Piano & Little Sister (2)

꒰ঌ Piano & Little Sister 2

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When I returned home, my younger twin sister was on her phone in the living room. My sister's name is Uzumaki Naruko. She has orange eyes and the same red hair as mine that she usually wore in low pigtails held by a small braided segment of hair. Both her ears are pierced and her long fingernails are manicured to a glossy shine. Her face is attractive enough to turn heads just by itself, but she always makes sure to carefully apply her makeup. She carries herself with an air of maturity almost unseen in high school age. Her frame is tall and slender, but her figure is undoubtedly filled out in all the right places. If only she also had a knack for singing, she could have easily been a popular idol in the entertainment industry. Moreover, she's also attended a prestigious all-girls high school in Tokyo, being invited as an honor student with very good grades.

I'm not just saying these things because I'm her brother. My sister is truly refined. It's also not as if I want to portray her as the perfect sister. My male friends often tell me they're jealous of me for having such a sister, and while I can understand where they're coming from, I really wish they wouldn't joke around like that. Honestly, I wonder if other people with sisters might understand my position. In reality, though, my sister isn't that great. Well, at least to me she isn't. Take this as an example: in a typical high school class, there are usually a few closely knit groups of friends. Within those groups, one group stands out as the most outstanding. This is the group with lots of remarkable characters — the popular student who gets along with everyone, the genius who's also quite handsome, and the incredibly cute girl, among others. Even within that outstanding group, one girl still stands out as the most refined, and that girl is my sister. She's the kind of person who lives in a different world, who you always hesitate before talking to, after all, she won't really be interested in what you're saying, right? She is the so-called 'highest level girl'. People might think that this sounds like a good thing, but she's the kind of girl who doesn't pair well with the average guy. Now, imagine being related to that kind of girl.

"I'm home." I decided to go for a rather polite greeting, but not only did she not respond, she didn't even glance in my direction.

Donning her sailor fuku uniform, Naruko was sunk into the sofa, her legs crossed under her very short skirt. She was on her phone with an amused expression, chuckling occasionally. "What? Seriously? Why'd he do that? Ahaha, what an idiot."

The true idiot is me, for trying to talk to you! Cursing mentally, I looked inside the refrigerator. I found a bottle of cola, and pouring it into a glass, I downed it in a single gulp. Feeling refreshed, I left the room.

"Uh-huh, uh-huh… alright. Let me change and I'll go right away."

It's already getting so late, but she's still going off somewhere? Well, in any case, it doesn't concern me. My heart murmuring, I went up the stairs. My home consists of a single house built with two stories. Since my father had long passed away, my family only includes my sister and me, along with our mother for a total of three people. We're a reasonably well off and wholly unremarkable household. My room and my sister's room are both on the second floor.

After relaxing in my room for a few minutes I went back downstairs. Before starting to study, I wanted to use the restroom. Incidentally, when I go down the stairs into the entryway, on my left hand side there is a door to the living room.

"Ah." Near the entrance, I bumped into my sister, who had also changed out of her uniform. There had always been a blind spot here in our house, so it wasn't unusual to bump into people here. My left shoulder lightly crashed into Naruko's chest. The impact itself was not very impressive, but in that instant my sister let go of her bag and its contents spilled onto the floor.

"Sorry." After my simple apology, I tried to reach down to the various cosmetic products that had spilled onto the floor, but when she saw what I was doing, Naruko quickly swept my hand away with her open palm.

"Wha—" Looking back up, I was left speechless by the sharp glare I found waiting for me.

"It's okay. Don't touch it." Only saying that much, she began to quietly gather her spilled belongings by herself.

Whoa… she gave me a bad feeling there… is it that bad if I touch the stuff she was holding? I looked silently down at my sister as she expressionlessly picked up her things. An awkward tension filled the entryway. My sister turned her back on me, and hurriedly put on her shoes.

"I'm off, see you later," she muttered this like it was an annoying formality, and shut the front door with a bang. There you have it. This is what my relationship with my sister has become. Well, it's not like I was offended or anything.

