Chapter 106Delicacy is...
"Hey, wake up."
"Hmm...?"
When I opened my eyes, the room was already orange. As I let my eyes wander, the clock was already showing 8 p.m. The room felt cool, even under the summer afternoon sun. The air conditioner in this room seemed to have been left on. The television was still on, showing the screen of the game I was playing. I think I dozed off halfway through and unconsciously lay down on the bed and fell asleep. The backlit shadow staring down at me caught my eye.
"...Big Sis? Welcome home."
"Why are you half asleep? After all, I am at home today."
"...I see."
"I heard that the food for dinner is ready."
"Yeah..."
Once upon a time, there was a man named Sajou Wataru, that's me. I was only 14 years old when Big Sis, who had blonde hair, woke me up by shaking my chest and complaining about how sleepy and cranky I was. Ever since then, her voice has been the strongest alarm on Earth to wake me up. Even though I couldn't open my eyes wide, every corner of my head was channeled and received the full signal. Totally in sleep mode. If she pressed "Sajo1234", I would instantly wake up and stand up. Even so, the only reason I was still half asleep was because of my specification problem in the first place. Seriously, XP.
"..."
"...Eh? Hey, that's my smartphone!"
When I looked up, I found Big Sis holding my smartphone. She glanced at the screen and looked at me with suspicious eyes. Like water seeping in, I gradually realized how serious the situation was, and I hurriedly took my smartphone away from her, even though I had nothing to hide. This smartphone shouldn't have been unlocked in the first place.
"Oh, no, there's nothing strange about it.—"
"Please don't mess with it, okay."
"Oh? Eh?"
Big Sis said something that sounded like advice and left the room. After I thought about it, I found it strange that she took my smartphone without avoiding me. Maybe she wasn't interested in my smartphone, to begin with. You've become much more determined since the beginning of last year, Big Sis!
...No, wait. "Don't mess with it"? I was wondering what that meant..., but I had a bad feeling about this. Is it possible that she didn't unlock my smartphone and see the contents of it...? It makes me think that in this day and age, we can find all sorts of nasty things on the internet, but then she catches us hiding something in our room, hoping to distract her, and she finds out that we're blabbering on the internet!??
I hurriedly checked my smartphone.
"Hieh?"
Many message notifications were appearing on the lock screen of my smartphone. And, maybe it's a feature of this smartphone, but if you flick your finger up and down on the screen, you can check all the unread messages. We can check the content of the message without having to read the message! Hahaha, what a bad feature.
[Aichi! I miss you so much...! Sig, Sig, Sig (//∇//)]
[Gosh... You, Kei, don't say anything weird! (*'')]
Ashida!!! How dare you show up at a time like this! Watch out! (You made me happy!! Thank you so much!!)
So Big Sis saw this message! She must be thinking, "Eh, what kind of girls are hanging out with my little bro?". What the heck are you guys doing, you idiots? (Please do it again!)
It's so weird... I wonder what this is because I just woke up, but I can't get angry at how much it makes me jealous... but somewhere deep down, I feel pleasure and excitement. I had a picture in my head of the two of them making out, but I had already seen something similar to that at school before, even more vividly, and it was rather pleasant.
"I told you, the dinner is ready!"
"Okay, then! On my way there!!!"
I've woken up.
♦
[Give me a minute!]
After the 100,000 dollars incident, Natsukawa stopped replying to me. I felt like I had done something wrong, but I needed some time to clear my head for a moment, so I felt like it wasn't a good outcome. I ended up playing games and falling asleep.
[Eh, you see, I think I'm a bit desperate...]
Finally, after 1 hour had passed, that was the reply she gave me. I'd rather know what she was thinking for 1 hour. Or rather, I want to get to know Natsukawa better. By the way, I don't think any high school students in Japan earn 100,000 dollars. In this day and age, if your name sells, you can earn 10,000,000 yen a year from advertising revenue. Young people who can capitalize on things like social media accounts and video websites are truly amazing. How many cups of boba milk tea can they drink to create content? Can't they just eat a macaroon every day? Geez... I'm thinking like a high school girl.
