"Shall we head back to the living room?"
Shiho-chan made the suggestion after we had chatted for a while.
Perks of being his sister, I guess; she probably sensed that Yamamoto was just about finished with his cleaning. Following behind her, I made my way to the living room.
"Oh, perfect timing. I just finished."
"I see. It looks much cleaner."
As we arrived, Yamamoto noticed us and struck a smug, triumphant pose. While looking at that self-satisfied, "mufu" expression of his, I scanned the room. This was only the second time I’d stepped into this living room since arriving at the house.
Even though I’d only seen the room once before, I couldn't help but think it.
I honestly couldn't tell what had changed.
Looking at Yamamoto’s blissful face gave me a strong sense of déjà vu. It was the same look of utter ecstasy he occasionally showed after cleaning our apartment in Tokyo.
And yet, watching that look of bliss, I was thinking the exact same thing I always did.
I have no idea what’s actually cleaner.
It was always at times like this that Yamamoto would look my way, practically begging for praise. He reminded me of a girl who trims her hair by only a couple of centimeters and expects her friends to notice immediately—a literal mass of ego who refused to let even the smallest detail go unacknowledged.
"Shiho-chan, can you tell where it got cleaner?"
I figured it was probably better to just praise him in these situations. With that in mind, I whispered the question to Shiho-chan. Right now, I was completely out of my depth. I had no choice but to rely on her.
"Nope. Not at all."
"Wait, really?"
"It’s fine, it’s fine. Big Brother will eventually reach his own conclusion about it. Honestly, it’s better not to pay him too much mind. He’ll just end up complaining later that he didn’t clean some spot well enough anyway. If you give him half-hearted praise now, he'll just get annoyed."
"God, he’s such a pain."
We shared a look of exasperation, keeping our voices low enough so Yamamoto wouldn't hear. The more I heard about him from his family, the more I found myself appalled by the nature of the creature known as Yamamoto.
Still, Shiho-chan was incredibly good at handling him. I wondered if being the younger sister of such a meticulous, neurotic man for over a decade naturally turned a person into an expert.
"Big Brother, why don't you go take a bath? You're all dusty."
"Eh? Ah, I guess I'll do that."
Yamamoto finally removed his mask, tossed it into the trash, and started walking. It looked like he was heading for the bathroom.
For someone who had been so adamant about not wanting to come back to his parents' house, he was certainly acting like he owned the place now. Or so I thought.
Technically, the only reason I had come here was because he’d thrown a tantrum about not wanting to return home. But seeing him now, he seemed to be functioning perfectly fine. Maybe I had worried for nothing.
"Maybe I wasted my time worrying," I muttered to myself.
"Eh? About what?" Shiho-chan asked.
Oops. I had forgotten she was standing right there and said it out loud.
"...He really seemed to hate the idea of coming home. So, I came along just in case."
I decided there was no harm in being honest and gave her the gist of the situation. My guard had probably lowered a bit after talking with her for so long.
"Ah... I see."
Shiho-chan’s expression turned a little lonely.
"Megu-chan. Big Brother and I aren't actually blood-related."
She made the revelation so suddenly that it caught me completely off guard.
"Oh, really? ...Wait, what?"
I’d given a mindless response before the weight of her words actually hit me, forcing a strange noise out of my throat.
Not blood-related?
Come to think of it, they were siblings with a fairly large age gap.
"Ah, sorry. To be precise, we’re half-siblings."
"Half..."
"Big Brother and I have different fathers."
The look on Shiho-chan’s face told me everything. That had to be the reason Yamamoto hadn't wanted to come home.