Chapter 7 ~ Mine?

After finishing dinner, helping Mom clear the table, and doing my homework, I'm leaning back on a zaisu^[1] in the living room and half-watching TV.

Mom's got work early tomorrow morning, so she's already asleep in her room.

I've still gotta take a bath, I think, slightly dreading stuff like the short dryer cord or dealing with moisturizing.

Footsteps approach the living room. I turn toward the sound as Ren soon appears. She usually shuts herself up in her room except for meals, so her coming into the living room is pretty rare. I'm a little surprised, unsure if I should comment or not.

Ren's looking down as she starts power-walking toward me as fast as she can.

She settles onto my lap.

My view of the TV instantly disappears. My body's trembling, my mind's shaking, I'm completely overwhelmed from this sudden ambush.

"Uhh, Ren, what're you doing...?"

"We used to do this all the time."

"Sure, but..."

She certainly used to sit on my lap and watch anime like this. When we were little. Now everything's different, from our builds to our relationship. She used to fit snugly in my lap, but now she's so big she completely blocks the TV. I don't even know what to do with her long limbs.

"I'll stop if you hate it."

"I don't."

I really don't hate it, I'm just baffled. Even though Ren's so much bigger than me, she's so slender and toned that this isn't heavy or painful in the slightest.

"Then let's stay like this," she says, leaning against me. She's stiff and awkward when she's usually so effortlessly limber.

What in the world was going on? Question marks circle my head. My blood's rushing. Ren might not be heavy, but for some reason my heart's beating so fast that it hurts. I can barely breathe.

"Ren, what's with you all of a sudden?" I ask to relieve my discomfort, if only a little.

"Don't worry about it."

Her tone is as distant as always, but that's it. Everything else is so much closer.

"All right."

I barely manage even that, between the beats of my restless heart.

"More importantly, your hands."

"My hands?"

"I don't... think it was like this before..." Ren mutters, her tone searching. "Sorry, I mean..."

"Okay, already."

The second I reply, Ren takes my hands under her armpits and wraps them around her.

"Ren...?" I can't help but ask.

"Was like this before."

I certainly did snuggle Ren in my lap when we were kids, now that I think about it, but things are different now. We've grown up, and this formerly heartwarming composition now evokes terms like 'an act of embrace' or 'a hug from behind.'

"But I'll stop if you don't like it."

Words as cold as ever. Unlike before, however, I sense a little flicker of anxiety in her voice. Instinctively, I want to reassure her.

"It's totally fine," I say, smiling even though she can't see it. Then I stroke Ren's hair, like I used to. Her hair is shorter than it was and a little damp, like she's just bathed. Running my fingers through the strands stirs up the scent of her shampoo. It should be the same as mine, and yet it smells unbearably sweet.

Delighted, Ren's taut body slowly uncoils. This position's slightly awkward, but that doesn't matter. I'm the unreasonable one.

Despite what I said earlier, this is not okay at all.

There's a huge difference in our proximity from earlier, to say nothing of her gentle warmth, her skin so soft that it felt overpowering. Lamplight flickers in my blinking eyes. I can't hear anything from the TV.

Then, as if my heart's beating wasn't already in the danger zone, Ren murmurs in an atypical tone bordering on saccharine.

"More."

Hearing this, I realize beyond any doubt that I'm doing something wrong. If I thought about it objectively, we're just sisters peacefully relaxing on the same zaisu together, but my heart's beating way too fast and Ren's acting way too spoiled for that to be all.

It's probably because of the temperature difference between this spoiled Ren and her usual, ice-cold self. That's all it is, I reason to myself. Because Ren's acting so far outside her normal, it's drawing me in and making me act weird, too. My thundering heartbeat, my burning face, the cloying mood, they're all normal reactions.

With that mindset, enough of my composure returns that, for the first time in a while, I feel the urge to say something sisterly, "In any case, Ren, you've grown so much."

"Not really," she replies as bluntly as always.

"Haven't you gotten a bit too big nowadays to act this clingy...?" I continue in my sisterly tone.

Am I getting a little too carried away? I wait for Ren's reaction.

"I'm not that clingy. It's normal," she says with her habitual indifference, sure enough. Except she's still leaning on me, and she lowers her head so I can comb her hair more easily.

It's so incredibly charming, so utterly adorable, that before I know it my feverishly beating heart has disappeared somewhere. It's just so nice to be alone with my sister, for the first time in ages.

Ren's sitting in my lap. I cuddle her while stroking her hair, which is so high up from me. This warm, strange moment drifts by. I absolutely loved how silly it was that, however tall she grows, however beautiful she becomes, Ren is my little sister.

An older sister should protect her little baby sister. I bask in that elder sisterly feeling.

Then Ren asks in a monotone, "You got a love letter?"

"Y-Yeah. It might be a mistake, though."

"Oh."

The droning TV absorbs her murmur, and soon my field of vision completely changes.

Ren turns around in my lap to face me directly, pressing me into the zaisu's backrest. Her larger body leans further to completely cover me.

I gaze up at Ren's towering expression as she quickly closes the distance. Her wide, catlike pupils, her long eyelashes, her thin lips, I stare at everything filling my vision, utterly captivated by how seriously beautiful she's become.

"You can't date someone like that."

Such cold, stiff words, except everything about the Ren filling my vision conveys earnestness. Her eyes, her glare bore holes into me.

"What do you mean, I can't..."

I don't get what she's trying to say. I can't understand anything because Ren's face and body heat are so close that my heart starts hammering again.

"Because you're my sister, Onee-chan."

'Onee-chan.' The feeling of that word doesn't match her tone. I don't understand anything at all. In my bewilderment, Ren's body separates from mine as if she was never there. The pressure in my chest suddenly lifts. I'm a little reluctant to part from her body heat, her scent.

"I'm going to bed."

"Oh. Good night," I mutter, astonished, unable to process any of what just happened.

"Also, forget what I just said."

With that, Ren leaves the living room.