Chapter 17: 26 January: My Thoughts and Your Resolutions

Translator: Soafp

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“I associated Ginro-san’s image with…. my sister who is the one responsible for giving me trauma—-“

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[Suzune PoV]

After that argument-like situation, we finished eating our curry in an awkward atmosphere and sat together on the living room sofa.

“Yuran…”

I wanted to know Yuran’s true feelings. It was clear to me that he was hiding something he couldn’t tell me.

In the quiet living room, Yuran’s hand remained silent, so I held it. It’s not easy to let out what you’ve been keeping inside.

I’ve experienced this many times in my short life. I know the pain, so I waited. I waited next to Yuran until he was ready to speak.

I love Yuran. No, it’s more than that. I think about Yuran all the time.

So, no matter what cruel truth Yuran might tell me, I…

“Gin…ro…san…”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe… I’m going to hurt you now.”

“I know, I’m prepared for that.”

“…Not saying anything is… running away, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I want you to tell me… Even if you try to hide it and be vague, I think it will create a big gap in our relationship from now on.”

“That is why, I want you to tell me.”

Yuran was still keeping his face down. I didn’t know what thoughts were racing through his mind right now, but one thing I could say for sure: I would accept everything about Yuran.

So…

“Ginro-san!”

“Y-Tes!”

I came out all of a sudden.

Earlier, Yuran had his head down, but now he was looking straight into my eyes. It seemed like he had made up his mind.

“…Ginro-san… I…”

“….”

“I associated Ginro-san image with my sister…. who is the one responsible for giving me trauma—-“

“…Eh?”

The truth Yuran told me left me speechless. I associated with his sister…?

“What do you mean?”

I couldn’t understand it in my head, and I involuntarily let out a voice. Why did I associate with his sister? Was this what Yuran meant by the ‘secret’ that had pushed his this far?

“You are different.. I wasn’t just associating your image with my sister.”

Yuran seemed to be carefully choosing his words, trying to express himself properly. However, I couldn’t understand his true feelings with just that.

“…I don’t get it, Yuran.”

“…I…I…”

“It’s okay. I affirm everything about you.”

“…Ginro-san…”

I squeezed the hand I was holding even tighter. It was a sign of my determination.

“I’m with you.”

That was my declaration. Yuran seemed to have made up his mind, raised his face, and began to speak.

“….I never told Ginro, did I?”

“Yes.”

“About the time when I was traumatized.”

“…!””

I had told him the reason for my trauma, but I had never asked him the reason for Yuran’s trauma.

“I was…. r*ped… by…. my own sister.”

“R-r*ped?”

R*ped…..It can’t be.

“I was locked up in a room with no sunlight for a few days, and during that time my sister… used me as a sex toy.”

“…Such thing…”

Yuran’s trauma was much more gruesome than I had imagined.

I remember that Yuran told me that he had a sister and a younger sister who were not related by blood, but I never thought that she had been done that kind of thing to him.

“I was scared… every day that I had spent happily until yesterday was destroyed in an instant.”

“Yeah.”

“The fact that my own sister was looking at me as a s*xual object, even though we are not blood related, and the fact that I was locked up for days… it was like a nightmare that came over me.”

“And then… she spread the video of me doing it to my friends at my school.”

“…!”

“Of course, everyone saw me as a psycho, and I was increasingly ostracized.”

“…..I was even told by one of my childhood friends that I didn’t need to live.”

….I know the pain of being marginalized by unspoken rumors…so I understand Yuran’s pain even more.

He suffered many times more than I did.

“It may sound strange to tell you this, but I had feelings of…trust…or maybe even love…for my childhood friend.”

“…yes.”

“But she told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t worth living, and I think that was the main reason I developed a phobia of women.”

“So I ran away and came to this town.”

“And there I met Ginro-san.”

“….Yeah.”

“You had the same scars as me, and I could only see you… and of course, I fell in love with you…”

“I was convinced that my world, which had no colors, was becoming more and more vivid…”

“I…. love you, Ginro-san.”

