Chapter 6 — The Window Seat

High school did not magically turn me into a different person.

It simply made me better at appearing normal.

I could talk to people.

That was never the problem.

If someone asked about homework, I answered. If a classmate needed help carrying something, I helped. I could laugh at jokes, complain about exams, participate in group work, and survive conversations without spontaneously combusting.

I just learned where to stop.

How much to say.

How much to joke.

How much of myself to let into a conversation before pulling it back again.

It wasn't something I consciously thought about anymore.

After enough years, being careful became a habit.

Some of the children I used to play with were still in my section.

We were not enemies.

That would have been simpler.

“Morning.”

“Morning.”

“Did you finish the assignment?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Barely.”

“Sounds about right.”

A laugh.

Then someone called them from across the room, and they returned to their friends.

That was usually how it went.

Friendly.

Normal.

Distant enough.

They had moved forward.

So had I, technically.

Their version simply looked more crowded.

My chair was near the window.

I liked it there.

The window never expected conversation.

During breaks, I sometimes watched students crossing the school grounds below. Groups moved between buildings, friends called to one another from the walkways, and someone was almost always running because apparently leaving five minutes earlier was impossible.

During class, I tried not to watch.

Teachers had an unreasonable preference for students looking at the board.

I wasn't alone all the time.

That would be an exaggeration.

I had classmates I could talk to. People I sometimes ate with. People who would probably call me a friend if someone asked.

Maybe I would too.

I just didn't have anyone I automatically looked for when I entered the room.

No one whose empty chair made me wonder where they were.

And I was fine with that.

At least—

I'd gotten very good at being fine with that.

＊ ＊ ＊

At home, Hina, my younger sister, continued treating my existence as a personal comedy program.

When I opened the door that afternoon, I found her lying lengthwise across the sofa.

One leg hung over the armrest. A thick book was propped open above her face.

I took off my shoes.

“You're going to drop that on yourself.”

“No, I'm not.”

“You said that last time.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“I wasn't prepared.”

I stared at her.

“You weren't prepared for gravity?”

“Exactly.”

That explained absolutely nothing.

Then I noticed the book.

A recipe book.

...

That explained everything else.

“What are you planning to destroy this time?”

The book lowered immediately.

Her face appeared over the top.

“Excuse me?”

“What are you cooking?”

“That's a very different question.”

“The result will be the same.”

She sat up and hugged the recipe book against her chest.

“You have no faith in me.”

“I have experience.”

“That's worse.”

“For you, maybe.”

She ignored me and flipped through several pages before proudly turning the book around.

“This.”

There was a photograph of something that looked genuinely good.

I stared at it.

Then at her.

Then back at the picture.

“That's ambitious.”

“I can do it.”

“You said that last time.”

“This time is different.”

“You said that last time too.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“The last one only failed because I missed one ingredient.”

I stopped.

“...You missed an ingredient?”

“One.”

“Which one?”

She hesitated.

“That isn't important.”

“That sounds extremely important.”

“It wasn't even the main ingredient.”

“You don't get to decide whether an ingredient is important after forgetting it.”

“I didn't forget it.”

“What happened, then?”

Another hesitation.

“I... temporarily failed to include it.”

I stared at her.

She stared back.

“That is forgetting with extra words.”

She puffed her cheeks.

I remembered the last thing she had proudly placed in front of me.

I still wasn't completely sure what it had been.

What I did know was that the picture in her previous recipe book had been golden brown.

Hers had been...

a color.

Technically.

“Missing one ingredient doesn't explain what happened last time.”

“It absolutely does.”

“Hina, that thing looked like it had survived a house fire.”

“It was slightly overcooked.”

“It had a defensive shell.”

“You're exaggerating.”

“My fork bent.”

“It was a weak fork!”

I glanced toward the kitchen.

The same fork was probably still recovering somewhere.

She crossed her arms.

“Anyway, this time I'm following everything exactly.”

“Good.”

“Every ingredient.”

“Excellent.”

“Every measurement.”

“Even better.”

“And when it turns out amazing—”

She pointed dramatically at me.

“—even if you get on your knees and beg me to give you some, I won't.”

I considered this carefully.

“Can I get that in writing?”

Her mouth fell open.

“You're going to regret saying that.”

“I genuinely hope so.”

She puffed her cheeks again.

I started toward my room.

“Good luck, future chef.”

“Don't say it like that!”

I stopped.

“Like what?”

“Like you're wishing the kitchen good luck instead of me!”

I slowly turned my head toward the kitchen.

Then back to her.

“...Good luck, kitchen.”

She grabbed one of the sofa cushions.

I moved.

The cushion struck my bedroom door a second after I closed it.

“YOU'LL SEE!”

I leaned against the other side of the door.

A smile slipped out before I could stop it.

Yeah.

That was normal.

She joked.

I complained.

She threatened to feed me increasingly sophisticated culinary disasters.

And despite all evidence suggesting otherwise, she still wanted to become a chef someday.

The funny thing was—

she really was getting better.

Slowly.

Very slowly.

At a speed that could probably be measured geologically.

But there was progress.

I would never tell her that, of course.

An older brother had responsibilities.

Encouraging his little sister was one of them.

Preventing her from becoming dangerously overconfident was apparently another.

But Hina wasn't always like that.

She knew when to stop.

She had known for years.

There were evenings when she could tell I wasn't in the mood to talk, and instead of asking what was wrong, she'd simply leave a drink beside me and disappear.

Sometimes, later, she'd find me on the rooftop.

She might bring whatever new recipe she was experimenting with.

Sometimes I ate it voluntarily.

Sometimes I considered that an act of brotherly sacrifice.

Sometimes we talked about school.

Her plans.

My classes.

Whatever ridiculous thing had happened that day.

And sometimes—

we simply sat there.

No questions.

No explanations.

Just the two of us beneath the evening sky.

I had become good at silence.

Maybe too good.

But somehow, around my sister— 79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzRxeAgTc6o

silence never really felt like being alone.

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