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Volume 2, Chapter 1: You got what I meant, right…?
Translated by Damian's TLs
Edited by Endorfin, Schwarzel
“Ahhhhh… Did I really…?”
A student mumbled under his breath as he walked outside at night. He wasn’t a suspicious person, though. This student was Masachika Kuze, who was on his way home after walking Alisa back to her place.
“Whyyy did I say ‘I’ll support you’. Why did I say ‘Take my hand’. Who the hell do I think I am? Just die. Ahh, man, I’m so creepy and embarrassing. No, if we’re talking creepy, then me mumbling to myself like this is even creepier. Ick.”
He spewed words of intense regret and self-loathing. A few minutes ago, he’d shown Alisa the rare sight of his manly side, but now he was incredibly upset at himself. The words he said to her replayed over and over in his head, making him feel like he was going to die of shame and regret. And on top of that…
“Alya… She totally said ‘I like you’…”
The smile she showed me on that tree-lined street was like a blooming flower.
Masachika could vividly remember the soft touch he felt on his cheek as she was just about to go. He couldn’t settle down because of it. Up until now, he thought that the flirty lines she occasionally said in Russian were just for fun. He thought she was just messing around, devilishly flirting with him, that she was getting a thrill out of whether or not he’d find out, out of how ridiculous it was that he would never realize.
But the affection she showed just before was obviously beyond that… I think those are her true feelings…
“Nah, there’s no way.”
He immediately dismissed that thought.
She got caught up in the heat of the moment too, didn’t she? Surely she’s already come to her senses by now and feels the same shame and regret. Yeah, there’s no way she doesn’t.
But even though he convinced himself of that, there was the fact that the affection Alisa showed… definitely made his heart skip a beat.
“I… thought I’d never fall in love again…”
In fact, ever since that girl disappeared, he’d never liked anyone. He would still look at a girl and think, ‘She’s pretty’, or ‘She’s beautiful’, he still had a sexual desire for them. But he never liked someone else as a member of the opposite sex, he hadn’t felt his heart beat faster.
I don’t think anyone would ever like someone as terrible as me anyway.
In the first place, Masachika hated himself. It was hard for him to imagine that someone else would love this Kuze Masachika that even he himself couldn’t love. On top of that, because of that girl from his past, he lost all faith in love. He thought that most of the time, romantic feelings were fleeting and would disappear the moment the illusion of their partner was broken. Especially when it came to his own feelings, he… didn’t trust them at all.
I can’t even remember her name or her face… How can I even seriously love someone? And love between students is stupid. High school couples almost never end up actually getting married. That kind of thing only happens in fiction. Actual high school couples can come together and fall apart because of the tiniest things. Even if Alya really did love me, those feelings would disappear the moment she found out how flawed I actually am. And even then… Even those that get married after dating in high school get divorced.
He pictured his parents in his mind and smiled as though making fun of himself. Then he let out a deep sigh.
“…What a bother…”
The words unconsciously came out of his mouth.
Love is so uncertain and ambiguous that it’s just… stupid to waste time on it. A pain in the ass.
In the first place, he didn’t really even want a girlfriend, and Alisa didn’t even confess to him.
Why do I even have to think about this? Hahh… If I keep thinking like this, I’ll never get a girlfriend.
The self-deprecating thoughts swirled in his head, making him feel more and more depressed.
When I’m in a mood like this I should just go watch some anime to clear my mind.
With that thought in mind, Masachika hurried home. He opened the front door, ready to escape to the 2D world, and… froze. There was a pair of shoes in the entryway that shouldn’t have been there.
“…Didn’t she have things to do…?”
He couldn’t help but change his mind when he thought about it.
“No, it’s not even that unexpected.”
If what happened today was all a set-up to get Masachika to join the student council, then it would make sense for Yuki to be involved too. If she wanted to, she probably could’ve been the one in charge of the whole operation.
“I was set up… Or rather, I was dragged out.”
He let out a sigh as he opened the bathroom door. And…
“Eh…?”
“Ah…?”