Hah, since when has it been like this? I had the feeling that, even for her, there was once a time when it wasn't like this at all. Well, whatever. Whatever. It's a bit irritating, but whatever.

After taking a piss and washing my hands, I dove straight into the sofa in our living room. Picking up one of my Rolling Stone magazines scattered about, I lie on my back with my legs crossed. Wasn't I supposed to start studying? Lying down like that, flipping through and staring intently at the magazine, my mood was filled with an extreme emptiness. This isn't the time to be doing this! My brain was yelling at me, but my extreme sluggishness prevented me from listening to reason.

Ahh… dammit. I really don't want to study. This type of emptiness is probably pretty common for us high school students. Shaking my head like a dog that had its face splashed with water, I finally rose to my feet. Leaving the living room and entering the hallway, I spotted a strange-looking thing.

Huh? It was lying behind the shoebox in our entryway. I hadn't noticed it before, but now I could see half of a gold thin case in the gap between the shoebox and the wall. Well honestly, my curiosity was just another way to procrastinate. As "I don't want to study, I don't want to study," repeats in my head, my brain is constantly trying to find a reason to keep me from studying. Even if doing something like just picking up this strange object only really takes a few seconds. It's really all the fault of the lazy haze I'm in right now.

I dragged out the object from behind the shoebox. What the hell is this? It was definitely not something that I would expect to find in this house. This is… well… what? I held the case between my fingers and took a good look at it, but I still wasn't sure what it was. It was definitely a DVD case. I knew that much. I've seen these types of cases often at video rental stores… well also, 'DVD' was clearly written on the case. But, the contents of that case I could make neither heads nor tails of. I'm sure my facial expression right then was one of puzzled suspicion. On the DVD cover, there was an outrageous drawing of a winged girl with a black and gold theme.

There is so much gold in this girl… l continued to inspect the case like some detective examining evidence. It wasn't just the character; the entire DVD package had plenty of golden colored. Well, that much is fine. But the problem is… what's with this get up? This winged girl was wrapped in a black and gold costume. She has red scarlet eyes and her hair was golden colored, and goes down below her shoulders somewhat, with her fringe standing above her eyes and bangs caressing her face. Her suit is black and gold in color and the mechanical appearance was much more visible. It also exposes a mild amount of her cleavage. Her sleeves are pure black, with golden patches in the bicep and triceps area, her gauntlets are black with gold protrusions on the knuckle. In the upper half of the package, what was probably the title was written in a very round font.

Zodiac Angel… Lucifen? First time… limited edition? What's this? I could go on and on picking out small details, but in short, this was obviously a mahou shoujo anime. I might have been initially confused because I hadn't seen something like this in a long time.

Then… why is something like this here? I held this 'Zodiac Angel Lucifen' thing with both hands and stood still in the entryway. Suddenly, the front door to the house swiftly opened right in front of me.

"I'm home… huh, why are you rolled up like that in the entryway?"

"D-don't worry about it, Mom. I just wanted a change of pace."

Too close! I thought my social life was going down the toilet! But she wasn't mistaken. The instant the door opened, I fell to the floor and rolled up, hiding what I was holding.

Phew… I made it just in time, didn't I? Although I don't know the culprit, maybe this was a trap set for me. If someone witnessed me holding something like this, I would be the laughingstock of the family. I could already imagine Naruko's disdainful stare, as if she was looking at a pile of garbage.

Mom, holding a few bags of groceries, looked down at me sympathetically. "You know, I heard from one of the neighbors. Mental counseling for students is pretty popular nowadays."

"W-wait. Don't be rash. I'm not insane. It's just… today I studied a bit too much, I guess."

"What a lie. There's no way you would stress yourself out so much over studying, is there?"

Ah, even my mother is saying such things to me. Have more confidence in your own son, will you?

"It's not like that. My grades are plenty decent, you know?"

"But that's because of Erza-chan, right? Having such a talented cousin tutoring you, how exactly can you be patting yourself on the back like that? When have you ever liked studying by yourself?"

