“Hey, Allicia, let’s go out together”, I said to the closed door of her bedroom.

 [Go out?! Like, in a date?!?!?!?]

 “Uuh… sure?”, I think you could call it a date, technically, even if it wasn’t the most appropriate term.

 […Give me a moment. I’ll put on something cutter.]

 “Alright! I’m gonna prepare myself too!”, I walked to my bedroom across the corridor, and put on some black jeans and a gray oversized hoodie. My hair was naturally straight, and it felt just in place over my left eye, so it didn’t need much combing, but I made sure to put on deodorant. Everyone should use deodorant, whenever they go out. That’s the bare minimum.

 Meanwhile, I asked myself where we should go first? The park should have a crepe vendor, it could be a fun experience, but maybe somewhere like the mall, where Allicia could see a lot of people would help more?

 [I’m ready!], the message vibrated in my pocket, and I went back to the bedroom door.

 “knock, knock!”

 “S-So…”, Allicia slowly opened the door to reveal herself wearing a black miniskirt and a white button-up shirt with a thin black jacket over it. She looked just amazing. Actually, she looked so cute, she might even get hit on if I didn’t stay close enough to her that day! “Where are we going?”, she asked, and before I could answer, I breathed in her fruity perfume. It almost made me want to eat her, so sweet it was.

 “I was thinking about the park. This season, it should be quite pretty with the falling leaves and all.”

 “Of course, the seasons… I almost forgot that this was a thing. With AC, I basically live in a perpetually slightly chili world, hehe.”

 “Yeah… it’s better to enjoy the seasons on the outside anyway?”, I forced myself to smile. “Anyway, should we go?”, I started to descend the stairs, and my little sister followed me.

 By the kitchen, I looked over my shoulder. And saw Allicia starting to shake a little. Perhaps she was a bit nervous about going out after so much time stuck in her bedroom?

 Finally, I opened the door to outside, stepped through the threshold, and turned back. Only to see my little sister frozen at the limit of our house, hugging herself.

 Allicia held her hand over her heart, grasping at her shirt, she looked even more pale than usual, her legs were shaking, and sweat was sprouting from her forehead and dripping from her nose and chin.

 “Allicia, are you okay?!”, I approached her, and held her shoulders.

 “I-I-I…”

 “It’s alright, I’m here, take your time”, I tried to calm her down, and she stepped back and away from the door.

 “…I don’t think I can leave this house just yet...”, Allicia finally spoke, looking down, and saddened. “Whenever I think about the outside world, I…! Gurh! I’m sorry”, she closed her teary eyes shut. And I closed the exit of the house behind me.

 I approached my little sister, and hugged her delicately.

 “It’s alright, Allicia. It’s alright. We don’t need to do everything at once. We can start from the beginning.”

 “But, what now? You even asked me on a date, but I can’t even step outside…”

 “Well, technically you already are outside. How long has it been since you left your bedroom?”, I asked with a tender smile on my face. “We can explore this house. You’re already making progress, Allicia.”

 The girl on my arms smiled shyly, and dug her head on my chest. With a muffled voice, she replied: “Okay.”

 We started from the kitchen. I showed Allicia all the new equipment I had bought with time to help me cook, and she was genuinely impressed with the cleanliness of the place, the organization, and the pile of cookbooks on a bookshelf.

 “Can you cook all of this?!”

 “Well, someone has to have been preparing your food all of this time, right? Who do you think it was? Our untie barely stops at home.”

 “It was you all this time?!”, she turned to me with awe and shock on her face while holding one of the cookbooks, mouth gaping and eyes wide. I even felt a little prideful at that. Then, she concluded, raising a thumb up: “You’ll make an excellent wife someday.”

 “I won’t be anyone’s wife!”

Next, we explored the living room.

 It was a simple room, with a large mat, a TV, a fireplace, a couch, and an armchair only, but it was one of the most emotionally heavy rooms in the entire house.

 “Do you remember?”, I asked her, as the two of us sat side by side on one of the corners of the sofa, both of us staring at the armchair. “That was dad’s special place.”

 “Yeah, he never let anyone else sit on there when he wanted to sit down… Thinking back, he may have been autistic or something.”

 “…Don’t say these things about our deceased parents”, I facepalmed.

 “Mom would always lay down on the sofa, like this”, Allicia got comfortable, and rested her head on one of the armrests of the sofa, her legs resting on my lap. They almost weighed nothing. “And the two of us would be playing right there”, she pointed to the center of the room, before the fireplace.

 “Yes, we would build Lego houses, create whole families, and play with them.”

 “Like some sort of child The Sims.”

 “It was fun”, even though it was a bit weird we always ended up marrying our characters with each other. But, well, at least I had the tact to not talk about that out loud.

 Next, we visited my bedroom. It was quite simple when compared with my little sister’s, but also way more well organized; I had a bookshelf filled with mostly culinary books, but also some classic literature, a notebook I used mostly to watch YouTube, see some memes, and research stuff for homework, my bed, and my closet.

 “Humph!”, Allicia jumped on my bed without thinking twice, and I had to look away when I caught a glimpse of the black panties under her miniskirt. “Huuuuf… Huuuuf…!”, she smelled my pillow without a shame in the world.

 “Um… What are you doing?”

  “Wah! T-Testing the PH of your bed?”, she seemed to finally remember I was in the room with her. “You know, important chemicals can affect everything about your body, including your bone and muscle development, like your well-defined jawline could be gone within days with the right conditions, and by the way, have you been mewing?”

 “What the fuck is ‘mewing’?”

 “Just forget about it…”, Allicia’s shoulders slanted down, as her cheeks reddened. She finally perked up once again and sat up on my bed. “Hey… Thank you for all of this. It has been a long time since I got anywhere other than the bathroom and my bedroom.”

 “You don’t need to thank me, I’m just happy to see your smile”, I replied, and Allicia’s smiled, silly, her cheeks gaining some color, and she started to wave her legs back and forth. “Plus, the one who actually had this idea was Sarah anyway, so if anyone should be thanked, it should be her.”

  “What?”, Allicia froze in place, her legs stopping moving, and her eyes went wide. The color from her cheeks vanished. “It was that woman… Again…”

 “Uhm? Yeah, it was her who had the idea, we discussed it while on the way back home and-”

 “I don’t need to hear one more thing!”, Allicia suddenly got back up again, and stared at me with a frown. “…I’m going back to my bedroom.”

 “Wait, what? Allicia!”, I tried to follow my little sister, but she slammed the door to her bedroom shut behind her.

 What have I done wrong then? I couldn’t tell… But I was back at stage zero, right when I thought we had done some progress…