“I hope she doesn’t mind us surprising her with a visit.” I say as we walk up the stairs. At first, I thought she’d be happy about it. But after seeing Taisei’s reaction to me bringing it up in class, I do have to wonder if she feels the same way. The three of us have always been close. So it would be a shame to have us drift apart because of the year we spent away from each other in school.

“I’m sure she’d love to see us.” He replies. “But we don’t want to bother her too much. She does have her own friends after all.” While I’m not surprised at that fact. It’s pretty easy to forget that when I usually see her along with him. “I guess you haven’t met them yet, but they’ve come over to our house sometimes.”

“I’d love to meet them now.” I respond. It’d be cool meet people she’s on good terms with. If she likes them, then clearly they’re good people. At the same time, I get that bittersweet feeling. Maybe it’s time for me to grow up a little now that I’m in high school. She’s not even my real sister. So I shouldn’t be clinging onto her like I used to when we were kids.

“Hey, guess who’s here?” Taisei opens up the door to her classroom and announces our arrival.

“Ah, Taisei!” Juria’s giddy to see us as she gets up from her desk to give her brother a hug. I see there’s a few other girls who were gathered around her before she moved away.

“And you all must be Juria’s friends, right?” I say to the other girls. Before I’m able to introduce myself, they cut me off.

“You must be Hideumi.” One of them says, extending a hand to me. “Juria’s told us so much about you two actually.” I accept the handshake and they all properly introduce themselves to us.

The first one who cut me off is Iyo. A pretty energetic girl who definitely leads the conversations among this group. The next one is Syaa. She’s the tallest in the group, but it seems she doesn’t want to stand out. There’s a lot to be learned from a handshake. I can feel hers to be nervous as she barely grips my hand. Finally, there’s Hinae, who’s taking a lot of time to inspect me in particular. That’s not a guess from my view. She’s making it clear that’s what she’s doing as we’ve shaken hands for an uncomfortably long time.

“Hinae, he’s nice.” Juria grabs her by the shoulders and gently pulls the girl away. “You don’t need to worry about him.”

“He’s your neighbor right?” She cross her arms and glares over at me. I’m not sure what I’ve done in these few minutes to get her to distrust me already. Hopefully it’s just that she cares a lot for her friends well-being. Even though I already know I’d never even think of harming anyone.

“Yes, I already told you that we’ve known each other since we were children.” It’s a bit concerning that there’s someone here who’s suspicious of me. Maybe this was what Taisei was worried about as well.

“It’s fine.” It doesn’t seem like it coming from her end. “I’m not that worried about him.”

“And you don’t have to worry about me either.” Taisei jumps into the conversation. “We just wanted to say hello. You know, since it’s our first day here.” He then comes from behind and grabs me by the shoulders. “We got to get back to our class now.”

“What? But we just got here…” I try to protest, but he quickly pulls us out of the classroom in a flash. “What’s wrong with you?” I ask him as we return down to our floor. “Is there something up between you two?”

“No, we’re cool.” He answers. “Look…” The boy takes me aside where no one can see or hear our conversation. “Me and her talked about this before school.” Apparently they both were aware I might be a bit too uppity about the three of us reuniting. That was the impression he got from the year we spent as just the two of us at school. “We don’t need to keep seeing her all the time.”

“But there’s nothing wrong with hanging out with her, right?” As long as I still make friends with the rest of my class. I don’t see a problem with that.

“No, there isn’t.” He sighs, hanging his head down. “I didn’t want to admit it to you, but... I don’t want to be seen as some little brother who needs his sister all the time.”

“Huh?” I never even once considered that notion until he brought it up.

“I think you forget, but she is my sister after all. It might not seem weird for you to want to be with her, but I don’t want people to get the wrong idea.”

“I-I’m so sorry.” That makes much more sense now. I bow my head down to him to ask for forgiveness. “It’s my fault. I should’ve consider your feelings more.”

“You don’t need to do that either!” I guess I’m pretty good at embarrassing him since now that boy’s got a blush running across his face. “Sheesh, and you said I’m the one who over thinks things. I never said you can’t hang out with her or anything. I’m just saying you don’t me to come along with too, that’s all.”

I see. I can live with that arrangement. Though judging by all the friends she has. Juria probably doesn’t want me to come by for lunch either. It’s just a part of growing up, I guess.

So we go about the rest of our day uneventfully. I’m surprised there isn’t anything special for the rest of today considering it’s still our first day of high school. Guess that’s just how things roll around here.

“Hey, just to let you know…” Taisei speaks up right as school ends. “You don’t have to join the same club as me.”

“What!?”

“Relax.” He chuckles, seeing that my mind is still on our conversation from earlier. “I mean, don’t feel like you have to play ball with me. If there’s something else you’re interested in, go ahead and choose what you like. You can even just go home if you want.”

“I feel like I’m going to get scolded if I just go home.” My eyes droop at the thought of hearing my parents telling me I should stay at school to enjoy a club activity. “Let me check out the board.” I spend a good few minutes scanning the board in the hallway for potential clubs for me to join. “Nope, none of them interest me.” Looks like I’ll be heading home today.

That presents an opportunity I’ve been hoping for. No, I didn’t just say I wasn’t interested in clubs because then I could walk home with Juria. It just turned out that way in the end.

“There she is right now.” He points her out to me as the girl descends the stairs. “I gotta go meet up with the guys to try out for sports. I’ll see you back home.”

“I’ll see you too!” I call out to me as he rushes outside towards a bunch of strong looking guys.

“He’s been looking forward to joining a high school sports club for a long time now.” Juria says as she gets close. “It’s no wonder he didn’t want to say bye to his big sister before going.”

“That’s just how he is now, I guess.” I respond. He really does want to make a name for himself at this school, doesn’t he? Even if that’s not the case, I’ll do whatever it takes to support his dream. That boy would do the same for me. There’s no doubt about that.

“Are you not joining him?” She asks. “I thought you two were going to go one together?”

“Actually, I think I’m going to join the go home club.” I answer. “I hope you don’t mind if we walk home together.” Despite always doing it back in junior high. My chest feels tight just saying the words. It’s like I’m worried she’s going to decline my offer or tell me to join a club no matter what.

“Hehe, sure we can do that.” Instead, she just giggles and accepts my offer.