Dammit, she hit the bulls-eye with that one, and I couldn't respond. After all, up to five minutes ago I was lounging around reading a magazine.

Crawling along the floor like a worm, I hid 'Lucifen' underneath my shirt and tried to escape from that place. Behind my retreating back, my mother called out. "Haruto? I don't mind that much, but in the future, please try not to read your ero book in the entryway."

Dammit, how depressing. Then again, it's to be expected that Mom would guess such things by how strangely I was acting. After all, she had once cleaned my room and accidentally unearthed my secret Icha-Icha collection. But this time, the thing I was hiding did not have such kind of meaning.

Carefully letting my mother walk past, I held the DVD to my chest like a rugby player would hold a ball, and ran up the stairs. Flying into my room, I shut the door, and finally let out a sigh. I slowly took the article out from underneath my shirt, and held it carefully in my right hand. Using my left hand, I wiped the cold sweat off my face. Mission complete. Really, though, I'm used to doing things like this. I won't go into the reasons, but I believe that any healthy high school student would be able to sympathize.

I ended up bringing it up here, didn't I? Squinting at this 'Lucifen' thing in my hands, I grumbled. Well, it can't be helped. If, in the middle of my excuses for not studying, I had suddenly gone "Hey, here's this thing I've also been hiding from you," then I'm sure that would have attracted unwanted interest.

My examination studying time having been cut short by such unavoidable circumstances, I began my inspection of the thing in earnest. My room is six tatami large. There's a bed and a desk. Reference books, manga, CD, music magazines, etc are stored on my bookshelves. And I also have a closet. My carpet was colored blue, and my window curtains were white. On my room wall, there are some posters of FC Barcelona and the Beatle. Other than that, there is a small mini-computer, CD Player, Radio, and audio system. Also, I had already pretty much given up hiding my ero books, so they were being stored in cardboard boxes under my bed. I had once begged my mother, kowtowing to her on the floor, to never clean under my bed. But, I have no reason to believe that she would honor such an agreement, and even if she were checking my collection every so often, I had no way of knowing.

Ugh, I don't even want to think about it! My pride really wouldn't be able to handle that. But at least my collection was not that risqué, so that even if my mother discovered my ero books this wouldn't lead to a family crisis. That's the best defense plan as far as I can tell. I wonder how people without their own private room try to hide things like this… but, in any case, I've never really thought of anything but leaving my door open. I guess it would be pretty spoiled of me, to be troubled by not having a lock on my door. For a few seconds, I mulled over these thoughts.

Then, I sat on the bed and crossed my legs. I took the DVD case in one hand, and rested my chin in the other hand. The more I look at it, the more out of place this thing seems… bathed in the light of a fluorescent lamp, Lucifen's smile sparkled as she raised her whip-like sword.

Hm… well then… who exactly does this belong to? In turn, I went through all the other people in our household. As I thought, there was nobody who I would expect to own such a thing as this 'Zodiac Angel Lucifen'. And, I don't remember ever seeing this DVD being played on the television in our living room. So… what do I make of this? Why was something like this lying there? While I continued my musings, I opened up the case with a click.

Wha—!? I was more puzzled than ever. Much more intensely puzzled than when I had been just looking at the cover. In short, there was no 'Lucifen' DVD inside the DVD case. In its place, there was some other DVD. I guess this kind of stuff happens a lot. For example, after listening to CDs on my CD Player, putting each CD back into their matching case is such a bother that I often end up shuffling them around. But then, I soon have no idea what CD is in which case, and chaos ensues. This is probably what the owner of the 'Lucifen' DVD did; the owner probably put in the DVD, not really caring whether it was the right DVD or not.

Ahh, I understand now. This stuff happens often, after all. But… uhh… why is the title of this DVD Loving my Little Sister? What the hell are you trying to get someone to do? And what's with this quaint little 'R-18' label?

