Source
https://ncode.syosetu.com/n5612jg/71/
“If anything, you want to be with the person you love, don’t you?”
I could say it.
Not unconsciously or on the spur of the moment.
I said it on my own initiative, at the exact moment I wanted to say it.
I could feel that I was more nervous than I had ever been before.
As soon as I said it, I turned my face away.
I’m afraid to look at his face.
I caused trouble.
Maybe he thought I was weird.
I’m worried that he might have heard my heartbeat.
But I have no regrets.
If the relationship was going to end, I felt I had to say it now.
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As I told you before, my father was an asshole and because of that, I distrusted people right after my mother remarried.
I rejected everyone except my mother and my stepfather who helped us.
My stepbrother was no exception to that.
I told him not to talk to me and cut off the relationship from the beginning.
As such, there was no way I could fit in at elementary school.
I transferred to a new school even though I was in the first grade, and although everyone talked to me, I rejected them.
The next thing I knew, no one wanted to talk to me and I was left alone.
But I was happy in the house.
My mother laughed a lot, and my stepfather was a jolly man who made me smile.
But my stepbrother was different.
He was happy at school, but quiet at home.
My stepbrother and I had opposite personalities.
Maybe that’s why I didn’t feel like he was my brother, but a stranger.
It was right after I entered the third grade that I began to be conscious of him.
That day, I had left something in the classroom and came back to school after school.
“Mitsui san is kind of hard to deal with.”
At the time, there was an after-school club.
The kids there were talking about me behind my back.
I quickly hid and listened.
“I know ! I tried to talk to her, but she just ignored me !”
“Besides, it’s like she’s glaring at me or something–“
That’s not true.
It’s just that I’m scared, not glaring at them.
As for ignoring, I can’t deny it, but…..
I just don’t know what to say……
“Is she like that at home too? Mitsui kun.”
Hearing his name, I looked into the club room.
There, for some reason, was my stepbrother.
My mother was at home, but for some reason he was in the club.
I was sure he would say something terrible to me.
I thought so.
But–
“No, she is a very nice girl who helps her mother at home !”
My eyes widened at these unexpected words.
“She’s staring at you, which probably means she’s scared of you. My dad says she’s been through a lot. And as for ignoring you, maybe she’s just embarrassed.”
“
Is that so?”
“Yeah ! So don’t give up and keep talking to her !”
He was watching me.
I had rejected him, but he cared about me.
He complimented me when I wasn’t around.
That alone was the reason why I trusted him when I was young.
From that day on, I tried to befriend my brother.
But since I had told him not to talk to me, I couldn’t talk to him myself, so I ended up following him around.
But I knew that one day I would be able to talk to him.
“Mom decided to leave your stepfather. I’m sorry, Reina.”
The day came suddenly.
My mother and stepfather divorced.
Mother said she would no longer actively see him.
I kept crying that day.
For my family to be separated, for the thought that I would never see him again.
After my mother divorced, we lived in a small apartment.
As a junior high school student, I was no longer a crybaby and was studying anyway to make my mother’s life a little easier in the future.
I didn’t have many friends, but it wasn’t a bad life.
However, somewhere in my heart, I always felt lonely.
I didn’t know what it was at the time.
In my second year of junior high school, I went to an open school at Koshin High School, which was famous as a preparatory school.
The school was famous for its sports, but it was also famous as a preparatory school, and if you got first place in the examinations, you were exempted from paying school fees as a special student.
On the way home, I went shopping at a mall near the station.
I was having a good time and was a little carried away, and on the way there I bumped into a boy.
“! I’m sorry ! Eh……”
“Oh, no, me too.”
It’s been four years since we last saw each other.
He had grown up and his face was more mature, but I had a hunch.
He was my older brother.
“? Did you hurt yourself?”
I froze in surprise, and he misunderstood.
(…..Haven’t you noticed?)
I had noticed.
I thought so, but it was natural that he did not notice.
At the time, I was wearing glasses and had long bangs, so it was hard to tell who I was.
(If I don’t tell him, I’ll regret it !)
“Oh, um–”
“What are you doing?”
I was about to say that my name was Mitsui Reina, when I heard someone else’s voice and I stopped.
Then I looked at the owner of that voice and was absolutely mortified.
He was with someone beautiful with beautiful blonde hair.
It was at this time that I first learned of Hananoi Miyu’s existence.
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