Kaede's POV
My bedroom ceiling was plain white. As uninteresting as any ceiling you'd find in any room on Earth. Yet I stared at it for a long time after Wataru had stormed off.
My past was playing out in front of me like an old film reel.
I was never popular in Middle School. I was a girl too serious for her own good, and with a sense of righteousness that teetered towards being a nuisance. Whenever my classmates started goofing around, I'd be there to tell them off. Looking back, I was a total killjoy.
Naturally, I was lonely.
Until a certain girl befriended me.
Images of my past best friend flashed before my eyes, projected on the white mundane ceiling. A girl with straight black hair and a beautiful face. She turned the heads of boys in awe, and girls in admiration... and sometimes jealousy. In all of those images, she was smiling.
A phrase I used to say to her often suddenly crossed my mind.
Mimuru, you are the sun.
Hahaha~ what does that mean silly? She would respond.
A small smile tugged at my lips as I looked back at those memories with fondness.
But then the images flashing across my vision started changing. At first, it wasn't a major change; my friend simply lost a bit of her confidence.
That was around the time when some girls were being a bit mean to her. Out of jealousy, of course. It wasn't anything serious. A remark here and there. Nothing that anyone would call 'bullying'.
I gulped. My body, still in bed, began to tremble. Tears welled up in my eyes, brimming. But they didn't fall, for I couldn't blink them away. My eyes was fixed on the past unfolding before them.
I knew what would happen next.
I saw myself talking to Mimuru during lunch. Telling her to stand up for herself.
That was the biggest mistake of my life.
Because what started as me encouraging my best friend to retaliate against our classmates, ended up involving parents. Parents who just so happened to be as arrogant as their children. Pompous and snobbish, with power to make people lose their jobs, relocate, and scramble their lives like it was nothing.
It was back then that I realised the truth of our world. Our society.
I gritted my teeth, remembering the unfairness of it all. Images of my last moments with my best friend invaded my vision. By then, all the light had gone out from her eyes. That was the last I'd seen of her before her family relocated.
I closed my eyes, but the images kept on playing on the back of my eyelids. I tried to reach out to her. Tried to rewrite the past. But right then, a knock at my door snapped me out of my misery.
"Kaede, dinner is ready," said Mom.
"Coming." my voice sounded hoarse, even to my own ears.
I lay in bed for a few more minutes, unable to move. I hadn't had a chance to dry my hair since Wataru came in, and it dried on its own while I relived the painful past.
"I suddenly want to talk to Rin..."
Sighing, I stood up and packed my memories away. But in the back of my head, one fact remained as clear as it always has been.
My irresponsible righteousness destroyed not only my best friend's life, but also her family's.
*
We had curry rice for dinner that day. The rich, mildly spicy sauce soaked into the fluffy white rice, warming us from the inside out. But that did nothing to melt the ice that had frozen over my heart from the anxiety.
Sitting at the dinner table, I kept unconsciously stealing glances at Wataru.
"What to do..." my thoughts accidentally slipped out.
"Hm~ What is it dear?" said Mom.
"It's nothing. Cram school stuff." I lied.
The truth was that I didn't know how to treat Wataru anymore. Call it trauma, but all this time, I'd been taking the opposite approach of what I did back then with Mimiru.
I made sure he didn't aim too high in life and kept him away from the power-hungry people of the West. I was aware of how cruel it was. Evil, even. But it was my form of protection. My will.
Yet despite all that I'd done, we found ourselves moving forward as a family, with Wataru taking a front seat.
I put a piece of potato in my mouth. It was mushy and soaked in curry sauce, but my mind was elsewhere, and I couldn't savour the flavour.
"Haaaa" not for the first time that day, I let out a sigh.
After much deliberation, I decided that all I could do then was slowly fix our distorted sibling relationship. That way, I'd be better positioned to help him out with whatever comes up in the future.
I couldn't do much about my bossy attitude. It's just who I am. But I thought that if I showed my caring side in a different way, things may slowly start changing for the better.
As we ate, Wataru never looked my way. He didn't look pissed off or anything. But, frankly speaking, it would've been better if he was mad at me. After all, the opposite of love is not hate.
It's cold indifference.
This is going to be tough.
Realizing that the road towards a normal sibling dynamic was going to be a long one, I decided to take a small step forward.
Using my chopsticks, I started arranging some carrot slices on the side of my plate. One. Two. Three... Once I had gathered a few, I grabbed them all at once and placed them in Wataru's plate.
Wataru loves carrots.
That was all I did. No words were said. No looks exchanged. It was almost like a silent 'sorry' for whatever one-sided misunderstanding happened earlier, when he rushed out of my room.
Curious to see if my intentions reached him, I stole a glance at his face. His jaw was hung open, eyes staring at me, unblinking.
That's weird. I was sure he likes carrots.
Such thoughts went through my head as I continued eating my curry.
*
What the **** just happened?
Carrots?! What? Why???
Such thoughts went through Wataru's head as he could no longer enjoy his curry.