Their eyes met. In front of him stood a completely naked Yuki, drying her hair with a towel. Her eyes widened in shock and she quickly covered her front with the towel. And then…
“Kyaa! Onii-chan’s a pervert!”
“You… why get out now of all times.”
“I’ve been exposed.”
“You exposed yourself. You probably heard me close the door and came out on purpose.”
As soon as she was confronted in an annoyed tone, Yuki instantly dropped her act and grinned. Masachika was about to leave the bathroom when she suddenly started stretching.
“Hey hey, please wait. Don’t you want to find out why I did that?”
“I do want to find out, but first you need to put something on.”
“Now, now, listen to me, Masachika-kun. Just before, I noticed something truly terrible.”
“…Something truly terrible?”
He thought it would be something stupid anyway, so he asked her back while facing away with a hand on the doorknob. Yuki looked at this uninterested Masachika and covered one of her eyes with her hand and gave an apathetic huff. The gesture was wonderfully elegant, making her seem like a famous detective that had just figured out the truth behind a case. It was quite a strange sight though, since he could see the many things not covered by her towel. Yuki didn’t care though, and uncovered her eye and shouted with resolve.
“That’s right… We’ve lived so long under one roof but haven’t had a single walked-in-on-while-changing-clothes event!”
“I didn’t think your ‘truly terrible’ would be that bad!”
“Every brother has to walk in on his little sister changing clothes! Has to!!!”
“That’s only in 2D! You stupid otaku!”
“Coming from you!”
“Damn it! It hurts even more because of what happened today!”
TN: Otaku is used to describe (often Japanese) people that obsessively watch anime or read manga. Unlike weeaboos, otakus aren’t obsessed with the entire Japanese culture.
Just a few hours ago, he was at a tea store with Alisa’s beautiful older sister and was thinking to himself ‘Ha! Is this an indirect kiss event?!’, something only an otaku would care about. Yuki’s comeback was like rubbing salt on his wound.
Yuki suddenly grabbed Masachika’s arm and turned him around. He reflexively groaned when he saw the seductive pose she was in.
“It’s what they call a fanservice shot. Kyaa~.”
“Why did you turn me around? Why?”
“Huh? It’s not a fanservice shot if you don’t see me naked.”
“See you naked?! Shut up! Only a stupid otaku would want to see that!”
“So you’re saying you want to see it.”
“Ahh, I want to. I definitely want to see it. Ya~y.”
Yuki was facing Masachika, which she shouldn’t have been, and was making a peace sign. Objectively speaking, this was definitely not something siblings should be doing.
“Hmm, this is quite the surreal fanservice shot!”
“You’re the reason it’s like that!”
He quickly snapped back at Yuki, who was nodding with a serious expression. She stopped her charade and smiled devilishly.
“Jokes aside, I helped with her sneak attack on you, so this is my apology, Onii-chan.”
“Don’t show me your naked body as an apology, you know…”
“Oh, boo, it’ll make sense if you actually let me tell you. Didn’t you stare at every part of me from top to bottom, though?”
“Yuki… Because of the situation we’re in, I’ll only tell you this.”
“Oh, What is it, Ani-ki? Don’t try to look cool right now.”
“Showing me your everything… It’s just disappointing. A small wardrobe malfunction is where it’s at.”
“…I see? I didn’t think of that.”
For some reason, the two siblings were talking to each other with serious looks on their faces. It was as though sparks were flying between them.
TN: Image.
And with a smug look on his face, Masachika suddenly left the changing room, whenミ
“Wait a minute. I’m not stupid, okay? You saw it, didn’t you? You really did see my body from top to bottom, didn’t you?”
“…I only looked at your chest.”
“So you admit it! You tit fetishist!”
“Shut up, you perverted bitch.”
“I’m a virgin bitch, not a perverted one!”
“What kind of comeback is that! Or rather, put some clothes on already, idiot!”
Masachika closed the door to the changing room with a slam as soon as he finished shouting at her. He instead washed his hands in the kitchen sink, then quickly went to his room.