"I ate this, okay... eh!"
I digested the unread messages thoroughly, along with the food piling up in my stomach. In the middle of the story, I enjoyed the chat between the excitement of Ashida who seemed to be satisfying her desires and the embarrassment of Natsukawa who seemed to be a Goddess who looked down on this world, and towards the end, I realized that they were chatting about my part-time job.
[Sajocchi, you didn't make her cry again, did you?]
[As expected... ...but I have an idea that Wataru doesn't seem to talk much to that quiet girl...]
[I wonder if he talked about something insensitive to that girl...]
No, no, I didn't make her cry, really, neither yesterday nor today, so that's what matters. Yeah, I didn't make her laugh either. Wait, shouldn't they be talking about this kind of thing in a group chat that I'm not in? Great, it's perfectly reasonable that they're giving me criticism in a bad place.
[His delicacy is... ...hmm.]
Wow! Ashida, d*mn you!
She may have wrapped up the message subtly, but in reality, it wasn't!! She just gouged my stomach with a straight punch right down the center! That's worse than Big Sis' Cobra Twist!!!
[If Aichi said that, then it must be true! That Sajocchi... ...Eh? Did Sajocchi see our chat? Our messages were read by him...]
[Eh!?]
[Huh? I didn't see anything, did I?]
[You saw our messages, right!]
[No, really, I didn't see anything. I'm sensitive enough not to interrupt girls' chatting. Instead, I'm the kind of guy who helps my female classmates who are having doubts. Yeah, I'm maybe just a failed guy who doesn't even make 100,000 dollars a year and has to be supported by my parents. I'll look forward to connecting with you guys, okay?]
[Wow, how troublesome!]
[E-Eh, that's why...!]
[Oh, Ashida-san, it seems like you haven't finished your summer vacation homework yet, huh? I'm sorry for bothering you to study.]
[Ew! You're making me so upset!]
Unbeknownst to me, I found myself standing in the middle of my room, and frantically opened my smartphone. It's true, it's hard not to feel upset when someone suddenly says that to you. I mean, is it true or not? Yeah, I am a real guy. If I didn't have delicacy here, I might have taken advantage of Ashida and ignored Natsukawa as well. Yeah, yeah, am I sure about that? A while ago I might have done that without thinking. Oh... I know it's too late, but I've done that many times. I wonder why I thought she wouldn't hate me..., I remembered it myself and it hurt me...
[I-It seems like Wataru is acting like he's my little bro...]
[Hnggh... ...That's right! Sajocchi bought us drinks a few days ago! That guy knows how to treat girls!]
[Oh! Yeah, that's right! Or rather, you're talking about Airi because you got a bit carried away!]
[Sorry, calm down. I'm kinda sorry about that. Thank you for your compliments, that's enough. I'm satisfied].
[What the heck is this guy!?]
No, I'm depressed. It's like being a wise man— Hmm, does it feel like I'm in a zone? My black history turned out to be a very destructive force for me. Strangely, maybe looking at myself in the mirror will be effective. All of a sudden, I felt calm. Great, now I feel like thinking about something. I can think about a dark organization that doesn't even exist.
"Huh...?"
Take a deep breath. Let it go.
I need to calm myself down. After that, we talked about how tired we were, and the chat shifted to my part-time job. My mind was in turmoil, but strangely, I didn't think too much about it, and it seemed like I could get away with it.
[So, in the end, what happened to that girl?]
[Her Big Bro, whom she cared about a lot, had a girlfriend. Hence, she had no other choice but to break away from him, and she started working part-time under the pretense of "independence", so she couldn't just give up like that.]
[Wow... ...that girl told you a lot.]
[Oh, so that's why you talked to me about Airi...]
[Sajocchi... ...I think he used the wrong example...]
Secretly, I had also realized that earlier.
TL: Reeze27
ED: Reeze27
PR: Reeze27
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