← The Studious Boy and the Secret Account Girl
Volume 3
Chapter 39: Beyond the Smartphone
Chapter 39: Beyond the Smartphone
The sound of rain and wind could be heard from afar. The smartphone in his hand was vibrating. On the cold, impersonal display, his step-sister’s name appeared. The incoming call had gone on for quite a while, showing no sign of giving up. Sensing a fierce determination to connect no matter what, he let out a single sigh. Tsutomu tapped the screen and brought the device to his ear.
“Hello, Nii-san?”
“It’s me… What’s wrong?”
What came through the phone was, as always, the voice of his step-sister—one he’d grown tired of, no, grown accustomed to.
“Oh, good. You weren’t answering at all, so I thought something might have happened.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
He sat down on the sofa with a wry smile and gently pushed up the frame of his glasses with his middle finger. Beyond the lenses, Matsurika sat with her white bottom lowered to the floor. Her lustrous black hair, reaching down to her waist, was slightly disheveled. She held the front of her dress shirt closed, wearing a bewildered expression. Her cheeks were still flushed bright red. Tsutomu’s face hadn’t cooled down either.
“Um… with this weather today, is it really that strange to worry?”
“It’s not strange. Just overly dramatic.”
“Honestly!”
He said whatever came to mind, but inwardly, he wondered if it wasn’t the other way around. He didn’t hold any discriminatory views, but in times like this, shouldn’t the man be the one worrying about the woman? …Well, Tsutomu had, until just moments ago, completely forgotten about his step-sister.
“Um, Nii-san?”
“What is it?”
“Um… your breathing sounds a bit rough.”
“I-Is that so!?”
He felt a jolt. Certainly, his breathing hadn’t returned to normal. The afterglow of his abnormal proximity with Matsurika from moments before still lingered. He gripped the smartphone he’d nearly dropped in his right hand and pressed his left hand firmly against his chest. He could feel his heart pounding. Being pointed out made it race even more.
“Could you have caught a cold, perhaps?”
“No, I don’t think it’s anything like that…”
“You did bring an umbrella, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re not still wearing wet clothes, are you?”
“I changed properly.”
“Did you take a bath?”
“Took one.”
That was a lie. He’d only taken a shower. And even that had been rushed, affected as he was by Matsurika’s lingering scent. If asked whether he’d been warmed to the core, he could only shake his head. In any case, his step-sister on the other end of the line couldn’t see his face, so a little deception wouldn’t be caught.
“What about you? How are things on your end?”
“Me? Everything’s as usual.”
“…If you say so. But with weather like this, and trains stopped, don’t push yourself.”
“I don’t need to be told that. I was actually worried that Nii-san might try to go to your part-time job even on a day like this.”
That had hit fairly close to home. If the store manager hadn’t said anything, he would have shown up for work today as usual. His commute was within walking distance, so it wouldn’t have been a major problem, but the combo of exhaustion and being soaked to the bone felt like a one-way ticket to getting sick. And yet, Tsutomu could vividly imagine that future for himself. He found himself nodding, No wonder she’s worried.
“And besides, Nii-san…”
While Tsutomu was nodding to himself, his step-sister’s nagging continued endlessly.
…
“Are you listening, Nii-san?”
“I’m listening, but can we hang up soon? I still have things to do here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. It’s already this late! Well, I’ll contact you again.”
“…You don’t have to.”
“Honestly!”
With a slightly annoyed voice as her final word, his step-sister ended the call. He stared at his phone with a sigh, thinking that the one remark he’d added at the end might have been unnecessary. If she’d been in a bad mood, that would have reignited the fire and led to a long, tedious lecture.
“Phew…”
He tossed the smartphone onto the sofa. The call with his step-sister had gone on longer than expected, leaving him with a sense of fatigue throughout his body. But something good had come of it, too. Perhaps because of the time that had passed, he’d managed to regain his composure.
“Here.”
A glass was set down on the table with a soft clink. It was filled to the brim with barley tea. Matsurika had poured it for him. When he lightly raised his head, she was standing there, bringing her own glass of barley tea to her lips. During Tsutomu’s call with his step-sister, she had buttoned up her dress shirt properly. As before, she wore nothing underneath, and her faintly flushed white legs remained boldly exposed. Even that alone was enough to be a feast for the eyes—no, poison for the eyes—but whether she knew it or not, she made no move to hide them. No, the perceptive Matsurika surely noticed Tsutomu’s gaze. He couldn’t grasp her intention, but it felt like she was just being stubborn.
