Chapter 1 - Part three

“I’m back”, I said when the door closed behind me, aware that my parents wouldn’t be there and I’m back to an empty house. Furthermore my brother was abroad. At least until now.

“Hey Nao! Me too”. My brother winked at me.

“Yu! You are back!” I flung my arms around his neck. “I really missed you!”

Yuichi was 2 years older than me, and he looked gorgeous, I had to admit as his sister. Sadly he almost never was at home. He was studying abroad. Since childhood, since he was 10, he was living in Germany. The year my grandma died he started to live there, so he grew up there. For the funeral he came back to Japan for a few months. Afterwards he disappeared abroad again, but he visited us as often as he could and when he was here we were inseparable. Yuichi wasn’t just my brother, he was my everything. If we weren’t blood related I would have introduced him as my parents’ son-in-law.

“Me too, little sis. What’s for food?”

“Choose something.”

He thought about it and then a big smile took over his face. “How about a Date? We’ll go now, eat a little bit, walk around in the city and enjoy ourselves. Mom and dad aren’t here anyway.” This already sounded like always. A Date, he said, and my heart was jumping with happiness. Finally I can walk around with him and have fun. There wasn’t a lot more amusing things to do.

“Sounds great!”

We went to Yu’s favourite restaurant and ordered Ramen.

 “So, sis, something new I should know?” he winked.

I didn’t know how to answer. What did he want to hear? “What do you mean?” I carefully asked. I didn’t want to say anything wrong to spoil our good moods.

“No boyfriend? No scandal of the year? Or something else which is exciting?”

I had to laugh. “Please, bro, what do you think of me? Of course I don’t have a boyfriend and a scandal I couldn’t even think of it with my personality.” Right, with my calm personality I really wouldn’t be able to, if I weren’t comfortable in my surroundings, because I am too shy. But for the people who know me better, like Yu, they know what I can do.

“What I think of you?” he looked at me meaningfully. “It’s easy: Why doesn’t this beautiful girl in front of me, with this grand personality have a boyfriend?” I looked at him surprised. Beautiful girl he said. “How do you mean that?”

“Well, everyone who has eyes in his head, should try getting near you. Of course, if they seriously would try it I would jump inbetween, because what are they thinking they are doing? To get in the way of me and my beloved sister.” I had to laugh and before I could reply anything he continued. “You probably scare all the guys away, that’s the only logic explanation. Or, there is someone, who is really jealous, and he is scaring everyone away from you.” He grinned at me. I swallowed up on my water.

“Right, whatever you say Yuichi”, I replied when I could breathe again. “Just for your information: I am not interesting! And from your point of view it doesn’t even count. You are my brother.”

“That’s true, but everyone with a right mind should try to win you over!”

Suddenly I had to think about Kento and his words. I looked down and stared at my spoon. I tried avoiding my brothers eyes, didn’t want to show the pain in my eyes which was caused through what happened earlier. He noticed “Nao? What’s wrong? Did something happen? Did I say something wrong?” He lowered his head to look me in the eyes, but I looked away. I just didn’t want him to see my agony which was caused by what I had to hear that day. Or the bad conscience to have caused Mia to break up with her boyfriend. Neither the wrath which I felt towards Kento about what he did to Mia and me. “Say something Nao! What happened?” The worry in his voice made me stagger. I hated it when someone worried about me. I didn’t want anyone to care for me. I always wanted to do things by myself, I thought I’ll manage before someone notices something is wrong or missing. Just with Yuichi it didn’t work. “Nao! Just start talking already!” Just when I wanted to look up and answer him the waitress brought our food. She put it on the table and turned towards Yu: “If you need anything else just call out. I am available for you.” She said leering. I saw how Yu looked up and viewed her, then a sly smile took over his face. After he was sure she saw it he looked away and said: “Thanks, I’ll remember it and in that case call someone else for help.” Dumbfounded the girl looked at him and just wanted to answer when Yuichi demonstratively turned away from her and smiled with his sweetest smile at me. I knew he’ll use me to put on an act, in which everyone around us will think we are the happiest couple on earth. Alright, that would give me more time to think. Yu took my hands in his and started to purr: “Honey, was that alright like this? You know that I just love you and I really don’t want to make you jealous. And I don’t want you to feel left out. Later, when we are at home, I’ll make it up to you.” On my face a really broad grin started to show.

“Yuichi, you really know how you can straighten my mood. I’m looking forward to your compensation. I really hope it’s even better than the last time. But you can’t forget to take precautions. I don’t want to take a risk.” The waitress looked from one to another and left while cursing. I took a deep breath and started to pick holes into my food. Then finally I got a little bit of courage and looked my brother straight into his eyes, after the situation in the restaurant steadied down. He stared curiously back at me. You could see how impatient he was. I knew he still was curious about the thing which was bothering me. So I started to tell him about everything which happened over the day. “Well, you know. Actually I didn’t want to talk about it with anyone.” He got even more impatient so I sighed.

“You know Mia, right?”

“Mia? Your best friend?” I nodded.  “What happened with her?”

“Her boyfriend confessed, that he wants to break up with her to be together with me.” At our table it got really quiet. I waited until he thought about what I just said and hoped for a calm reaction.

“What?! And you are saying that you won’t cause a scandal!” He sounded annoyed. Of course, he thought that’s all and that’s what I didn’t want to talk about. It sounded so harmless to me now that I was saying it, though... he didn’t know the whole story... yet. When he continued to talk I could hear the worry in his voice though and could see it in his eyes. “She, Mia, found out? And now she’s mad at you?”

“THE OPPOSITE! She was the cause of this mess and him confessing.” I complained. “She already suspected it, she said, so she left him a chance to tell me. But when he really did it, it wasn’t enough for him. He even stole my first kiss. And Mia saw all that.” Tears were seen in my eyes when I thought about what went wrong the whole day. Again it got dangerously quiet at our table.

“What did he do?” In Yu’s voice you could hear icy wrath. It scared me. “Tell me who it is and I’ll personally take care of him.” Yuichi got up.

“No stop! I slapped him and then Mia did too. Isn’t that enough?”

“Not at all. Who does he think he is to treat my little sister like this?” The sparkles in his gave me the creeps. “Kento. And what else? His surname?” I stared at him, quietly, not saying a word.

“DAMN NAO! Tell me!”

“Hey, what will you do? Don’t do anything rash.”

“I didn’t want to anyway. I just want to teach him a lesson.” He looked at me and saw my indecisiveness, so he told me: “No, we can’t leave it at that, he kissed you and you slapped him twice. Don’t be scared, I won’t dirty my own hands. Just leave it all to me.” He hugged me. His hug, his warmth had something comforting. The only thing which was making me nervous was the feeling at my leg. Something was softly brushing it. When I looked down I saw something which looked like a cat. It kinda looked like a tiger, and familiar, if something like that could look familiar to a person. Before I could think further about it it ran out of the restaurant and my eyesight. I got rid of Yuichis arms and followed it. I started to slowly remember that something this comforting happened once before. When my grandmother died. But when I reached the streets I couldn’t see the animal anymore. Yu, who ran after me, sounded worried when he asked: “Is something the matter?”

“Didn’t you see it?” I asked, “There was a really big cat in the restaurant.”

My brother looked at me as if I‘d lost my brain. “There wasn’t anything Nao. Let us continue eating. Did you forget that we have a date?” He pulled me back to our table. We sat down and while we were eating I thought about everything we talked about. Did I just imagine the tiger? But the feeling of a déjà-vu just didn’t leave me. The remaining time we just sat quietly across each other.