I was genuinely happy because it is not often, or almost never, that Yuran expresses his feelings to me, even though I have expressed my feelings to Yuran.

“I love you…I really love you…”

“I love you too…”

“But…”

“Ginro-san is getting closer to my sister.”

“Eh?”

The words that came out of Yuran’s mouth, I’m getting closer as Yuran’s sister, the one whom Yuran should hate, the one who traumatized him? It was hard to believe.

“Why do you think that, Yuran?”

“The kiss yesterday…”

“What ….about the kiss?”

“I tried to stop Ginro-san… but you wouldn’t stop.”

“…”

“That’s when I thought… my sister had done the same thing to me.”

“…”

Ginro-san’s love… for a moment it overlapped with my sister’s insane love for me.

Looking back, I was putting my own lips on Yuran’s without Yuran’s consent… as my own desires dictated.

Memories flash back.

Yesterday at lunchtime, on the rooftop.

[I want to kiss Yuran.]

[Hey Yuran, I want to do it more.]

All the words I said…

…all of this… all of this is my fault…

“………”

“It’s all my fault.”

“Ginro-san…”

“Yuran did nothing wrong, I was only thinking of my own greed, I wanted to kiss Yuran, I was so impatient with that thought that I didn’t even think about Yuran’s feelings at all.”

“Why… did Yuran have to suffer like this? It was all my fault.”

Probably after yesterday’s kiss, Yuran had been thinking that he had compared his sister with me… That’s why he didn’t reply to my LINE and acted as if he didn’t want me to know about it today….

And yet I didn’t think about Yuran, all I could think about was ‘I want you to stop making up smiles’ or ‘you didn’t reply to my LINE’…

I’m an idiot… Why didn’t I realize that I had become the person who only thinks about satisfying my own greed, the thing I hate the most in this world…?

“I’m sorry, Yuran…”

“I was so in love with you, Yuran, that I couldn’t see what was going on around me… I didn’t realize that Yuran was having a bad time… I got carried away… I was… a fool…”

“Ginro-san…”

I unintentionally let go of Yuran’s hand, which I was holding tightly.

I had no right to hold Yuran’s hand from the very beginning, a person like me who only thought of herself was only worth living as her father’s s*xual tool, and seeking happiness like any other person would only hurt the person I love.

“Yuran…I’m sorry…I…”

“I know that Ginro-san loves me… and that’s why I acted that way because you love me.”

“…”

“But I didn’t have the presence of mind at that time, because Ginro-san, who had not shown any sign of such behavior until yesterday, suddenly kissed me, and to be honest, I was confused… that’s why I ended up in this situation.”

“Besides, I said so before, but Ginro-san has a big difference with my sister.”

“Difference?”

“I didn’t have romantic feelings for my sister, but I do for Ginro.”

“….What do you mean?”

“So, it’s about whether you’ve been kissed by someone you like or not…”

“Eh….”

“I love you, Ginro-san, so…”

“Yuran…”

“My heart hurts so much!”

“……..”

“I’m so angry at myself for overlapping the person I love with the figure of the source of my trauma!”

Yuran shoots me a wistful glance.

I’m sure the reason Yuran had been so tormented and had associated me with his traumatizing sister is because he loved me.

He regrets and blames himself for having piled up the person he loves with the person he hates.

Yuran is endlessly sunny and kind, endlessly good-natured and endlessly beautiful.

Yuran has such a heart, that’s why I fell in love with him.

“I’m sorry, Ginro-san… I’m this kind of person.”

“No, my feelings haven’t changed at all. I love Yuran.”

“But I might end up associating you with my sister again.”

“It’s okay, totally fine.”

I love Yuran completely, including all of his traumas. So until the day Yuran gets tired of me, I will never dislike him.

“Ginro-san…”

“I will never dislike Yuran. If Yuran wants to be with someone like me, I will never let go of Yuran’s hand.”

I hold Yuran’s hand again.

