A quiet and small chat around the table, Yuki didn’t imagihis to be how he’d talk to Yumi for the first time. Well properly for the first time. Outside of school they had never crossed paths. Though giveuation, it seemed iable.

  “Uh, sure, I don’t mind. What is it?”

  “How do you…pick?” She noticed he only gave her a head tilt. “The path…you follow…”

  He leaned ba his chair. “That’s a lot…heavier sort of question than I was expeg. I figured it was going to be Momo and me.”

  “Momo?”

  “Yeah. Oh I guess it’s Momoko around here.”

  “Oh Miss Momoko! I’m so sorry!”

  “It’s fine. I don’t mind breaking script, it’s a little refreshing than the same expnations.”

  “Script?”

  He smiled back trying to brush past the fusion. “The path I follow, huh? I think that’s the first time I’ve been asked that. Read it a lot of times, got lots of answers.” Yuki returned his gaze back to a pletely lost Yumi. “None of which are what you’re looking for. You’re not looking for a cheap line from a five hundred yen light novel.”

  Was that supposed to be more f for Yumi?

  Chapter 32 – Matter of Self

  Putting questionable preambles aside, Yuki had to sider the question. It felt random. But the look she gave him told him otherwise. Something weighed on her. She wanted help. “I havely been alive long enough freat life experiences, so you’ll have tive me if it doesn’t e out super sage like.”

  “That’s…okay…”

  “The path I take is filled with so mas and failures. I made a lot of mistakes. I still do! But I keep going forward because I made a promise…” He drifted off again. The sound of beeping of medical instruments tapped on the back of his mind. Pain coughing wormed into his ears. Shallow breaths drawn out with a struggle gripped his arms.

  “Promise?”

  Yumi’s voiapped him out of his haze. “ht, right! It’s what guides me. It makes me want to do better. To not foy past that I ’t ge, but towards my future which still be different.” He rubbed his hands together. “That probably sounds pretentious ing from a fifteen year old!”

  A rough ugh came out of him. “What teenager knows about real pain as, right? They’d probably yell at me!”

  “I don’t think so!”

  “Yumi…”

  Yumi carried a surprisingly assertive expression. She leaned in, pressing her hands together. The depth behind his words went over her, but she felt his words all the same. It was familiar. She uood them. “We might be…kids, children still…but we still…suffer too!”

  “You’re right…” He ughed again, fixing up his facade. “I didn’t mean to get into such heavy topibsp; Not sure if that answered your question.”

  “It did…” The words from Yuki eased her mind. Turmoil and doubt started to bee like a fog, something traversable now. She walked back through the memories of her past. They didn’t feel like s for once.

  Yumi sat at the kit table alone. The lights remained off in the house as it no longer felt familiar. She held her head down oable with her hair c up her face.

  Unnoticed by her, Yori returned home from elementary school. He walked around to her side trying to see what was wrong with her. When he called out to her she didn’t answer, remaining in silenbsp; He pced his hand on her shoulder hoping that he could get her attention. “Yumi?” However, he was not expeg what happened.

  Yumi jumped up from her chair grabbing Yori by the waist and plunging her fato his shirt g. He was taken aback by her rea and colpsed to the floor not certain what to do as his sister couldn’t st. “She’s not here! She’s not here! I want to see mom!”

  “…Yumi…I-I…” Yori held Yumi in his arms as she kept g.

  “…I want…”

  “I didn’t know…I…won’t let you be alone, Yumi!”

  She paused iears for a moment pulling herself away to look at Yori. The words had given her a little strength to be able to break through the emotions. “Yori? You…”

  “I promise you, Yumi! So you don’t have to cry anymore. I’m here.”

  “I’m not alone?”

  Yori helped her get ba her feet and clear up her tears. It was obvious to him how upset she still was about the matter. “Let’s make something to eat. You’ll feel better!” He started to walk her over to the kit looking back at Yumi, he was holding on to her hand to give her something stable.

  “ you cook?”

  “Sure! And you help me!”

  “But I-I don’t know…”

  “It’ll be fine. We make something for mom as well.”

  So many of the memories g to her, yet they lost some of the weight. Yumi stood up from the table, finding energy ba her body. ‘I o talk to him…’ A fident smile came over her. She nodded internally over matters.

  She found herself walking over to the locker, but stopped when someone called to her. They came from behind her, Yuki of course. “Huh?”

