How I, a Hated Person, Ended Up Staying With Three Beautiful Sisters
“Miyu, you’re actually good at studying, aren’t you? Why are you hiding it?”
With Akane senpai and Maho gone and the living room quiet, I asked her quietly.
“…I guess it’s that obvious. How did you know?”
Miyu’s tone was as vague as usual, but her gaze seemed resigned.
I sighed and said,
“Of course it’s obvious. You can solve difficult problems effortlessly, but you keep getting the easy ones wrong…you’re doing it on purpose, aren’t you? And you’re not even thinking about it.”
“……”
She remained silent. She didn’t deny it. It seemed I had hit the nail on the head.
“Hey, Miyu. Why are you going to all that trouble?”
When I asked again, Miyu hugged her knees and muttered.
“Because I don’t want to upset my sisters.”
“Huh?”
Not understanding, I asked again, and Miyu lowered her gaze and began to speak softly.
“You know my hobby, right?”
“Of course.”
Miyu has otaku hobbies. She especially likes novels and games based on romantic comedies, just like me.
Among them, she said she liked the idea of wanting her younger sister to be her girlfriend, commonly known as “Imokano.”
“In ‘Imokano,’ there’s a heroine who’s smart, excels at both academics and sports…but because of that, she’s bullied. People call her ‘arrogant,’ ignore her, and put strange things in her desk…”
“If the protagonist doesn’t save her, it’s a bad ending, right?”
“Yes. I don’t want to end up like that.”
Miyu’s voice was calm, but it carried a heavy weight.
“I don’t think it’s that easy to end up like that.”
“It is. Onii chan is more noticeable than me, so you should understand, right? When you stand out, you get both good attention and weird attention.”
It sounded like she had actually experienced it.
There was definitely something behind her words.
While I thought silently, Miyu continued.
“Maho is the same. She’s the center of the class, but she’s not that smart, is she? She puts on a good face in front of everyone, but her real personality is strong-willed and pushy. How do you think people would react if that were to come out?”
“You…”
I was so taken aback by her worldly words that I couldn’t help but shut my mouth.
I had assumed that Miyu was just living a carefree life, but it seemed that she was thinking about more than I had imagined.
“Akane is the same. She’s popular, so she gets a lot of confessions, but sometimes she ends up getting resentment from the other person and having a bad experience, like last time.”
There was a strange credibility to Miyu’s calm words.
Perhaps because she had been observing her two older sisters as the youngest daughter, she could see the realistic side of things.
“That’s why I don’t want to stand out. It’s not that I like being stupid, but I don’t want to stand out in class…and above all, I don’t want to cause trouble for the two of them by standing out in a weird way.”
With a sigh, Miyu buried her face between her knees.
She seemed tired from talking.
“You talk a lot when it’s just the two of us, don’t you?”
“It was you who made it just the two of us, wasn’t it?”
She answered immediately.
I couldn’t help but smile wryly.
I never thought Miyu would think that way. Whatever the reason, it’s a legitimate concern.
I felt I had to listen carefully.
“So, Miyu. What do you want to do? Do you want to keep pretending to be stupid?”
Miyu was silent for a moment after I asked her that question.
The only sound in the quiet living room was the mechanical hum of the air conditioner.
After about ten seconds, Miyu raised her face, still wearing her usual dazed expression…but her eyes were fixed on me.
“I…want to stay as I am, for my sisters’ sake and for my own sake.”
Miyu said quietly.
There was no hesitation in her expression. It was clear from every word that this was a choice she had made with determination, not out of stubbornness.
That’s why I snorted lightly and replied with just one word.
“I see. Well, if that’s the case, then that’s fine.”
“Eh?”
Perhaps because my reaction was unexpectedly casual, Miyu looked puzzled.
“What’s with that dazed expression?”
“But…Onii chan, is that it?”
“What?”
“…I thought you’d try to persuade me more.”
“Why do I have to go out of my way to support you?”
Saying that, I leaned back on the sofa, and Miyu puffed out her cheeks in dissatisfaction.
Seeing this expression, it was clear that she was Akane senpai’s sister.
“You’re so cold.”
“That’s just how it is. I’m not going to go out of my way to deny what you’ve decided. If you have the motivation, I might be willing to go along with it, but if you’ve chosen to maintain the current situation, there’s nothing I can do.”
I’m not particularly caring or righteous.
I’ve just always been the one everyone dislikes. No one expects anything from me, no one relies on me, so I’ve had to make my own decisions.
That’s why, even if someone else makes a decision, I don’t feel the need to deny it.
“…If I ever want to change, will you help me?”
Miyu stood up slowly and looked down at me sitting on the sofa. Her eyes were steady, showing how much she trusted me. I don’t deserve that kind of trust.
“Well, yeah.”
“I don’t have any friends at school, so the only people I can talk to about this are Akane, Maho, and you.”
“I see.”
“Yeah. That’s how it is.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
I couldn’t help but ask. Being mentioned in the same breath as Akari-senpai and Maho, I felt like an outsider.
“….If something happens, can we talk about it again? You’re slow.”
So, she just wants me to be a good listener.
“Ah, well…I don’t mind, but I don’t have the confidence that I can be of any help. The incident with Akane senpai and Katsuyama senpai didn’t exactly end successfully. I don’t know if I can be of any help to Miyu.”
“I don’t want that kind of approach, so it’s fine. Besides, it’s not just me. I think Akane would have stopped Onii chan if he had tried to do something like that.”
“Maho wouldn’t have stopped me?”
“…..For some reason, she’s started to warm up to Onii chan lately, but if it’s Maho from a little while ago, she probably wouldn’t have stopped you. She might have even schemed to sacrifice my brother to strengthen the bond between us sisters.”
“I guess so.”
Maho would do that. She’d probably push a difficult task onto me to prove my responsibility.
Since the field trip, she’s started to trust me a little more for some reason, so maybe things are different now.
“Anyway, I think you’re more trusted by us than you think…especially Akane is completely attached to you. I don’t know why, but Maho is starting to warm up to you too. Even I don’t mind being with you.”
Miyu sat down next to me, keeping a little distance.
That’s a huge overestimation. Even if the three of them, who used to hate me so much, have changed their minds, I still can’t quite believe it.
Of course, I don’t feel bad when they say they trust me.
“I understand your point. Basically, you don’t want to stand out. You don’t want to attract attention. And you don’t want me to do anything weird.”
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s do this. No matter how you act, whether you’re pretending or hiding your true feelings, I won’t say anything. But if you’re in trouble, feel free to talk to me. I don’t know if I can solve it, though.”
Miyu is the same as me, or maybe I shouldn’t say that, but she doesn’t seem to have any friends, and she has limited people to talk to.
As the youngest of the extremely popular Segawa sisters, she is naturally destined to stand out, but she seems to avoid standing out in other ways.
Her relatively shy personality shows that.
“……”
Miyu stared at me in silence for a while.
It was as if she was testing me.
“Do you not trust me?”
“It’s not that. I just didn’t think you’d go that far. You’re not a bad person after all, Onii chan.”
“Just listening to someone’s story isn’t a big deal. Detectives and lawyers do that for free, and it’s ridiculous for someone like me who has nothing to ask for payment.”
“…You’re a little weird, Onii chan.”
“I’m used to hearing that. You’re weird too.”
Without hesitation, she retorted, and Miyu smiled softly and nodded once.
It seemed like she was happy to be called strange.
“Thanks for listening.”
Miyu said only that, stood up as if nothing had happened, and headed back to her room.
A few minutes later, when Akane senpai and Maho returned, the living room became noisy again.
Maigetsu