value. I wanted to become someone admired for their own achievements, like my father and brother, and I actually believed I could do it. After all, the exceptional blood of the Suou family flowed through my veins as well.

Therefore, I spent my days desperately devoting myself to the piano. It was about a year after that when my mother suddenly died. It was one week before my fourteenth birthday. My mother had gone out alone to buy me a birthday present, and she was mugged by two people on a motorcycle. When she resisted, she was dragged alongside their motorcycle until she fell, striking her head on the curb. When we received the call from the police, my brother and I rushed to the hospital, but my father was away on business overseas.

“M-Mom is … !”

Though I had found her so irritating, seeing my mother lying there, connected to those machines and unconscious, I could only think about how kind she always was to me. Why couldn’t I have returned even a fraction of that love? Regret swallowed me like waves as endless tears ran down my cheeks.

I desperately wanted to apologize to my mother. I wanted the chance to be kinder to her from now on. Clutching her hand with that desperate wish, I called her name over and over, pleading with her to wake up and sending countless prayers skyward, begging that she not be taken from me. But two days later, she passed away without ever regaining consciousness, unable to await my father’s return.

I was consumed by such sadness, such frustration, that I cried until I couldn’t breathe, and my brother, who held me as I wept, was crying just as much. My father was the only one who didn’t shed a single tear, not even when he saw her body. He arrived at the hospital hours after my mother’s passing, only to indifferently give the hospital the go-ahead to perform mortuary procedures. Even when he presided over my mother’s funeral, my father never wept. Superficial condolences seemed to be unnecessary for him as well.

“What happened was truly unfortunate…but you’re still young, Gensei, and Yumi still needs a mother, so what are you going to do? Any plans on getting remarried?” someone asked him.

“That’s right, you’re a diplomat. You need a partner who can support you, right? I actually know someone who would be perfect … ,” said another.

Some relatives began brazenly suggesting a new wife before my mother’s funeral was even over. Unable to believe such callousness, I wept in frustration while clutching my mother’s portrait. My brother, however, suddenly stood up, approached those relatives surrounding our father, and without hesitating for even a moment—

Whack!

The raw sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed through the funeral hall as one of the relatives fell hard on his backside.

“What is wrong with you?! You people aren’t our family! Never show your faces to us again!” shouted my brother, hurling the funeral money back at our stunned relatives’ faces before literally throwing them out of the funeral hall. It was the first time I had ever seen my brother so enraged, and I stopped crying in pure shock until he gently embraced me.

“I’m sorry you’ve had to put up with all that until now. I know they hurt you so many times… I should have done that a long time ago,” my brother confessed, his voice tinged with regret, before shifting his gaze toward our father.

“Dad, let’s cut ties with them. I’ll take such good care of the Suou family that we won’t need these branch families anymore.”

My brother was so radiant, and truly someone you could depend on. I knew instantly that he would take over the Suou family with dignity, just as he’d promised.

Don’t worry, Mom… Naotaka—The Suou family is going to be okay. Naotaka’s going to take care of me, too, so I’ll be fine…

I inwardly spoke to my mother, holding her portrait to my heart. I wanted to let her know that we were going to be okay so she could rest in peace. It was also a vow to myself to recover together with my brother. But life was never that easy and could be quite unpredictable.

“All right, Yumi! I’ll be back before you know it!”

Two months later, my brother died in an aviation accident while traveling to our father’s workplace. I never even saw his remains. The coffin that supposedly held my brother was sealed tight, its lid concealing whatever lied within. Perhaps that was why his death never felt real; even after he was gone, for many days, I felt like I was floating in a dream.

However, I finally snapped back to reality the instant I saw several men visiting the house one day—the same relatives who had been thrown out of my mother’s funeral. Their timing was surely no coincidence, either, arriving not too long after my brother’s—the family successor’s—funeral.

If I don’t do something, they’re going to steal everything from us and take over the family!

I couldn’t allow it. I wouldn’t let those people who had insulted my mother and me seize control of the family my brother had died investing in. The thought was unbearable. Driven by anger and a sense of duty, I stormed straight over to my father the instant they left.