  “You going somewhere?”

  Blinking, she remembered where she stood. Yumi looked down at her store uniform and back to the door. Miss Momoko stood oher side. “I’m sorry! I got distracted.” She turned away from the locker.

  “If you have somewhere you o be, I’m not going to stop you. I tell Momo–”

  “No! I’ll finish…my shift.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  Yumi walked back to the table to up. “I am.” With his job done, Yuki started to slip away from her. It wasn’t until she finished ing everything up in the bag that she even noticed. “Um…Thank you!” She smiled with some relief.

  There seemed to be more to it. He tilted his head a little trying to search out what he felt. Nothing would be found. “You’re wele! I’m gd I was of some help.” Yuki o her and opehe door to leave.

  The shift at the bookstore finally ended grantihe ce she sought. Excitement and eagerness surrounded her in ways that were unfamiliar. She accepted the feelings, fog on the ride home. Leaving the bus stop, Yumi saw her house at the far end of the street. Those feelings began to drain away some as the moment approached.

  She still mao walk up to the house and open the door without pause. Shoes at the entraold what she already wanted. “I’m home.” By the time she left her shoes behind, Yori appeared out of the kit.

  “Wele home.” There was something a little off about Yumi. He narrowed his eyes trying to read her for the answer. “Did something happen?”

  “Yes, do you have time to talk?”

  Yori raised his eyebrow with curiosity. He leaned bato the kit hearing the bubbling of the pot oove. Quickly, he jumped over to get dinner bader trol. “Give me a minute.”

  She nodded, having followed him into the kit. While Yori set the food to a lower heat, she took a seat at the table. The bus ride did little to prepare her. In faone of her thoughts went towards any sort of pn. Now in the moment, that felt like an ht. ‘I hope I speak as clearly as Hayashi did.’

  With dinner safe, Yori sat down with his sister at the table. “What did you want to talk about, Yumi?”

  “I thought about what you said.” She focused on Yuki’s words for dire. The path to take held at the fork. She had to make a pibsp; “I…uand where you’re ing from.”

  “Yes, because they’re trouble. It’s simple to see.”

  “Please, brother…” She waited to see him nodded slowly. Once he was listening, she tinued. “I’m grateful for everything that you’ve done.” Her mind wandered between her friends and Yori. The past loomed in the background tied to them. A past like Yuki mentioned.

  A past not to be trolled by.

  “You’ve done so mue. And Kaede and Katsumi too. When things were bad for me, I had them for support. You’ve all supported me so much, I couldn’t be happier to have you. But I want to be able to make my own choiow.”

  “Yumi?”

  “I don’t need all the prote. I’m not a child anymore. I want to stand and walk my own way. I want to make my own mistakes and fail.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Please don’t interfere with my css. If my cssmates cause trouble, please let the teachers ha. I’ll be fine. If something does happen, I have Kaede and Katsumi at my side. You be your own person, brother. You don’t o keep proteg.”

  “Yumi…I…please…I’m doing this for you.”

  “Because I needed you when I was younger. But I want to…I o walk.”

  Yori ched his hands together as he pressed his weight against the table. ions rose to the surface for him. He struggled to uand what they were. Each popped and repced with another. And across from him, his sister sat there fag him directly. It didn’t make any sense. What was happening?

  His sister watched the different expressions roll over his fabsp; She hardly knew what went through him. All of the murk that bound her seemed to have transferred. Watg the sight left her in silence for a while. Each sed hoped for the uanding she wanted. “Please, brother. I’m not turning you away. I just want to find my own experience.”

  He shook his head, clearing everything out. “No. No! Yumi, nothing has to ge. You do that and still…”

  “Please uand. I’ll still ask you for help when I get lost. But let me look.”

  “If you still need me.”

  “Of course, you’re my only brother. We’re family.”

  “Thank you. You’ll not do anything to push for their suspension?”

  A slow and distant nod came from Yori. He agreed, though it seemed like other thoughts haunted him. His fingers rubbed against the gss oable. It was a different sight than she was used to seeing her brother in. Nothing further came out of him. She could only leave him to his thoughts. Yori would uand in time. That was certain.

  Yumi walked out of the kit. She picked the right turn in the hall. A warmth covered her as she saw something new and different in front of her for the first time. It looked exg. She wao know what was ahead. But that art of the experienbsp; ‘Thank you…Yuki…’