Kano POV.
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I’d come home after finishing my college classes feeling extremely low. The high I’d left the house with this morning might as well have been a different lifetime.
“Yuito’s number one is still Suzuno, huh.”
I’d planned to skip all my classes today and nurse Yuito all day. That plan was completely sapped.
“Getting myself hyped up alone — I was so stupid.”
I hadn’t actually planned to sleep with him today. The plan had been the same as always — flash my body, watch him panic, tease him, end of day.
Of course I wasn’t going to make a sick, suffering Yuito do anything. My first time was a moment I wanted to be romantic.
(If Yuito had really pushed for it, I’d have done… up to a point.) But what he said in his sleep was an apology to Suzuno.
The Hakone trip — I’d thought I’d made him aware of me as me significantly. Apparently the wall between me and Suzuno is still very tall.
It was so miserable I just told him it had all been a dream and ran from the situation.
“Suzuno is so enviable.”
Why does Suzuno effortlessly receive the things I would have killed for?
I do love Suzuno, and at the same time I hate her. This is not how a normal older sister feels about her own sister.
I’m pathetic for harboring those feelings. As I was sitting with that, I heard footsteps outside the room.
“Oh — Sis, you’re already home?”
“Welcome back, Suzuno.”
It was Suzuno in her sailor uniform. Apparently after-school time.
“You’ve been getting home late lately — rare.”
“Big sister can have a day like this sometimes.”
“Hey, Yuito-kun was out today — do you know anything, Sis?”
“Yeah, he caught a cold this morning.”
“Right — Ayato-kun was visibly off all day too. Both of them are unwell today, huh.”
She said it without a clue. The reason the brothers are off is us, but she’d never see it.
”…Sis, you look paler than usual. Did something happen?”
“Yeah, several things — pretty tired.”
“Even you can get tired, huh. So that’s why you’re home early.”
Suzuno bought my reason on the spot. She is genuinely simple.
“You look kind of happy — anything good at school?”
“A friend of mine just started dating the boy she’s loved forever. I’d been rooting for her — I got happy too.”
“Huh.”
“Let me share the news with you, since I’m here.”
She started, oblivious to my struggles. I’d planned to half-listen — I had no interest in other people’s love stories.
I did not have it in me to listen to someone else gush. And yet — without realizing it I was engrossed.
“At first the boy was in love with someone else and didn’t see your friend as a romantic prospect at all?”
“Yeah. And she pulled him in until he confessed — it’s incredible.”
“How exactly did she make him see her?”
“So — first…”
The friend’s situation was strikingly similar to mine, and I got pulled in. The more I heard, the more parallel.
”…The blind spot — yeah, that’s a smart approach.”
“So if your guy isn’t turning around, Sis, it’d take courage but you could try this too.”
She left, satisfied. Apparently my love for Yuito had narrowed my field of view dramatically.
“I think I see how to capture Yuito now.”
It would mean a major shift in approach. Failure risk: Yuito hating me. I’d have to endure things I’d rather not endure.
But this approach — leveraging male psychology — would work. I was certain. Yuito might suffer some — but it’s all for our happy future together.
“Wait for me, Yuito — I will make you mine, body and soul.”
A quiet declaration to myself. Round two starts here.