Get me a sister
Get me a sister
"Aren't you going?" Haru glances at her hands and then, at her face. "Stop him, Iori."
"I don't want to." She takes a glass of beer and swallows it all. "If he wants to be like this, let him be. Obviously, I am not important to him. If we were truly friends or something more, he wouldn't have ended everything like this. I am not the same high school girl, Haru. I won't chase after him or stop him from creating more messes. I also have a life and a heart. I get hurt too. If he's doing this because he wants to hurt me, I don't want to be with a person like him."
Not giving them another glance, she walks out of the bar. She looks at the time on her wristwatch. There was a time when love was a priority in her life. She believed in fairytales and love at first sight. She had been wrong about many things. Maybe she's wrong about this too. She is turning away because he turned away from her first. It hurts, though. In an instant, she lost both her love and her childhood friend. This is her choice. She's choosing her pride.
The cab stops in front of her. Kinoshita Iori gets into the cab and tells the address to the cab driver.
In the bar, Takeshi exchanges the number with the woman and walks back to Haru. He already noticed that Iori left. He sits beside Haru and pours himself a drink. He drinks it in silence until Haru speaks.
"Takeshi, are you an idiot?" Haru shakes his head at him. "I didn't call you here to flirt with women. I called you here to make up with Iori."
"Who said that I want to make up with her?" Takeshi asks him with a quiet voice. "I was serious when I said that everything ended between us."
"You shit-head!" Haru smacks Takeshi's head. "She has feelings for you too, dimwit. There's still time. Go after her. Meet her at her house. She will really marry you before the year ends if you go now."
"I don't want to marry her." Takeshi exhales. "Do you think that she has feelings for me? How come I am the one always telling her that I love her? No, let's forget about that. How could she not give me a call after she found out what happened if she had some feelings for me? Even after the interview, she didn't come to see me once. Can I trust her now? If something happens in my family again, would she be a reporter or a friend first? I don't want to be around someone I can't trust. I know that she cares about her career, but I didn't expect that she is the type of person who would go to any extent."
"But your brother and sister-in-law are fine with it." Haru takes the drink from Takeshi's hands. " Listen to me, Takeshi. Human beings make mistakes all the time. She must be regretting it."
"They might be fine with it, but I am not." Takeshi crosses his arms and raises his head, looking at the ceiling with blurry eyes. "She doesn't regret it. She regrets not calling me or talking to me, but she doesn't regret doing that."
"Darn!" Haru runs his fingers through his hair in frustration. He didn't expect this fight to become like this. "Takeshi, can you live without her? If you let her go, you may have to endure seeing her with someone else. We both know that you love her more."
"Yeah." He shuts his eyes. "I love her more than she loves me. I still love her. But it feels like we are wrong for each other. From being friends to love and from love to nothing…"
"You are the one who chose this." He slaps Takeshi's head again who doesn't react to him. "Both of you are stubborn about useless things. If one won't bend, how will it ever work? Why I am I advising these people? I am going to drink myself to death today."
"Go ahead." Takeshi glances at the glass with a lipstick mark on the table. He fills it with beer and picks up the glass. "I hope you find the fairytale that you were always seeking."
He drinks from the glass while listening to Haru's rants.
***
"Why is she not out yet?" Yuta looks up at his father. "You said that she's going to come out today."
"She's going to come out." Kiyohira is also feeling anxious despite the cool look on his face. "She should come out today."
He can't wait for a minute more. He has waited for so many months.
"She's coming out." Takeshi points at the gate. A woman steps out of the gate while holding a baby in her arms. Kiyohira takes long strides toward her. Without a word, he wraps his arms around her shoulders with the two-month-old baby sandwiched between them.
This stupid woman! Kiyohira kisses her head. He feels like life has returned to his body now.
When the baby starts crying, Rie pushes her husband away. "What are you doing to our second son? Do you want to suffocate him?"
Yuta lets out a heavy sigh when he sees the baby. The baby is small and chubby. His dreams of having a little sister had been destroyed two months ago when he found out that he got a little brother instead of a little sister.
Life isn't working out as he planned. Even getting cousin sisters is impossible now. Aunt Iori hasn't talked to him since Uncle Takeshi's birthday. His father has been unable to make Uncle Takeshi speak. However, his uncle has been going on blind dates with women. Regardless of that, his uncle is still single. No relationship lasted more than time spent on the blind date.
"I am sorry." Kiyohira scratches his ear and looks at his second son. The baby stops crying and raises his head to look at his father. It's not the first time they met. "Do you know who I am?"
Yuta slams his forehead. Does his father expect a two-month-old baby to answer him?
"Wa-Wa." The baby raises his small arms, looking at him with bright eyes. "Waa~"
Kiyohira looks at Rie. "What is he saying?"
Her husband is an idiot. Rie squints her eyes at him. Why did she marry this idiot?
"Tell me." Kiyohira is nervous. Their eldest son is an adult in a boy's body. So, things were different with him. But their second son is a real baby. He has only seen him from the other side of the glass.
"Sho wants you to hold him." She shoves their son into her husband's arms. "How difficult is this to understand?"
Kiyohira becomes stiff when he holds the baby in his arms. "I am scared."
"Of a baby?" Yuta walks toward them. "What can he do? He can't even clean his own poop."
"Yuta, you were also like him." Rie snorts. "You gave me more troubles. Your younger brother is more well-behaved."
Yuta glares at the baby boy in his father's arms. "You were supposed to be my little sister."
"Brothers are good too," Takeshi tells him and laughs.
"I agree." Kiyohira smiles when Sho touches Kiyohira's face with his small hands. "Yuta, you wanted to become an ideal big brother. Now, it's your chance."
"Oh?" Rie raises her brow. "Yuta wants to be an ideal big brother. I am excited to see that."
"I wanted to be an ideal big brother to a little sister." Yuta huffs at his father. "You didn't keep your promise to me."
"Why are you scolding me?" Kiyohira pats his second son's back. "Your mother and I are still young. We will keep trying until we give you a sister."
These two are making decisions on their own. It's her who will give birth, not them. Rie bends down on her knees and cups her son's face. "Yuta, do you want a sister that much?"
"Mother, it's fine." Yuta coils his arms around her neck. "It's not your fault. I will manage with my little brother. Father owes me one for not giving me a sister."
He narrows his eyes on the bubbly baby. He's going to raise this baby like a little sister.
"No, that won't do." Rie grins at him. "We will adopt a daughter."
"Is that all right?" Kiyohira asks Rie. "He said that he didn't want us to adopt."
"He was young back then." Rie glances at him. "I want a daughter too… a daughter as cute as Yuta."
"We can just--" Kiyohira closes his mouth when he sees Rie's glare. He clears his throat. "We will do as you say."
Let it be. He took that promise from his father to make his parents grow closer. They seem close enough now. His father is rich. If an orphan is adopted, that child's life might change into something better. He's sure that his parents will love the adopted child as their own.
"Fine then, I will be lenient this time. Get me a sister." He pauses for a moment. "But Mother, you have to always love me more than them. In your heart, I should have a bigger place than anyone else."
"You will always have a bigger place." Rie hugs Yuta tightly. "Let's get you a sister and then, we will send you to school together."
What? Not that nightmare again.
Little Sho sees his elder brother looking horrified face, earning a scowl from him.