Source
https://kakuyomu.jp/works/16817330652677973473/episodes/16817330653921795767
Taiyaki, crepes, dumplings, then soft ice cream.
They went around the station in that order.
Right now, Mashiro is sitting on a bench eating soft-serve ice cream slowly (so it wouldn’t stick to her mouth), and Yuuto is eating soft-serve ice cream, too.
“U-um……Yuuto Onii san.”
“Hm?”
“Are you enjoying watching to see if the ice cream will stick to my mouth or not…..? I feel like you’re looking at me like that.”
“I-I’m not looking, okay?.”
I didn’t intend to do so, but when I heard her voice, I was strangely shaken.
“I’ll tell you now. I won’t let you see me like that again !”
“Ahaha, I know.”
It is advice that should be scary to normal people, but she is not scary at all, and he can’t help but smile.
“By the way. I wasn’t looking at you like that, okay?”
“Really? Then….what kind of eyes were you looking at me with?”
She has big, round eyes, and when she gets scornful, there is another kind of cuteness about her.
By the way, she jokingly moved her eyebrows as well.
Yuuto speaks his heart to such an expressive step sister.
“I know this is going to sound sappy, but it’s really nostalgic…… We met yesterday, but I haven’t seen you in over ten years, so I can’t get rid of this feeling.”
“Ah, unlike yesterday, it’s just the two of us now…..yeah.”
“Yes.”
As he tried to emphasize the point, she opened her mouth first.
“……I-I’m kind of nervous now.”
“Eh !?”
“I-I was joking when I said that……”
“Oh? Is that true?”
She turned her body away.
There must have been a part where she felt something by emphasizing the words ‘just the two of us’ from her own mouth.
“…..M-more than that ! Yuuto Onii san, are you familiar with the area around here?”
“Well, naturally. I’m a second year student, and my part-time job is in the station.”
[Are you surprise because you have a poor sense of direction?] but Yuuto’s expectations were off the mark.
“You’ve been around the area with various women, and as a result, you know a lot about this area…….”
“! Gohoo. That’s not possible, you know !?”
“But you lead me very well….. I don’t think you could do this if you’re not used to it.”
“It’s because I remember you like sweets, Mashiro san? That’s it.”
Yuuto is telling the truth. If it wasn’t for that memory, he wouldn’t have come up with the idea of eating while walking.
“Besides, I told you yesterday…..that I’m not popular at all. I don’t even have a girlfriend.”
“……Honestly, I don’t know what that means.”
“Even if you said that.”
The two of them were talking with a straight face.
[You’re popular, aren’t you~]
[I’m not〜]
These two people are at odds with each other.
“Because….Yuuto Onii san is very kind.”
“When you grow up, everyone is like this, you know? In fact.”
“You really care about me a lot.”
“Hm? It’s natural because we’re family, right?”
“…..That’s what I’m talking about.”
“Huh?”
With a natural face, she answered immediately.
He is not saying ‘we were family’ in the past tense, or ‘former family’.
Certainly, Mashiro is right.
“Other than that….you’re tall.”
“W-well, I’m certainly a big person in height…..”
“Your feet are too big.”
“Hmm. I think it’s normal for a man around this height, right? I’m 27 cm or so.”
“27cm !?”
“”Y-yeah…..”
“That….makes you popular.”
“No, no, no……”
She asks skeptically with an expression so serious that the air around her seems distorted, but this is probably because he is completely stepping into her complex zone here.
I’ve never heard that having big feet makes you popular.
“……Because you have big hands, too.”\
“It’s true that my hands might be said to be big. They’re about 20 cm. I know that because it’s useful for measuring things.”
“Ah, that’s right…… ! I mean, 20 cm !?”
“Ahaha, amazing, right?”
“U-um….. if you don’t mind, can I have you put it on top of me for a bit?”
“Yeah, if it’s just that, I don’t mind at all.”
When he shows the palm of his hand opposite to the hand holding the ice cream to Mashiro, she immediately puts her (small) hand together.
“…Hee, my hand…it didn’t even reach Yuuto Onii san’s second joint !”
“L-looks like it?”
“It shouldn’t be like that….unbelievable….”
She is trying to extend her hand, but there’s a limit to how far she can go with that.
The touch of her soft hand is even more transmitted.
“I-I’m not supposed to be this small….”
“……”
She is trying her best, but after a few dozen seconds, she must have realized it.
In the end, the position of the wrist was shifted to match his second joint—she is trying to convince herself somehow.
In the midst of all this, Yuuto was running out of patience.
If they were just going to put their hands together, it would have been enough, but Mashiro made a niggling motion.
He was not used to holding hands, so he told her while his face turned red.
“M-Mashiro san? Um……I think that’s enough?”
“Ah, I-I’m sorry…..! I’m really sorry ! !”
The moment their eyes meet while their hands are still clasped together, she quickly removes her hands.
She blushed as well, and it seems that she understood that she was doing something equivalent to the act of holding hands.
“……”
“……”
Suddenly it becomes awkward and silent.
Perhaps feeling a little responsible, it was…..Mashiro who broke this silence.
“U-um…….”
“W-what’s wrong?”
“Yuuto Onii sna’s hand was so big….”
“Y-you don’t have to say it like that !? Aagh !”
Tragedy strikes Yuuto, who is even more embarrassed by Mashiro who conveys while turning bright red.
The soft-serve ice cream he had been holding in his hand melted and dripped onto his hand.
“A-ahaha….. I haven’t experienced anything like this in a long time.”
“B-but I’m glad I bought the ice cream.
“Well, yeah.”
Wiping his hands with a handkerchief, he cooled his burning body as he ate the ice cream.
Even so, that feeling and that warmth that remained in their hands…….both of them were things that would never disappear.
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