“Dad! I’m going to become a diplomat! I’m going to become a diplomat and take over for the Suou family in my brother’s place!”

But my father…

“That’s not what I need from you.”

He turned me away as if my newfound dream was not even worth considering.

“Don’t even think about trying to replace Naotaka. All I need from you is to find a husband worthy of the Suou family name. That’s it. You’re free to do whatever you want as long as you do that.”

Even then, I felt my father still only saw me as a woman destined for a wife’s role. It was so maddening that I gave up the piano as well. Only after having lost everything could I clearly see how much my mother and brother had shielded me from the world, but I could no longer depend on them anymore. I stopped being content with simply being a prodigy’s little sister—a position with no responsibilities. I needed to push myself until I, too, became a skilled diplomat. I had to. With my brother gone, I was the only one who could protect our family.

So, to cut off any escape route, I abandoned the piano completely. Every hour I had once spent at the keys now belonged to my books. I transferred from music to academics at school and buried myself in my studies, day after relentless day. But the sacrifice paid off: I passed the external entrance exam to Seirei Academy—the same school my brother went to.

“I did it… I did it!”

I felt a sense of accomplishment and a faint hope that I, too, could conquer anything I put my mind to…but that was short lived. I was immediately confronted with reality following the first academic test after enrollment. I scored fourth lowest in my grade.

Desperate to salvage my pride, I told myself it was only because the test favored internal students who knew what questions would be on it. But once classes started, that excuse no longer worked. Even among the other transfer students, I was clearly the only one falling hopelessly behind while everyone else sailed ahead.

Why…? We all took the same test, and I passed, too, so why is there such a big difference? Why am I so far behind?

And that was when it hit me: Seirei Academy’s entrance exam had an interview in addition to the written test. That was the answer.

Oh, that’s why. I only passed…because of the Suou family name…

In the end, I couldn’t even claim the entrance exam as my own victory, and that realization made every day miserable. The constant ache of feeling inferior to everyone around me was unbearable enough, but then came the shadow of my brother’s legacy, especially since his fame as a middle school student council president was well known. Once word got out that I was his sister, the unwanted attention began.

“Your brother used to take such good care of me—”

“You’re not really like your brother at all. Oh, no, it’s not as if that’s a bad thing—”

“Hey, Yumi. Maybe we could go out sometime together—”

People praising my brother’s brilliance, people drawing comparisons between us, people trying to cozy up to the Suou family’s sole heir—they all felt like predators circling me, so I fled. I ran and ran, until I came to my senses and found myself standing before the music room door.

“Ah…”

There it was: the piano I hadn’t touched since losing my brother—the same instrument that had once been my refuge from pain.

“…”

Even though I had decided not to run away anymore, I found myself drawn to the bench. My fingers found the keys, and with the first note, my mother and brother materialized before me, their voices of praise echoing in memory, and I cried. Tears blurred my vision as I played, streaming down my cheeks and onto the keys, but when I finished playing the piece, I suddenly heard applause coming from behind me and quickly jerked my head up, startled.

“ … ?! Huh?!”

Only then, did the boy applauding seem to notice I was crying. With a startled expression, he stopped clapping and hurriedly took a handkerchief from his pants pocket, but after looking at the handkerchief and frowning slightly, he pulled out a pack of tissues from the opposite pocket.

“Uh… Here. Use this…”

When the flustered, stammering boy offered me a tissue, I quickly buried my face in my hands, mortified at being caught in such a vulnerable moment.

“Oh, uh … ! Sorry! I didn’t mean to bother you… I was just walking by…and your playing was so beautiful that I couldn’t help myself…”

This was the first time since losing my mother and brother that anyone had praised my playing.

“Uh… I’m Kyoutarou Kuze. What’s your name?” he uttered, his eyes wandering nervously when I involuntarily looked up.

“…Yumi Suou.”

“Suou… Suou… Hmm? Where have I heard that name before?”

I thought I was going to be asked about my brother again, and I reflexively bit my lip, but the boy started waving his hands frantically, apparently misinterpreting my reaction entirely.