“Haa…”
He sighed as he threw his bag on the floor. He took off his blazer and shirt, put on a tank top, and took off his pantsミ
“There you are!!”
“Uohh?!”
ミAnd Yuki suddenly kicked the door in as she always did. She came into his room, hair still wet and wearing only underwear and a t-shirt. Masachika was so surprised that he lost his balance and fell onto his bed, pants still around his ankles. Yuki had a nasty smile on her face as she looked at the sorry state he was in.
“Hehehe, you sure have a nice body, Nii-chan.”
“You scared me! What are you doing all of a sudden!”
“Nah, this is a perfect chance to have a ‘little sister peeks at her older brother changing clothes’ event. Of course, the little sister peeks through a crack in his door and uses his full-length mirror to see the front side of his body.”
“How much fun can it be to see your older brother’s underwear, and not even directly?”
“Yea~h, I wonder~”
As she said this, she looked at his lower body with a sigh.
“Seriously… You’re not reacting down there at all when you see your little sister naked? Is there something wrong with your thing?”
“There’s nothing wrong with it, that’s why I’m not reacting. No older brother would actually want to see his little sister naked.”
“I get aroused from my Onii-chan’s body though!”
“Yup, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“I get aroused from my Onii-chan’s body though! I get aroused from it!!!”
“Don’t repeat it! I don’t want to know that!”
“But jeez~… I can’t imagine what I’ll shamelessly force you to do with that body of yours when I become student council president… Ah, that book really showed me a lot…”
TN: Both Yuki and Alisa are running for student council president. Yuki is currently the public relations person in the student council.
“You’re aroused by that too! When did you pick up the ‘messed up in the head’ attribute?!”
TN: Masachika says ‘attribute’, which is used in the context of video games. They’re both otakus so they talk with each other in a weird way sometimes.
Masachika quickly pulled his pants up as he snapped back at Yuki. She gave a resigned smile and looked away.
“Back in the bathroom, I thought that maybe, you didn’t even have one. But now that I’ve gotten a good look, I can see that it’s definitely there. And it’s a good size, too.”
“You’re too far gone, aren’t you? I mean, I didn’t know you had books about S&M play in your room!”
While it wasn’t her bedroom, Yuki had a room for herself at the Kuzes’ house. It had nothing but a bed and all of her otaku collectibles, making it the perfect hobby room. Masachika borrowed manga and books from there all the time, so he knew exactly what she had. As far as he knew, there shouldn’t have been any books like that at all. When he narrowed his eyes in suspicion, she nodded.
“Well yeah. I keep them in Dad’s office, though.”
“Wha-, seriously?!”
“I asked ahead of time, though? Dad told me, ‘You can keep them here if you don’t have space in your room’.”
“But like, I didn’t think you’d keep those kinds of books!”
“Dad said, ‘Well, everyone has different hobbies…’, though?”
“How is that okay, Dad! Your daughter’s going to become corrupted!!!”
“He also told me, ‘Ahh, that’s troublesome, isn’t it…’. He had this, like, tired smile, and he looked a bit sad. It felt like his hairline was receding in front of my eyes.”
“You even noticed, you little shit. And don’t tell him about his hairline. Have some shame.”
She laughed at Masachika’s words and left his room, quickly coming back with a blow dryer and a brush. She spoke loudly with him as she carefully dried her long hair.
“By the way, Ani-jya~”
TN: Saying ani-jya is more polite than ani-ki, which is, in turn, more polite than Onii-san, etc.
“What is it?”
“Now that you’ve talked with both student council president candidates and Masha-san, do you want to join the student council?”
“…Ahh, so, uh, like…”
“Hmm~?”
Yuki turned off the blow dryer and looked up when Masachika suddenly became quiet and awkward. He looked over at his sister and decided to tell her everything.
“I’m going to help Alya become student council president.”
Yuki stood in silence. She froze, and her eyes widened. But it was perfectly natural that she would. Helping Alya become student council president made Yuki his enemy since she was aiming for the same position. From the side, it definitely looked like he was betraying her.
“Youー”
“You?”
