Chapter 19 ~ Bandage?

"Truthfully, it's Ren I love."

Shimamoto-san's words run through my mind, over and over. I scramble the contents of the frying pan with my cooking chopsticks like I'm scraping them out, instead. The smell of ginger fills the area. Chicken breasts sizzle as they cook. I'm working on autopilot, the process intimately familiar by now. If I let my mind wander, my thoughts would drag my awareness along with it. I'd get distracted. The next thing I knew, I'd be trapped in a mental dead end once again.

This isn't the first time Ren's been sought after. With her sports skills, her incredible looks, her popularity is no surprise at all. Nevertheless, my being directly confronted by that leaves me shaken. I don't understand why, nor why I'm so gloomy, which makes me even more upset. It's wonderful that Ren has so many different people attracted to her. I should be proud as her older sister. Why can't I feel unabashedly happy about that?

I shake the frying pan, as if shaking these doubts loose.

I'm her older sister, I have to be better than this.

I focus and rally myself once again.

The front door rattles open, as if responding to my mental cue. Ren shows up in the kitchen with quiet footsteps.

"Welcome home, Ren."

"Thanks... hey, so."

Ren looks like she wants to say something. She looks down, then comes near me.

"Feed me today, too," she says, indicating the bandage on her right wrist. She looks and sounds so mature but is acting so childish that I'm utterly captivated by her.

"Of course."

My mouth moves of its own accord while I'm staring at Ren. Lately, I've often thought that I'm spoiling her way too much.

"Thanks."

Still emotionless as she expresses her gratitude, and so incredibly beautiful. I feel a strange desire to see her expression crack a little, at least enough to smile or something. I can't easily remember her past expressions anymore, when they were so fervent.

I absently stare at her while musing.

"That's enough, right?" she says, glancing down at my hands.

I follow her gaze to find the chicken burning in the frying pan.

Panicked, I kill the heat.

After some finessing, like putting the worst of the charred parts on my plate, I got dinner ready without further issue.

Ren had returned to her room, but was back at the dining table with perfect timing. She sat down next to me like it was nothing. A smile unconsciously

couldn't help but smile at how natural this was becoming.

"What's that smile for?" Ren asks coldly.

"Sorry, it's nothing. Let's eat." I sit in my chair and say, "Enjoy."

Ren joins me in clapping her hands together, then stares insistently at me.

I smile and hold a piece of chicken out to her. She snaps it up. A small morsel, as usual.

I'm experienced enough to feed Ren well as I work through my own meal. Obviously, she looks dissatisfied if I take my eyes off her too much, so I occasionally exchange glances with her.

As our unusual dinner continues, Ren finishes chewing and asks, out of the blue, "You're kinda weird today, what's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, you burned the food, you keep looking at me, it's weird."

I'm surprised twice over by the question: her sharp intuition and how much I'd been involuntarily watching her.

"Nothing, really."

I certainly can't say that I knew Shimamoto-san's true feelings without a good reason, so I lie and look away. She immediately leaps into questioning me, however.

"Don't tell me, the person who confessed to you before said something else...?" she says, shoving herself forward.

Her severe beauty and intense pressure, coupled with her great figure, makes me feel like I've been cornered. She's too close, in other words. My vision's filled with beautiful stimuli: her long eyelashes, her lustrous lips. My heart starts beating faster as if by reflex.

As I feel like I've fallen into a bit of a bind, the front door opens. Ren reflexively moves away. Mom soon arrives at the dining table.

"I'm home... huh? Am I dreaming? Are you two getting along, sitting together and eating dinner?"

She looks puzzled, so I rush into an explanation.

"Ren seems to have hurt her wrist, so I've been feeding her instead."

With that, Mom notices the bandage on Ren's wrist and quickly rushes over.

"That's terrible. How's your wrist feel? You okay? Let me see what it looks like."

Like any medical worker worth her salt would, she unwraps the bandage on Ren's wrist.

"Ah," Ren yelps, as if panicked somehow.

Her wrist is exposed immediately afterward: as fair and beautiful as her other one. Seemingly nothing wrong with it.

"Just from a quick glance, nothing's out of the order here," Mom mutters, perplexed.

"It got better... I didn't realize," Ren says.

With that, she vigorously scarfs down the rest of her food. Not at all like her tiny bites before, she nimbly downs everything.

"Thanks for the food," she says, and again she vigorously hurries back to her room. Though she tried to act calm, her face was bright red.

For some reason, that red makes my heart skip a beat.