Calm down! Beads of cold sweat gathered on my forehead, and my breathing became ragged. This was bad. This was really bad. I thought about what could have happened in that little scene back there with my mother if she had found this. If I was discovered with this, I would probably have to kill myself. Is this really some sort of trick someone's trying to play on me? I might not deal with this kind of thing often, but my instincts were letting off loud warning bells in my head. What was this dark aura emitting from this title!? Even without the R18 label, the title itself is plenty! The more I thought about it, the more I knew that this was something I definitely could not continue to hold onto…

"Haruto… are you studying properly?"

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!" Giving out an agonizing cry, I dove under my futon. Peeking out towards the door, I saw my mother looking dumbfounded at my strange behavior.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"D-don't worry about it Mom. It was just speaking practice… but please, please knock next time!"

"I see, I'll be sure to do that from now on." With a forced smile and a knowing expression, Mom left and shut the door.

No good… it's a good thing I managed to hide this thing at the last second, but Mom definitely has the wrong idea now…!

Dammit. Today has been such a terrible day… and all the blame is on this thing. Still under my futon covers, I stared at the puzzling DVD case.

Dammit… at this rate, I have to find the owner; I won't be able to live in peace until I do that. I burned with angry determination to find the culprit. But… there's too much I don't know. That is, there's too much I don't know about the owner of this bizarre DVD. The owner of this 'Zodiac Angel Lucifen' case, in which there was this very suspiciously titled 'Loving my Little Sister' thing. If I had to make a prediction, I'd probably guess that whoever owned 'Lucifen' was the same person who owned 'Loving my Little Sister'. And, considering I discovered this article behind our family's shoebox, there was a high probability that the owner was someone in my family — either me, my sister, or my mother. Of course, it's not as if outside people never went in and out of our house, so I can't completely reject the possibility that someone outside our family is the owner. But seriously… who would deliberately come to our house and drop 'Loving my Little Sister' in a 'Zodiac Angel Lucifen' case behind our shoebox? I can't even imagine how that would happen.

Well, for the time being, I feel it would be useless to consider the possibility of an outside owner. For now, let's try to wring the identity of the culprit out from inside the family. Me, my sister, and my mother… out of these three people, one is supposedly the culprit. Objectively speaking, which one is the most suspicious…? 'Zodiac Angel Lucifen' and 'Loving my Little Sister (18)', who would be the most likely owner of these things…?

Well, the answer would be me, and that's annoying. No, no, no. Of course it's not me! But certainly, I guess that I would be the most likely suspect. Man, saying that about myself makes me kind of sad. But that thing obviously isn't mine. Because I really am not that interested in anime. There are a few people in my class who would talk about anime, but we rarely talked about it. But, I mean, I could say the same for all the other members of my family… concluding that, I held my head under my arms, troubled.

Ok. Well, it can't be my mother, right? And my sister… well, she was the first one I had excluded. About five years ago, she may have watched stuff like mahou shoujo anime, but lately she's only been into mainstream dramas and music programs, right? Such childish anime is definitely quite far from Naruko's hobbies and interests. No matter what, I can't possibly imagine her going so far as buying this 'Lucifen' DVD and then watching it. And, as for 'Loving my Little Sister', even thinking she would do that would be repulsive. So, could it possibly be Naruko? The popular high school girl? Just today even, there's no mistaking that she went out to hang out with her friends…

I give up. I'm beyond stumped. My ship of reason had finally run aground. As I thought, the culprit couldn't be in my family, but if I expand the sphere of suspicion to include people outside of the household, there would be so many people to consider that I would surely make no progress. This is useless. I guess I really am not cut out to be a detective.

Well then, what now? This is so annoying… maybe I should just give up? No… as I thought, I can't erase this from my mind. I will definitely find the person responsible.

It was strange, but I had become unusually determined. The usual me would have stopped this investigation right now, and then would have taken a nap until dinner. And, if I had done that, the peaceful life that I had before now would have continued. But, that didn't happen. With purpose, I had decided not to give up the search. Of course, at this point I didn't know why I felt this way, but for better or for worse, I was determined now to be the decider of my own fate. In this case, I decided to go and tread on a huge landmine.

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