He mentally prepared himself for her to complain or get angry at him, but Yuki suddenly threw herself on his bed. She wrapped her face in his pillow and shouted.
“Alya-san stole my Onii-chaaaaaaan!!!”
“Well, stole is a bit…”
When Masachika calmly replied to her, Yuki suddenly raised her head and put both her hands on her breasts.
“Damn it, you pretty girl with nice boobs! Are you not satisfied with my C-cups, Onii-chan?! Her E-cups (estimated) easily beat me!”
“Don’t just expose your cup sizes like that!”
“How are you so calm, bra-ther! No, brother! C-cups that you can squeeze are much better than E-cups you’ll never get to touch anyway!”
“I don’t want to grab either of them though?!”
“Or what do you want?! You want Ayano’s D-cups too?! You want to have a harem with the two of them or something? You fat, ugly bastard!”
TN: Ayano is new in volume 2, but she won’t be introduced until about halfway in. She is a childhood friend of both Masachika and Yuki, and her family has been serving the Kuzes for generations.
“I’m really gonna get your ass this time, you littleー”
“Yeaaa, come on then, hohhhh! Please be gentle~!!!”
“Why are you so damn excited!”
Masachika replied angrily and Yuki stood up on her knees on his bed. He suddenly hugged her with both arms and took her down while twisting around.
“Ehh~? What are you doing~? Gonna take your little sister’s first time having her boobs touched~?”
“First time, huh. You sound like some stupid horny high school boy.”
“Whaaa? But Onii-nii already took that in elementary school~”
“I don’t remember that!!!”
When Yuki heard that, her annoying grin changed into a surprised ‘Ehh?’, which made Masachika go ‘Eh? Really?’ and try harder to remember.
“Onii-chan… Did you forget about it? When I was in grade two…”
“Eh… Ehh?”
“We ran into each other when we were playing tag… You fell with your face between my legs and squeezed my right boob!”
“I don’t remember a miracle like that! Don’t make up BS lucky events! And come on! Your asthma was so bad in grade two that you could barely go outside!”
“And now I’m the healthiest girl at school! I haven’t caught a cold since middle school!”
Masachika gave Yuki a disappointed look as she stood on her knees and proudly puffed her chest.
“Yeah, but can’t you be a bit more humble about it?”
“I am! Both with you and at school!”
“…I feel a bit bad now.”
“Don’t! Spoil me instead!”
Yuki held out the blow dryer and brush to him with a snort. He knew what she was getting at, so he took them from her with a sigh and sat down on the bed.
“Hehe, please treat me well~”
Yuki looked happy as she lazily moved closer to Masachika and sat down with her back to him.
“…I’m not good at this, though.”
He turned on the blow dryer and carefully brushed her long black hair. They sat in silence for a while, but when Masachika switched the temperature of the dryer to cold, Yuki suddenly spoke up.
“Right… So you’re going to be on Alya-san’s student council.”
“Ahh… Not really.”
“Yeah~? You shouldn’t feel bad though? Some sibling rivalry is a divine blessing, isn’t it?”
“Hahaha…”
Masachika gave a forced laugh at Yuki’s anime-influenced words.
“…I’ll say this just in case though, Yuki. It’s not like I don’t like you or anything, okay?”
“Oh, I get it~? Onii-chan lo~ves me, doesn’t he?”
“…Well…”
“Hehe, Onii-chan’s dere side.”
TN: Dere is the affectionate part of tropes like tsundere and kuudere.
“Shut up.”
Yuki couldn’t hold in her laugh as she shook her body from being tickled. Then she shook her head side to side as she stood upright on her knees.
“Okay, I’m good now.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
She took her hair dryer and brush from Masachika and got off his bead. She turned around and started walking toward the door.
“Well I guess we’re rivals from now on… Ah, right.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m fine with a bit of cheating here and there. If you ever get bored of Alya-san, I’ll always be here, okay?”
“No, cheating isn’t fine. I would never do that.”
“Ha, you’ll end up back with me in the end anyway.”
“You sure are kind.”