“Ah, sorry! I come from a pretty ordinary middle-class family, so I’m not familiar with wealthy, prestigious families! I can pick out names that match major corporations, but…”

He had clearly been scolded before by people offended that he didn’t know their family. His desperate, misguided explanations struck me as oddly endearing, and I found myself laughing a little despite everything, and his lips curled awkwardly.

That was how Kyoutarou and I met, and from then on, we began meeting regularly in the music room.

“I’m not trying to brag or anything, but my grades were good. It was basically the only thing I had going for me… My father was strangely enthusiastic about it all as well. He was like, ‘You could even get into Seirei Academy with those grades!’ and he made me take the entrance exam. But ever since I started going to school here, I’ve felt so alone. I mean, everyone’s obscenely rich, right? We have absolutely nothing in common. Of course, it’s my fault for taking the entrance exam before actually researching the academy, but still.”

Kyoutarou and I were both outcasts at school, though for different reasons. He knew nothing about my background, so I felt like I could finally breathe when we were together, allowing me to completely forget how suffocating the classroom felt. Even after he learned the truth about me, his attitude remained unchanged…

“Oh… So you’ve been working so hard for your brother’s sake as well. You’re amazing.”

And just like that, he praised me from the bottom of his heart…

“Mom, I’m sorry…”

“What?”

“I’m really sorry. I genuinely planned on listening quietly until the end, but…”

“ … ?”

“…Hearing about my parents’ mushy love story is seriously hard to stomach.”

“…”

It was the winter of my first year of high school when Kyoutarou confessed to me, and we started dating. By then, he already knew everything about my family situation, and he said that he wanted to formally introduce himself to my father.

“It is a pleasure to finally meet you. I’m Kyoutarou Kuze. Yumi and I have been dating for the past month.”

Kyoutarou was honest with my father about everything—even that he came from a middle-class family.

“Yumi, I want to speak with him alone. Please give us a moment,” my father said to me after Kyoutarou finished talking.

I was sent out of the room, and even now, the details of their conversation remain a mystery to me. However, I suspected my father had demanded that Kyoutarou pursue a career as a diplomat. Having written off his mediocre daughter, he had found a new prospect in her talented boyfriend. The evidence was clear, because from that day forward, Kyoutarou abandoned his dream of becoming a police officer and devoted himself to his diplomatic studies. Yet, despite feeling that my father had given up on me, I still had no intention to cede taking over for the Suou family in place of my brother.

“I think that’s a great idea. Let’s study and become diplomats together!”

Kyoutarou never dismissed this dream of mine, and we made a promise to become diplomats together…but studying side by side only highlighted a brutal truth I could not ignore: We were completely different in terms of intellectual ability. Even when we studied together, he had to teach me essentially everything, and I constantly felt like I was holding him back. Still, I couldn’t give up, so I continued to desperately study as hard as I could. However, Kyoutarou was the only one who passed the national civil service exam in the end.

“Congratulations. You really are amazing, Kyoutarou.”

On the surface, I congratulated him from the bottom of my heart, but looking back, I felt that this was when I began harboring a dark sense of inferiority. I wouldn’t allow myself to let it show, though. He remained as kind to me as ever, and more importantly, he had abandoned his own dreams to instead become a diplomat for the sake of our future. And that was why…

“You studied so hard, Yumi, and it wasn’t all for nothing. Maybe you didn’t become a diplomat, but I want you to continue to be there for me…as a diplomat’s wife.”

I buried those dark feelings deep in my heart and accepted his proposal. Our married life was happy, yet as Kyoutarou had warned, being a diplomat’s wife proved challenging. Overseas, every interaction with other diplomats awakened that familiar sting of inadequacy—the reminder of what I could never become. Therefore, when I became pregnant, I seized the chance to retreat to Japan’s familiar comfort. Kyoutarou even indulged this selfishness of mine, telling me that it was okay. But for some reason, that kindness of his only deepened my misery.

It was very peaceful for a while after our children were born. They were precious, and raising them was exhausting yet fulfilling, even with Natsu’s help. Being a competent mother finally quieted my inferiority complex toward Kyoutarou…until the children began revealing their own brilliance.

