Perfume was a means of becoming an adult, and it was also sort of a way for me to mark Onee-chan.

     I sprayed some of that perfume on my own wrist.

     It had a soft, lemony scent. I bought it thinking that she would like it, but even this had begun to run out.

     I had sprayed it on her clothes and scarf, hoping that even after moving on to Sorahashi Sera’s side, she would still be my Onee-chan. But it didn’t seem like there had been much of a point.

     I got dressed to go out. Was she going to go out today too, out somewhere with Sorahashi Sera? I already understood that I couldn’t do anything to stop her. So I wouldn’t do anything — wouldn’t say anything.

     Although I got changed, I didn’t feel like going anywhere, so I just stared up at the ceiling.

     I stood there daydreaming for a while, and then I heard a knock on the door. It was Onee-chan.

     「Come in.」

     「…Okay.」

     She slowly entered my room. Lately, she hadn’t been wearing her uniform on her days off.

     Although, I guess it was my fault that she usually only wore a uniform. She’d always been looking after me, she hadn’t even had the time to go buy her own clothes. Things weren’t the same as they were before, though — so it was only natural that she’d have normal clothes now.

     I felt like she was losing her sisterly disposition. We used to know everything about each other, but I could no longer understand what she felt. I didn’t even know what to talk to her about.

     「It’s been a while, but would you like to go out somewhere?」

     「…Where?」

     「Anywhere is fine. Is there a place you want to go, Mizuki?」

     「…I’ll decide while we’re walking.」

     「I see. Let’s go, then.」

     Ever since that day that my emotions all flooded out at her, I no longer knew what sort of face to make in front of her. Maybe she felt the same way, seeing as she looked a bit anxious.

     That wasn’t the expression that I wanted to see.

     She naturally tried to walk in front of me, so I sped up and went ahead. I knew that doing this wouldn’t make her rely on me, but at this point, it had become a habit.

     Of course, it was cold outside.

     She had the scarf I’d given her wrapped around her neck.

     Seeing it suddenly made me think of the collar. That white collar, which was without a doubt a present from Sorahashi Sera, certainly did suit Onee-chan. It was pretty weird to think that, though.

     No, in the first place, what was weird was the relationship between those two.

     Pretending to be dogs and touching each other — even perverts had their limits. How did Onee-chan end up in this kind of relationship with Sorahashi Sera? If I had noticed it sooner, could I have put a stop to it?

     I felt a sharp pain inside my nose.

     It was all because of the cold.

     「Mizuki. Are you cold?」

     「Yeah, I am. I feel like I could freeze up.」

     「…Wanna hold hands?」

     I knew that look.

     It was a look that’d been shown to me many times since I was young, the look of a big sister. Kind. Soft. Sweet.

     I loved my kind Onee-chan. Ever since I was little, my wish was to always be with her. But now, even when she looked at me with that same expression as she did back then, I wasn’t happy at all. I felt like I was fading into her past.

     What in the world had I been doing?

     I was supposed to have grown stronger for her, but she hadn’t wanted me to get stronger. Rather, maybe she hadn’t even wanted me.

     I gently took her hand.

     It hurt. Holding her hand hurt, and it was also because of the cold.

     I hated winter.

     「So warm.」

     She said.

     I shook my head.

     「It’s cold. …It’s always been cold.」

     「…Mizuki.」

     「You might be warm, though, Onee-chan.」

     I knew that her heart had been filled, and I knew because she seemed to always be enjoying herself so much as of late. But as if to be the inverse of that, my heart was sinking deeper and deeper. I just continued living on as it remained unfilled and empty.

     「Do you wanna go somewhere warmer?」

     She said, pretending not to notice my heart.

     Just a little, I thought that maybe Onee-chan wasn’t that strong of a person. But I didn’t say anything and just walked along with her.

     The heating in the local shopping mall was so strong that it gave me a headache.

     My cold palms gradually warmed up and the pain stopped.

     We walked through the mall together without saying a word to each other. I occasionally led her by the hand to a general goods store that I felt like she’d be interested in, but her heart seemed to be somewhere else.

     Maybe she was thinking about Sorahashi Sera after all.

     We decided to go to a Hamburg Steak restaurant for lunch. That’s what she always tried to do when she went out. There were plenty of foods I liked though, like Italian and Japanese.

     Her knowledge of me wasn’t up to date. To her, I would always be a small, lonely, crybaby child.

     「This tastes really good.」

     「Yeah, it does.」

     This conversation was totally meaningless.

     She seemed a bit uneasy.

     There was so much I wanted to talk about, but I couldn’t organize my thoughts at all. This was probably one of the downsides of barely having spoken to each other in the past year. Rather than focusing on getting stronger, I should have spent more time talking to her.

     But.

     Even when I spoke to her, she always had her head in the clouds. It was as if she had put up an invisible barrier to avoid any connection with me. I didn’t know why that was, though.

     「Hey, Onee-chan. …What’s your relationship with Sorahashi-san?」

     「Umm… This and that, I guess.」

     I didn’t think people normally used words like “this and that” to describe a relationship.

     However, there was no longer any lie or deception in what she was saying. In other words, that really was how the relationship between Sorahashi Sera and Onee-chan could be described. At the very least, I was certain that friendship wasn’t something that was included in “this and that”.

     「Are you two dating?」

     「We’re not like that.」

     「So you’re not dating, but you’re doing all that pervy stuff.」

     「…Well.」

     「I’m not trying to criticize you. I was just wondering if that’s really the sort of person you are, Onee-chan.」

     I knew that I sounded accusatory. If Onee-chan truly loved her and was dating her, then it couldn’t be helped. But I couldn’t accept a relationship where she was having a collar put on her even though they weren’t dating.

     「…Then let me change the question. Onee-chan, how do you feel about Sorahashi-san?」

     「Huh?」

     「You’re not friends. You’re not even dating. Why would you do dirty stuff with someone like that?」

     「Why I would…」

     She averted her gaze.

     Cool, kind, and reliable. That’s the kind of person Onee-chan was to me. But now, she was just like me — a girl lost in her own emotions. Just as she had stopped looking at me, maybe I had also stopped being able to properly look at her.

     My Onee-chan, who had once been so close to me, was now so far away.

     I missed the days when I could reach out my hand and feel her touch. And even though I knew we couldn’t go back to those days, I couldn’t stop myself from wanting it.

     Onee-chan. Onee-chan, Onee-chan, Onee-chan.

     How did Onee-chan feel about me?

     「You don’t have to force yourself to answer.」

     「Sorry.」

     「You don’t have to apologize either.」

     「…Sorry.」

     「…」

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