“Ehehe. See you, bye nyaa~”
She laughed teasingly at her brother’s reply and left his room. When she closed the door, she clenched her fist, whispering to herself so that he didn’t hear.
“Ahh… So he found someone to motivate him.”
She turned around and spoke softly to her brother from outside the room.
“I’m happy for you, Onii-chan.”
Her eyes were kind and caring, and her voice was filled with nothing but love. After a few seconds of facing toward her brother’s room, Yuki turned around and walked towards her own room.
“Ahh~, I wasn’t good enough, huh…”
She closed her door and whispered to herself as she leaned on it.
She looked at her feet for a while, still leaning against her door, but then she looked up again.
“But, well…”
And at that moment, there wasn’t any love or self-hate left in her mind. Instead, a decisive and scary seriousness replaced them.
“I won’t lose though.”
The look on her face as she said this was a sight worth seeing… It was just like Masachika’s seriousness when he told her about helping Alisa.
ミミミミミミミ
“Nn…”
The next morning, Masachika woke up from his alarm going off. He rolled over sleepily and stopped the alarm.
“Haa…”
He sat up and pulled open his curtains. As he was squinting from the bright morning sun, he suddenly noticed something. His sister, who usually came in noisily to wake him up, wasn’t there.
“…”
Now that he thought about it, Yuki was acting a bit weird last night. Usually, they would excitedly discuss shows after they watched them together, but last night, she quickly fell asleep right after they watched her favourite late-night anime.
“Hahh…”
Maybe she was more than just surprised by my betrayal. She said she didn’t mind, but I might have hurt her anyway.
That kind of thought came to mind as he scratched his messy hair with a frown. As he was doing this, there was no sign of Yuki coming. It was actually completely silent outside his room. Maybe she left the house earlier because she didn’t feel comfortable seeing him, or she might still be asleep because she had a hard time sleeping last night…
“Ah…”
He imagined Yuki crying in her bed. He felt a bit better when he thought that his sister wasn’t the kind of person to do that, but he still felt a sharp pain in his chest. He got out of bed, thinking he should do something to comfort her, but at that moment…
“Whahh?!”
All of a sudden, someone grabbed his ankle, and he stumbled backward. He ran to the other side of the room with heavy feet, holding a hand to his chest. His heart was beating quickly in a panic. Then he saw Yuki with a devilish smile, one arm sticking out from under his bed.
“Bahahaha! You thought you were going to die from some monster?! That was so funny! I’m a woman of my word!”
“Ohh, you…!”
Yuki’s smug laugh made him remember what she said the other day. Yuki told him, ‘I’m gonna get under your bed and grab your ankle the moment you wake up, okay?’. He thought that maybe this was payback for hurting her yesterday, but now that he thought about it… His sister wasn’t the kind of person that would get depressed over something like that!
“Bahaha! Haahahaa… Haa…”
Then her laughter suddenly died down and her arm fell on the floor with a smack. As she lazily moved her hand back under the bed, she gave a teasing smile.
“Help me up.”
“Eh?”
“I can’t get out, you know. Don’t make me say it, it’s embarrassing…”
It looked like she found some space between the cardboard box of clothes and his old textbooks he kept under his bed. She somehow managed to squeeze herself into there, but it was probably too tight, so she couldn’t get out. She waved her hand around and smiled, as though to say, ‘Hehe, I’m in trouble, huh?’. Masachika smiled gently in response, and… grabbed the blanket off his bed and put it over Yuki’s face.
“Gehー! What are you doingー!!!”
“You-! I’m gonna bury you! I’m gonna bury you! Oh, you-!”
“Kyaaaa! It smells like a man! I’m gonna get pregnant!”
“Sure you will! You’re just another sheltered little girl whose grandma gave her shitty sex ed!”
“I’m definitely a sheltered girl, but so what?!”
“Oh, sheltered girl, huh. Let’s keep you sheltered under my bed then!”
“Kyaaaa! Stoooop!!!”
In the end, there were no hard feelings or awkwardness. The siblings continued to mess with each other until a car came to pick up Yuki.