How I, a Hated Person, Ended Up Staying With Three Beautiful Sisters
That night.
After dinner and baths, everyone had retreated to their rooms.
Though my treatment had improved slightly, my usual spot was still the living room sofa. There were no empty rooms, so there was nothing to be done about it.
At least I wasn’t tied up with ropes.
So, lying quietly alone on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket and flipping through my English vocabulary book to pass the time, my phone suddenly vibrated.
The sender was Miyu.
Actually, we’d only just exchanged LINE contacts the other day, but this was our first message exchange.
I’d exchanged contacts with Maho too, by the way.
“…I have a bad feeling about this.”
I grabbed my phone and opened the chat screen.
[Onii chan, come to my room]
A simple sentence.
More than the content itself, its sheer brevity strangely heightened the tension.
[No way. I really can’t come to your room]
I replied immediately.
But the response was another single line.
[No need to knock. I’ll cry if you don’t come]
She seemed fully intent on forcing her way in.
I couldn’t help but look up at the ceiling and sigh.
It was obvious that if Akane senpai and Maho found out, it would be a huge hassle, so I climbed the stairs as quietly as possible, trying not to make a sound. This was the first time I’d climbed these stairs since the night I spent with Maho during the thunderstorm. That time was a special circumstance, so it probably didn’t count.
Anyway, I reached Miyu’s door without the two of them noticing. After a single moment’s hesitation, I slowly pushed the door open.
“Why are you sitting in there?”
It was the first thing I noticed when I looked inside the room.
For some reason, Miyu was sitting on her bed.
The space, lit only by the soft indoor light, felt strangely quiet, with a slightly tense atmosphere.
It wasn’t a girly room like Maho’s; it seemed a bit stark. If anything, it suited Miyu.
“You came.”
“…Because if I didn’t, you’d probably send me endless LINE messages.”
Miyu gave a small laugh at my sarcasm.
That gesture made her seem a bit more defined than her usual dreamy impression.
“I was about to start spamming ‘Onii chan, Onii chan’. If you still hadn’t come, I was going to start crying and screaming.”
“…Stop it. You’re ruining my standing.”
Even as we exchanged jokes, a slight tension lingered deep within me.
It was hard to imagine her personality up until now, where she’d actually call me to her room herself.
As I stepped into the room, Miyu quietly shifted her hips and sat down at the edge of the bed.
“You can sit down.”
“I’ll pass. If we can get this done standing, it’s easier that way.”
“Oh? Alright then, I’ll talk.”
Her voice was as soft as ever, but beneath it, I sensed a kind of resolve.
“You know…yesterday…I kinda regretted talking to you about it.”
“Huh?”
“No, it’s not that I regret telling you…no, I still think it was good I did. But, how should I put it…I just don’t know what to do now.”
Keeping her eyes downcast, fidgeting with her fingertips, Miyu continued.
“So, I kinda wanted to see your face for a bit. I’m not good at thinking alone in my room.”
Hearing that, I lifted the corners of my mouth just a little.
“…I see. So basically, I’m just a convenient stock pot, huh?”
“Yeah. Like a dashimaki tamago kind of existence.”
“Sorry about that, egg.”
Miyu chuckled softly, finally seeming to relax her shoulders just a little.
Even that alone made coming here worthwhile, I thought.
“First time in a girl’s room?”
“Second time.”
“…Maho’s room?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm…what do you think of this room?”
“It’s bare and empty. Feels like a company dorm or something?”
“That’s harsh. Open the desk drawer and look.”
Is it okay? For me to open it? There was no need to ask; Miyu clearly wanted me to see inside.
I opened the desk drawer first.
Then,
“Wow, that’s a lot of merchandise. Is all this Imokano stuff?”
“Yep.”
Miyu sat on the bed, dangling her small feet that didn’t quite reach the floor.
“I’m not a collector, so I usually sell stuff right after I finish reading or beating it…do you collect everything, Miyu?”
“Yeah. They’re important to me. By the way, the back of that closet over there holds all my non-Imokano stuff. Anime I like, manga, light novels, games, all kinds of things.”
I might be the only one who’s seen Miyu stand there like that, chest puffed out proudly.
“You’re really into it.”
“Turned off?”
“Nah, more like jealous.”
“Neither Akane nor Maho know. Of course, I don’t have any friends, so you’re the only one who knows my secret.”
“I figured.”
Being the only one told that made me feel a bit pleased, but I understood that was precisely Miyu’s biggest worry.
“…So it’s kind of painful.”
Sure enough, Miyu murmured that in a small voice.
“Do you want someone to talk to? Or do you hate living with this secret?”
“Both. I feel like it’s a waste to pretend I can’t study or play sports when I actually can. And it feels weird to keep hiding this hobby because I’m ashamed of it. After talking with you yesterday, I’ve been…thinking about it nonstop.”
Miyu stood up from the bed and reached for the items inside the drawer I’d opened, gently touching them as if tracing memories. Each seemed filled with recollections.
“What are you doing?”
“There’s something I want you to see.”
Saying that, Miyu pulled a transparent clear file from the very back of the drawer.
“What’s that?”
“…My middle school exam papers.”