I will never let go of Yuran as long as he wants to be with me. I forcefully remind myself of this, calming my wavering heart. The right to be with Yuran that I had been thinking about doesn’t matter at all. As long as Yuran wants to be with me, that alone is the reason for me to be by Yuran’s side.

“I love Yuran.”

“Thank you for loving me despite what I am.”

“Yuran, thank you for loving me despite what I am.”

Yuran’s eyes had warm puddles forming in them, and tears overflowed onto his cheeks.

“Eh? Why am I… crying…”

“You were carrying so much on your mind.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“No need to apologize, Yuran.”

I placed my hand on Yuran’s head, gently stroking his beautiful hair, and pulled him closer to my chest.

“I’ll stay like this until you stop crying.”

“Gusu…..Thank you…”

My clothes got wet from Yuran’s tears, but I didn’t mind. Instead, I was enveloped in a feeling of happiness.

I respect him because there is no one else but him. So, I’ll continue to think about him. I’ll let go of my desires. We don’t need to kiss or have s*x. Just having him there is enough.

I will always love you, Yuran.

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[Yuran PoV]

Some hours had passed since then.

I had poured out everything that I had kept hidden in my heart to Ginro-san, rather impolitely, and then I cried, for some reason I couldn’t quite understand, while lying in Ginro-san’s arms.

“Embarrassing…”

I looked to the side.

Next to me, Ginro-san was sleeping soundly, with a look of contentment on her face.

Regrettably, the ch*st part of her clothes was soaking wet from my tears.

“I’m really sorry…”

But thanks to all that, I had managed to let out everything that had been weighing on me. My heart felt much lighter than before.

I reached out to stroke Ginro-san’s cheek.

“Thank you.”

Kissing her cheek was still too early…

I got up from the sofa, fetched a blanket from my bed, and spread it over Ginro-san.

“Maybe I should buy something as an apology?”

I had caused quite a bit of trouble, and it felt like a gentlemanly obligation to make it up to her.

With that in mind, I grabbed my wallet and headed to the nearby convenience store.

The surroundings were already engulfed in the twilight.

“How many hours did I cry for…”

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“Thank you very much!”

I left the convenience store behind, with the lively voice of the store clerk behind me.

I had bought Ginro-san something that had been in the news recently, “Super Spicy Sweets.” It might sound contradictory, but Ginro-san loved extremely spicy food to the point where it was incomprehensible to ordinary people. She could probably eat a whole bowl of Trinidad Scorpion Butch T peppers (according to Wikipedia) and still say, “Delicious!” with a smile on her face.

Thinking about it that way, the super spicy sweets sold in the convenience store might not be much, but the other day, when a commercial for this sweet aired, he had his eyes sparkling. So, I was sure he would want to try it.

“I wonder if Ginro-san will be pleased.”

I walked briskly back home.

Tonton

Suddenly, I felt a tapping on my shoulder.

“Yes?”

Reflexively, I turned around to see who it was. Ginro-san was really good at concealing her presence, so she would often appear behind me and tap my shoulder. That’s why I developed a habit of turning around quickly when someone tapped my shoulder.

Behind me stood a woman.

However, as Ginro-san had mentioned yesterday, her face was dyed in black, making it impossible to recognize her.

But, as Ginro-san had also said, I didn’t feel my heart racing just from seeing her face.

“What’s… wrong?”

I was surprised by the woman’s sudden appearance, but I had no idea what she was talking about.

However, the next words that came out of her mouth were something I could have never expected.

“Yes?”

“Y-you’re kidding?”

The woman seemed shocked by my reaction, but I still had no idea what she was talking about.

Perhaps… my eyes were too swollen from crying?

…That was possible.

However, the next moment, I heard words that I couldn’t have anticipated.

“Onii-chan?”

“Ha?”

Words that shouldn’t have been uttered.

And in that moment, the black haze that had covered the woman’s face peeled away.

A familiar face was revealed.

It was someone who shouldn’t have been here.

Why…

“Why…why are you here, Mana?”

One of my three younger sisters, Mana, who should not have been in this place, was standing there.