About my hopeless brother and sister

About My Incorrigible Sibling, Chapter 8.

I sat back in my seat in silence, and everyone to the left and right left left the classroom and stood up in the not-neat-but-quite square formation on the playground below. I was the only one in the entire classroom, and I held my face up, watching the clouds in the sky, the words of the leaders below being transmitted to me over cheap loudspeakers, a noise without rules.

All of them were down there, including Qin Lan.

The distance between us was being drawn further and further apart.

That's probably high school life.

Well, there's no need to be sad, and anyway, I didn't start out with the expectation that my efforts would pay off.

"Elyssa...what's wrong with you...why are you crying...what's happening...is someone bullying you? "

This kind of bone-deep sadness in your own brain and heart, this kind of pain along with blood, gushed to your whole body, let yourself all the cells of the body, are secreting a kind of "pain" feelings.

Seeing the desperation on his seldom-expressive face, why, he would say something like that.

It wasn't supposed to be like this...originally...I didn't want to say that myself...that school uniform.... ...That school uniform himself...How could he throw it away. Yesterday, the one who had fallen asleep breathing in his scent...how could something so precious...how could he throw it away....

Why can't you just explain it properly...why there's a strange anger towards him....

I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry....

"No...nothing...really.... "

Chapter 8 on my sometimes-reliable sister.

Inhale...exhale...exhale....

He smelled...he smelled...he still smelled like laundry detergent, but he could still smell it.

Holding the jacket tightly in his arms, he buried his head inside and breathed in as much as he could. The air with the smell of his body was continuously breathed into the lungs, the taste fermented in the lungs, forming strong memories and love, reverberating in their veins for a long time, brewing alcohol in their brains, making them happy as if they were drunk.

His smell....

It was like being held tightly by him....

So fond of him...really...so fond of him...always fond of him....

So much I want to be with him, so much I want to see him awake every day, so much I want to be by his side every day, so much I want to eat his cooking every day, so much I want to be carried to sleep by him every day...so much I want to be....

In order to do so, nothing matters, nothing matters...anything matters...as long as I can be with him no matter what, even if he has a sweetheart, no matter what, as long as I can see him every day, no matter where, no matter what, as long as I can be with him. He was together....

So fond of him....

"Brother brother brother brother brother!!!"

The would-be president held me tightly, as if it were usual. Every night when he came back, he would hug me so tightly.

Sitting dumbly on the couch, staring at the LCD TV in front of me. The president would squirm around on top of me and I would just sit there dumbfounded, saying nothing.

Who would take in something that disgusting.

And you slammed something so disgusting in my face, are you trying to disgust me?

I think you're a man of simply questionable character.

Can you please stop coming near me?

Disgusting!

Disgusting...is it...where, exactly, did I go wrong. Where, exactly, am I doing it wrong. Not really...I really am, I can't figure it out.

Think about it, if a person hates a person, then that person should have done something that made that person hate. And if the things done are very, very bad, then that person will become the way Qin Lan treats me now. It's because you do things that make other people disgusted that you let be disgusted by them.

I recalled the whole thing that Qin Lan and I had been doing since we were kids, and all I could recall was Qin Lan's smiling face. We didn't have any problems together, Qin Lan used to be the little girl who always followed me, and at that time she would come to me if she had any problems. If her family had problems and left, she would stay at my house and we would sleep together. At that time she would still hold my hand tightly and let me cuddle her to sleep.

"Nah, what do you think it means to get married?"

Who'd keep that kind of disgusting stuff?

"Are you talking about the dictionary meaning? Probably that means...well, being together like mom and dad. But I see people on TV, it's only when two people like each other a lot that they get married, I guess..."

"You can get married if you like?"

And you slammed something so disgusting in my face, are you trying to disgust me?

"I suppose so."

"Then after that, I'm going to marry you!"

I think there is simply something wrong with your character as a person.

Before, it was so...so...it wouldn't have been like this...why...why did this happen...where did I...do it wrong....

"Brother...what's wrong...?"

"Sister...what...where did I go wrong...?"

Holding my sister tightly in her arms, I breathed in the reassuring smell. It was the smell of familiarity, of family. It was the smell of a place I could return to no matter how capricious I was, a place that would never betray me. Here then, I felt, I could cry out....

"Brother...I don't know what's wrong though...but you've done nothing wrong."

Ah, I know that my sister is usually very unsettling and annoying, and I even entertained the idea of leaving home to find a place to live again. But, after all, my sister is my sister, and at times like this, my sister's smile, my sister's embrace, my sister's gentle touch, and my sister's warmth are all so much more, so much more reassuring.

"Sister!"

Hugging my sister tightly, tears that she was desperately trying to hold back spurting out in a flash, she didn't say anything, she just held me, gently, stroking my head.

...What was thinking....

Gently, I put my jacket down and opened my eyes from the unrealistic memories of myself, seemingly, having slept from too much excitement.

It was dark, and the darkness of the outdoors enveloped the room, the movement of the vehicles outside converging into rivers of light running across the land. Neon lights on skyscrapers in the distance twinkled, and the sky was filled with the lights of stars and planes, making it hard to tell which lights were which.

The light from the stars is light from long ago, or perhaps the light we see now is light that has died.