Interlude 2

“—Don’t look at anyone but me.”

With those words, the man presses his hand against the wall over the girl’s shoulder.

“Hwaaaah…”

Yuuri covers her face with both hands, staring intently at the shoujo manga as if devouring it.

That’s not it.

She hadn’t meant to look at something like this.

Today, she finally got a smartphone. She’d already been told by Yamanashi that an SNS app called LIME was useful for messaging.

So, she immediately asked for her family’s LIME contacts, but she couldn’t get her brother’s.

The reason, of course, was that she didn’t have the courage to talk to him.

—I thought I could talk about things I normally can’t through smartphone messages!

But Yuuri isn’t one to give up so easily.

Her brother also uses an SNS app called Batsutter. It’s supposedly highly anonymous, so she had the ulterior motive of interacting with him while hiding that she’s his sister.

That’s why she installed it on her phone, but she couldn’t figure out her brother’s account.

Searching aimlessly wouldn’t help a beginner identify someone on a highly anonymous app.

At a loss, a web ad for a manga popped up.

The content was just an ordinary manga. Hardly any sexual content, it’s the kind of romance manga even an elementary schooler could read.

But Yuuri, who’d always followed her brother around since childhood, naturally shared his hobbies. She’d read manga before, but only the shounen manga her brother owned.

As her first shoujo manga, this might’ve been a bit too stimulating.

Covering her face, she flips the page, curious about what happens next.

“Eh, it ends here?”

Apparently, she’d need to install an app to read the rest.

—Ugh, installing an unfamiliar app feels kinda scary…

A manga app was too high a hurdle for a smartphone newbie to tackle without consulting anyone.

With no choice, she goes back to the pages she can read.

“Hawaaa…”

She covers her face with both hands again. Feeling like that’s not enough, she closes one eye.

She knows it’s pointless since she can still see clearly through the gaps in her fingers, but it slightly eases her embarrassment.

And so, she returns to that earlier page.

A kabe-don.

She’d heard the term before. Yamanashi once said she wanted to take a photo in that situation, but Yuuri refused, finding it kinda scary.

Imagining herself in that scenario, her heart inevitably starts racing.

The face of the other person is, naturally, her brother’s.

His hand presses over her shoulder, trapping her with no escape, and though she’s trembling with fear, she can feel her heart pounding as their faces draw closer. Her brother, with teary eyes…

“—Wait, why are the roles reversed?!”

That’s not right.

She’s the one who’s supposed to be flustered.

—But, isn’t this kinda… okay too?

Imagining her brother like a small, vulnerable animal stirs a thrilling, forbidden feeling inside her.

Rolling around on her bed, she suddenly snaps back to reality with a sigh.

“…Well, it’s not like this would ever actually happen.”

She feels like she’s already overcomplicating things, but as long as it’s just a fantasy, it won’t bother anyone.

She never even considered that such a fantasy could one day become reality.