“Good job on the tests, Ryouya-kun.”
“You worked hard.”
On the last day before summer break, after the closing ceremony, Nee-chan and I were at a family restaurant near the school, having the celebration we’d promised Ryouya. He’d cleared the failing line in every subject, which meant my hard work tutoring him had paid off.
“You two — thanks, genuinely. Solo, I would’ve been dead on this set of exams. You saved me.”
“Glad to have been useful to you, Ryouya-kun.”
“When Ryouya’s happy, I’m happy.”
We chatted and ate. A lot had happened in the run-up to finals, but things had settled.
Of course, the things that happened had been engineered by Nee-chan and me. Both of us had known from day one that, if an unremarkable boy like Ryouya started spending so much time around us, he was going to draw negative attention.
But understanding the consequence, we deliberately walked to and from school with him, and visibly chatted with him in the classroom. Predictably, the hate started flowing toward Ryouya.
By the way, the reason Shirogane-san had her wallet in an unusual place that day was that Nee-chan had nudged her there. Through some careful manipulation, Nee-chan had Shirogane-san unconsciously put her wallet in her hand-purse instead of her backpack.
As prep, Nee-chan made sure Shirogane-san overheard talk of a thief before P.E. — and from there, just as we planned, she raised the alarm and the class targeted Ryouya as the culprit.
So why did Nee-chan and I do something this cruel to Ryouya? Simple — we wanted to drive Ryouya to the edge of crisis, then save him, and clear out the obstacles in the same motion.
Ryouya had already had feelings for me and Nee-chan; after that incident, those feelings absolutely intensified. And with Nee-chan’s classroom-wide threat, anyone who might’ve tried to approach Ryouya was gone.
“Now Ryouya belongs only to me and Nee-chan.”
”…Hm. Did you say something?”
“Nothing. Talking to myself.”
I’d accidentally let my thoughts out loud. While I was covering for it, Nee-chan pivoted to another topic with Ryouya.
“Anyway — what should we do for summer break tomorrow? Since we’ll be playing every day, basically anything is on the table.”
“Right — you did say every day. You haven’t, uh, changed your mind…?”
“As if I would.”
“Mm. Ryouya is on the hook every day.”
I was genuinely looking forward to the long summer ahead. The three of us — me, Nee-chan, and Ryouya — were going to build a lot of memories.