Matsurika had been watching Tsutomu during the call with curiosity, but perhaps because it went on too long, she seemed to grow bored partway through, and smoothly stood up and headed to the kitchen. She took out the barley tea from the refrigerator, poured it into a freshly washed glass, and dropped in some ice; the cool clinking sound echoed through the room. While conversing with his step-sister through the phone, Tsutomu had watched the entire scene. Since he was on a call, there was no way to stop her. There was no reason to stop her, and no problem with it either, so he didn’t mind in the least. But after what had just happened, his body was flushed with heat, and even aside from that, it was the rainy season, so it was humid and muggy. It was no surprise she was thirsty. Tsutomu’s throat was parched too.
“Who was that call from?”
Matsurika, having sat down beside Tsutomu, asked. Although the maddening heat from just before the call had subsided, feeling her body heat beside him was somehow uncomfortable. But deliberately opening a distance would feel just as pathetic. So, moistening his throat with barley tea, he held his ground.
“My step-sister.”
“Your sister? Kariya-kun, you have siblings?”
On Matsurika’s too-perfect face spread pure surprise.
“Is it that strange that I have a step-sister?”
“No, it’s not strange, but… what is it? Something’s bothering me.”
With her lips pressed against the glass, Matsurika kept tilting her head.
“Earlier, you said you’ve been cooking since you were a child, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t your sister help you?”
“Huh?”
This time, it was Tsutomu’s turn to tilt his head. There was no way he’d had a step-sister when he was a child. The conversation just didn’t line up. He realized that there seemed to be a gap in their understanding. He adjusted his glasses, put a hand on his chin, and thought for a moment.
“Ah, I see. Tachibana, you’ve got the wrong idea.”
“Wrong idea?”
“That’s right. When I say ‘sister,’ we’re not connected by blood. She’s my step-sister.”
“Step-sister?”
“Right. My mom remarried when I was in my second year of middle school.”
His step-sister was his stepfather’s child from a previous marriage. Or rather, one could also say Tsutomu was his mother’s child from a previous marriage.
“Ever since I can remember, it was a single-mother household. I handled most of the housework.”
“Ah, that explains it.”
Matsurika nodded, her expression saying, Did I ask something I shouldn’t have? At the same time, she seemed to understand. Not wanting to make her worry, Tsutomu continued.
“It’s nothing to be concerned about.”
“Is that… so? Um, can I ask something a little more probing?”
When he spoke nonchalantly, as if it were nothing at all, Matsurika latched on. Her eyes, unable to hide her interest, were sparkling. He couldn’t quite tell what had piqued her curiosity, but he smiled wryly, thinking, Well, no harm in it.
“Go ahead.”
“Oh, no, it’s just… I wondered if Kariya-kun doesn’t get along with your family.”
What emerged from Matsurika’s uncharacteristically hesitant attitude was an unexpected remark. Because she added, “I somehow sensed distance,” he found himself seized by a strange sense of dissonance. The question itself wasn’t all that strange, and it certainly wasn’t unpleasant, but—
What is this feeling?
His mouth had stopped moving. She wasn’t pitying him. He’d seen that kind of face countless times since childhood. She wasn’t sympathizing either. And of course, she wasn’t mocking him.
Expectation, then?
There was no basis for it, but that’s what he felt. And he probably wasn’t too far off the mark. It felt close to the intent directed at him by his mother, his stepfather, and his teachers when they spoke of his grades with delight. But what, exactly, did Matsurika expect from the story that Tsutomu came from a single-mother household and his parents had remarried? He felt the cold of the glass in his hand. Staring at the swaying brown surface, he searched for the words to answer.
“…Yeah, I don’t think we get along all that well.”
It’s not that we’re on bad terms, though. When he added that in a self-deprecating tone, he heard a sharp intake of breath from beside him. But she didn’t stop him. If anything, Matsurika leaned in even more. Her black hair cascaded smoothly from her shoulders, and the collarbone and cleavage visible through the unbuttoned collar were starkly vivid. Her pink lips remained pressed tightly together, but Matsurika looked like she wanted to hear the story.
Telling her… it’s probably fine.
He’d never told anyone about any of this before. He’d thought about keeping it sealed in his heart forever. But he’d also wanted someone to listen. If it was Matsurika, he felt he could talk about it. The reason, he himself didn’t quite understand.
“Well, um… you see.”
Amid the roaring sound of wind and rain, the words that had been locked deep in Tsutomu’s chest began to spill out, little by little.