“Masachika? You can read that? That’s a really difficult book.”

“Hmm? Yeah.”

Our two children, with eyes exactly like my brother’s, possessed the same genius that had defined him, and once my father recognized this, he became obsessive. He lavished them with the same elite education he had given my brother, only more intensely. My daughter, perhaps due to her fickle personality, often fled mid-lesson, but my son absorbed my father’s instruction at a tremendous pace, and people started calling him a child prodigy.

“…”

I had an accomplished husband and children with prodigious talent. In this house, I alone remained invisible to my father’s gaze—the only one destined for nothing. My husband and children had luminous futures stretching before them, lives filled with grand stages where crowds would shower them with respect and praise. I, however, would spend my days watching from the shadows, forever relegated to the wings. That future crystallized before me with absolute clarity.

Why can’t I be on stage?

I could feel the inferiority complex I had suppressed swelling deep within my chest, becoming harder to contain with each passing day. I wondered why I was the only one cursed with mediocrity. No matter how hard I tried, I could never reach my brother’s heights. Despite studying so hard since my second year of middle school, I couldn’t become a diplomat, yet my husband started studying in the winter of his first year of high school and passed the exam on his first try. And my children—they were born with gifts that might even eclipse my husband’s brilliance or my brother’s genius.

Why? It’s not fair.

That voice echoed in my mind, but I frantically shook the thought out of my head. Resenting my own children’s gifts and feeling jealous of them made me a failure as a mother. I couldn’t allow it. Those weren’t my true feelings. It was merely a momentary invasion of wicked thoughts. I told myself that and pushed those thoughts back deep into my heart again. But…

“Mom! I get to start studying middle school–level material today!”

“Mom! I got a black belt in karate!”

Every time my son innocently shared his accomplishments, that familiar misery of inadequacy surged through my chest like poison, making me want to scream. So I turned away to make sure he would never see those ugly feelings reflected in my eyes. Instead, gradually and without realizing it, I began channeling all that venom I couldn’t unleash on my child toward my husband.

“Work?! Again?! You’re never home!”

“I’m sorry. I really wish I could spend more time with the family…”

“You’re always like this! An apology isn’t good enough anymore!”

I didn’t know why he apologized. I was the one in the wrong. This was all senseless, cruel lashing out. The reason my husband wasn’t by my side was because he was busy with his diplomatic work—work that he had taken on for my sake, and staying in Japan was my decision as well. My husband had done nothing wrong, so I didn’t understand why he wasn’t angry with me. That kindness only made me feel more miserable. The pain became unbearable, so I fled to the piano yet again.

“Mom, that was amazing! Play another piece!”

“Play again! Again!”

Only while playing piano and receiving the innocent praise of my children did my inferiority complex fade slightly. I still felt like this remained my one redeeming quality.

If my brother had never died that day…

What would have happened if I had continued pursuing becoming a pianist? I might never have reached the world-class heights I had once dreamed of, but perhaps I could have become a first-rate pianist who truly moved people’s hearts.

Yeah, right…

All of it was meaningless speculation—fantasies without foundation—but for me, it was my one precious escape. Perhaps I, too, could have become someone remarkable—someone others respected. Perhaps I, too, could have claimed a place on stage. Such sweet, gentle fantasies consoled me…but even those crumbled into dust the moment I heard my son play piano that day, forcing me to confront the truth I had been hiding from.

“If you need anything, you tell me. If you want to study abroad to learn piano, then I’ll arrange for it.”

“Oh…!”

“Give it everything you’ve got.”

It finally made sense. My father’s words weren’t expectations at all, but pity for a daughter clinging to impossible dreams. My father never truly believed in or expected anything from me.

I was ordinary to my core, destined from birth to amount to nothing, but I didn’t want to know this crushing truth. So, I couldn’t stand him shattering my last illusion. I lamented that he made me so miserable. With that innocent smile of his—with the same eyes as my brother when he praised me … !

“Stop! Just stop!”

It would be a few moments before I even realized that scream had come from my own mouth, but when I saw the emotional strain on my son’s face, I realized what I had done…and by that time, it was already too late.