Kano POV.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
“Yep. Working fine, looks like.”
After parting from Yuito, I got home and checked that the remote-surveillance app I’d secretly installed when I borrowed his phone at the café was operating normally.
The remote-surveillance app is a real piece of work — it can quietly read the emails, SMS, LIME messages, and browser history on the target phone, and on top of that it pulls GPS location data.
With it on his phone, I can monitor everything Yuito does, in full, from my own phone. The icon can be hidden, but it does run in the background constantly, which makes his phone heavier — so he might feel something’s off.
But knowing Yuito, he won’t think too deeply about it, so getting caught is basically a non-issue.
“It was originally developed for parents monitoring their kids and anti-theft applications. I’ve really turned into a bad person, huh.”
What I did to Yuito is — needless to say — a crime. But I wanted to monitor him badly enough to do it. Because I am, hopelessly, in love with the human being called Kujo Yuito.
No — love is way too lukewarm a word. I want every last piece of Yuito, and at the same time I genuinely want to become every last piece of him in return.
”…That’s why I lost my composure for once when he said he had a girlfriend.”
The last line of self-restraint that had been holding me back from actually installing the app collapsed completely the moment he said the word girlfriend.
In the end his words were a lie, so all’s well — but if it had been real, if he’d actually been dating some other girl, I don’t know what I would have done in that moment.
“Yuito is — really — someone with the qualifications to be popular, you know.”
He himself might have absolutely no awareness of it, but Yuito does in fact get a fair amount of female attention. Not as much as Ayato, of course, but enough.
The current Yuito has the inferiority complex toward Ayato turned up so high that his self-esteem has tanked, and the warped, gloomy personality has tanked his appeal to girls relative to before — but it’s still not safe.
That’s why I committed to the surveillance now. While I was thinking it, there was a knock at my door and Suzuno came into the room.
“Sis — I sent Yuito-kun a LIME and it’s not getting marked read, and his phone goes straight to voicemail. Do you know anything?”
“Oh — Yuito isn’t going to be contacting you anymore.”
I lied easily, in answer to my sister’s question. Her face filled with confusion.
“What? Why?”
“You’re in love with Ayato, right?”
“Yeah, but what does that have to do with Yuito-kun not contacting me anymore?”
“If Yuito and you keep messaging each other a lot, Ayato might get the wrong idea, right? So I gave Yuito a firm talking-to: in order not to get in the way of you and Ayato, no more contact with my sister going forward.”
“Oh — I see. Ayato has been the jealous type since we were kids, that’s true.”
I rattled off lie after lie and Suzuno bought every word. Unlike me, Suzuno is a pure-hearted person — and deceiving her is, frankly, easy.
“If there’s anything you want to tell Yuito, just go through me and I’ll relay it. And if Yuito has anything for you, I’ll pass it on faithfully. So relax.”
“Thanks, Sis. Right — first thing, can I have Yuito-kun check Ayato’s schedule for next month?”
“Yeah. Your big sister will see to it personally, later.”
That seemed to satisfy her, and she walked out of my room.
”…Suzuno really is so dense.”
She doesn’t realize Yuito is in love with her. And of course she has no idea that the person Ayato is actually in love with is me.
In other words, no matter how hard Suzuno tries, the probability that Ayato will turn around is extremely low. Suzuno is in a hopeless romantic situation — and I, for my part, fully intend to see her love consummated, by whatever means necessary.
That sounds like it might be a generous older sister wishing her cute little sister happiness. It is not. The motive behind it is much more complicated, and much uglier than that.
I do love my own younger sister, Suzuno. And — at the same time — I hate her with a ferocity that is no exaggeration to call possibly the most intense in the entire world.
The reason I, Suzuno’s own older sister, have come to hate her this much is ugly to a degree that makes me hate myself.
“Suzuno probably doesn’t even imagine she’s being hated by me for the crime of being Yuito’s first love.”
Being hated unilaterally for a reason that arbitrary — if I were in her shoes I’d find it unbearable.
But the fact remains that Suzuno took, with no effort whatsoever, the thing I most desperately wanted — Yuito’s first love — and I cannot bring myself to forgive her for it.
“If Suzuno and Ayato get together, then Yuito ends up free. So this is something that benefits not just me but Suzuno too.”
I told myself that. To make Yuito mine and mine alone — I absolutely will get Suzuno and Ayato together. No matter what it takes.