A Brother's Sacrifice

Aki was holding a tray full of food and ingredients. The other girl was trying to subside Aki's anger by gesturing her to calm down.

But Aki has a really annoyed expression on her face which, pretty much shows how much she is angry towards that girl.

On noticing my presence, Aki glanced towards my direction. I was walking to where Aki was so that I could break their little fight, but Aki stopped talking to that girl when seeing me.

"Yo, how's it going Aki. You are pretty lively early this morning."

"Tenma.....were you also buying some things here?"

"Yep. What about you? Fighting instead of buying."

"No, it's not that. Just... some personal things."

Better be careful now that it concerns her personal life.

"So, who is she?"

The girl looked at Aki then faced my direction.

"I'm Fujimoto Sakura. Aki's little sister."

"Blood-related?"

"Of course yes!"

Now she yelled more loudly than Aki's previous shouts. All of the people in the vicinity were glaring at her only.

Sakura saw all the people were just staring at her, and as a result, she remained quiet and didn't say any single word from her mouth.

Seeing her like this, I was feeling a bit of ecstasy.

"You are a crafty sadist as ever."

Aki was the one who broke the awkward atmosphere around us.

"Excuse me but, I am a young gentleman who encourages world peace."

"Whatever."

We two joked around a bit. Then I proposed to come over to her house. Aki didn't really object my proposal and her sister was willingly requesting me to come over.

In the end, we were all walking to one destination in our mind, which is Aki's and Sakura's house.

"By the way Sakura, how old are you?"

"I'm 15 years old. A third-year at Seien's Girl Middle School."

That name...If I remember correctly, that was where Mr Kimura's daughter goes to. Coincidence really happens often nowadays. Or the world is really small.

"You up to something again Tenma?"

"No."

"Don't drag me into it."

"I said I'm not doing anything."

"Yeah yeah."

Aki totally didn't believe me but it's true that I'm thinking about something. Sakura, who was trying to join in our little conversation, started talking.

"Are you two dating?"

Me and Aki were staring at Sakura. Then Aki was sneering at me saying,

"Me? This guy as my boyfriend? You must be joking. Did your head hit something?"

Aki was kind of harming me in a way.

"What? What's wrong with me being a boyfriend?"

"You won't make any girl happy with you. It's practically impossible for you to have a girlfriend."

She was starting to mock me openly in front of her sister. That was embarrassing for me. I can't let that happen without doing anything.

"Well, it's better than having a girlfriend who is a muscle head and a brute who only knows how to solve problems with violent means."

Aki tightly grabbed and squeezed one of my shoulders, glaring at me intently into my eyes.

"Are you talking about me?"

This time, I grabbed Aki's shoulder with a mocking smile on my face.

"Oh sorry, did you feel that I was talking about you? Don't worry because I wasn't talking about you, as you are way worse than what I described."

A verbal fight was happening right in the middle of the street. Sakura was trying to break us apart but was unable to pry into our 'little' fight.

We arrived at her house in about 10 minutes. It was normal compared to the other houses close-by.

I was welcomed by Aki's mother and father together. None of them were working as it's Sunday. But my dad is just obsessed about work. You could say that work was his second love.

It was a pretty normal family from what I see. I was hoping to see something interesting but nothing happened. Nevertheless, I stayed vigilant for some clues.

"Where do you live son?"

"Just up the road. It's a 15-minute walk."

"That's not far. You can come over anytime."

"I will if you don't mind."

"Surely not son. You're welcomed anytime."

In a short period of time, I gained a little bit of their trust without doing much. Still, I wonder what made Aki this way.

"Mom, I'm gonna go to my room and do my homework."

I guessed that Aki wanted to go to her room and stay alone.

"Eh? You haven't done it yet? If it would've been Sakura then she would've done it the day it was given. You should learn more from her, Aki."

Aki's expression was grim but she didn't say anything and quietly went to her room.

'As I thought, the root of Aki's behaviour is Sakura.'

I observed how Sakura was reacting to this problem for which, she herself is the cause. And looking by her expression, it seems sad and regretful.

Perhaps Sakura herself knew about it but she didn't know how to eradicate this problem.

"Umm, I'm going with Aki because we agreed on helping with her study. Isn't that right Sakura?"

She looked at me with an understanding face and replied,

"...Yes."

I proceeded towards Aki's room. I opened the door and found Aki sitting at her personal desk, doing her homework. I slowly walked over to her bed and laid down to relax a bit.

Although Sakura seemed to care about Aki, Aki just doesn't see her in her worried state. As a result, Aki would just misunderstand her as just being arrogant.

Or maybe Aki knows about Sakura worrying about her and despite that, she still hates Sakura for some reason.

'Even though we are sisters, why am I getting different treatment than her.' Aki might think like this.

So the main thing that I should focus on is how to bring those two sisters together. If they are on good terms, then Aki will be more emotionally stable in the future.

Furthermore, if Aki knows that I was helping her, I would gain a huge trust from her. As a result, she won't stray from the path of becoming my special pawn.

It will be a big risk to do all of this but great rewards will be waiting for me. In other words, I should handle this problem with delicacy.

But for now, I've got some other business to focus on.

"Hey Aki, did you do some research on that red-haired girl?"

Her pen stopped. She turned the chair that she was sitting on sideways and looked at me.

"It seems like we knocked on the wrong door."

"Huh? What are you trying to say? Is she dangerous?"

"In a way. There's more to her that we don't know."

.....This got a little more interesting just now.