Miyu pressed it against my chest and stared up at me intently. It seemed she wanted me to see for myself rather than hear words.
I skimmed through the stack of papers, probably thirty or forty sheets.
The results were striking. From the first year of junior high until around the fall of the second year, her scores were over 80% in almost every subject. In contrast, after that, scores around 50 points became prominent.
“Hey, Miyu…”
Having finished checking most of it, I gathered the papers and sighed.
“What?”
Miyu tilted her head, asking.
I hesitated for a moment, unsure if I should say it, then lowered my gaze and spoke.
“…I kinda have something I want to ask you.”
Standing felt unsettling, so I hesitantly sat down on the edge of the bed.
Miyu showed no sign of being unsettled and sat down beside me a moment later.
“Back in middle school…what happened to you?”
At those words, Miyu’s eyelids fluttered slightly.
After a few seconds, she looked away and murmured softly.
“…Did you ask them?”
“Yeah. Both Akane senpai and Maho said they didn’t know the details. But I got the sense…things were pretty rough for you.”
Miyu blinked once, then turned her face away.
“…I see.”
No more words followed.
The air in the room suddenly felt heavy.
Maybe I should just go home quietly without saying anything else. I thought that, but my mouth moved on its own.
“Back in eighth grade, I got locked in a storage room at the mall.”
“…Huh?”
“Well, it was just bad luck. I wandered into this dark storage room, and before I knew it, someone locked the door from the outside and I couldn’t get out.”
Miyu’s expression shifted. She seemed to be recalling something, but I ignored it and continued.
“Well, to be precise, I wasn’t alone. There was a girl from another school too. It’s weird, but even though I didn’t know her name or could barely see her face, I kept talking to her the whole time. I was bored, after all.”
Miyu listened silently. I continued matter-of-factly.
“At first it was awkward, but we gradually opened up…we talked about trivial stuff—how we hated studying, how much we loved our sisters, school stuff like that.”
“…..That person—”
“Anyway, I ended up locked in there for about three hours before the security guard and his friend came to rescue me. But after all that, rumors spread that I was some ‘pervert who dragged a girl into the storage room’. I became the school’s pariah in no time. By the way, I’ve had the nickname ‘Executioner’ since middle school. No idea where it came from.”
Most likely, the nickname stuck because of my glare and that storage room incident.
“…The Executioner.”
“I was just locked in there, you know. It’s stupid, but after that, I just stopped caring about everything.”
I snorted softly and looked at Miyu.
I’m not beautiful, cute, or popular like the Segawa sisters. But I understand a little of the troubles each of them keeps hidden inside.
“…You just stopped caring? I mean…this is hard to say, but you’ve been treated like this since you were in second year of middle school, right? And yet, you just don’t care? Doesn’t it hurt?”
Miyu looked at me, surprised.
Not her usual blank stare. Her eyes were properly taking in what I was saying.
“Miyu, if I’m being honest with you, it’d be a lie to say it doesn’t hurt. It was the same with Akane senpai and Kasuyama senpai. Even if I tried not to care, the gossip reached my ears, and I couldn’t avoid the cold stares. There was no physical harassment, but it still made me feel pretty bad.”
Even if I understand it rationally and have processed it, it still hurts. If I were living a life of solitary nobility, it might be different, but for someone like me, just living in plain loneliness, it’s even harder.
The benefits of being alone are being able to live without worrying about others and being able to spend all my time studying…that’s about it.
“Onii chan…you didn’t cry much, did you?”
“I cried in middle school. I bawled my eyes out. I was living alone back then too, so I’d soak my pillow in my tiny studio apartment.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You think I’d make up a lie that funny?”
“…Nope. I don’t. Actually, it sounds totally believable.”
“How rude.”
Even as I said it, I couldn’t help but laugh.
Miyu chuckled softly too, joining in.
It was a completely natural smile, without a trace of affectation.
“Anyway, the point is, you don’t need to stress too much. Even if Miyu is a genius and athletically gifted, Akane senpai and Maho won’t say anything, and the rest of the class probably won’t either. I think they’ll support you. You’re the youngest, so trust your sisters more.”
“Yeah…”
“Alright, we’re done talking. I’m going to sleep.”
I stood up from the bed and stretched.
Then, Miyu gently tugged at the hem of my T-shirt.
“Is there something else?”
“…Will you cheer for me too? Will you still like me even if I’m no good?”
Hearing Miyu’s shy words, I couldn’t help but laugh.
Miyu immediately gave me a glare and puffed out her cheeks.
“Mmm…I’m being serious, why are you laughing?”
“Because that’s a line from Imokano, right? The heroine you identified with. If I said ‘I’ll always love you. I’ll support you,’ right here, it’d be a happy ending.”
“You really get it. You’re my big brother after all.”
‘After all’ might be a bit much, but it didn’t bother me.
“Whatever. Just don’t go spouting lines like that to other girls, okay? They’ll definitely get the wrong idea.”
“You’re worried about me? Would you get the wrong idea too, Onii chan?”
“Hmm…I guess we’ll see.”
I thought she was cute like that, but I tucked my honest feelings away and left the room.
Quietly descending the stairs, I lay down on my usual sofa, turned off the light, and closed my eyes.
Maigetsu