"I'm home," announced Alisa after opening the front door to her apartment.
Her older sister, Maria, poked her head out from the living room and welcomed her with a cheerful grin as gentle as a flower. Unlike the usually expressionless Alisa, Maria was almost always full of smiles.
"Welcome home, Alya."
She approached her sister while smiling from ear to ear with arms wide open, then kissed her on her right cheek, then left, then right again before bringing her into a tight embrace. The sight would make yuri fans around the world squeal like pigs with delight.
"Hey, Masha."
Alisa patted her sister on the arm to get her to drop the passionate embrace, and while Maria did let go, she suddenly turned her smile into a disappointed pout.
"Come on, we're in Japan now. Call me big sister like they do here."
"Not happening."
Maria puffed out her cheeks even more at her sister's cold reply.
In Russia, people would usually call their older siblings by their name, unlike in Japan, where they would call them big brother or big sister. Therefore, Alisa, being born in Russia, would call her sister by her nickname despite Maria's frequent requests to be called big sister.
"Sniffle… You can be so cold sometimes, Alya…"
Realizing her pouting face wasn't going to work, Maria put on an even more pitiful expression, but Alisa promptly looked away and sighed. This wasn't anything new, but she always felt bad whenever her sister made this face. That still didn't mean she would call her sister big sister, though.
After all, she was more of the serious type, unlike her easygoing older sister. It didn't help that Alisa was taller, and they were only one year apart. She had even been the one to look after Maria over the years as if she were the older one. That was why Alisa hardly thought of Maria as her older sister.
Calling her big sister would make it sound like I was dependent on her, to boot…
There were other things Alisa might have been willing to call her, but Maria was not having it. At any rate, Alisa decided to ignore her sister as she took off her shoes and swapped them for her slippers, but Maria immediately tilted her head curiously and blinked a few times.
"Alya, are you in a bad mood?"
"No…?"
Alisa eyed Maria dubiously to hide how she was really feeling, but such tactics didn't work on her older sister.
"Uh-huh… Does it have something to do with him again? With Kuze?"
Alisa walked right past Maria and headed straight for the bathroom, aggravated by her sister's prying and the sparkle in her eyes.
"Nothing happened."
"You know you can't lie to me. I can read you like an open book. So…? What happened?"
Maria followed her sister around like a duckling and continued to pry. It wasn't until she made her way into Alisa's room, plopped herself down on a cushion on the floor, and begged that Alisa finally gave in.
Alisa took a seat, still dressed in her school uniform, and confessed with aggravation:
"It really isn't a big deal, but…we had a little fight. That's all."
"Oooh! A fight!"
Maria's eyes lit up with joy, even though it wasn't the sort of thing one would normally be happy about.
"…What?"
"Hee-hee! It's not every day you get into fights, after all! And with a boy, too."
"Yeah, I guess."
"Wow… There's finally a boy who has braved the frozen tundra around your heart."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Alisa furrowed her brow at her sister's vague implications until Maria replied with a knowing smirk:
"You like him, don't you? This Kuze boy."
"…Excuse me?"
Alisa sent her sister a piercing glare as if to clearly say, "What is wrong with you? Did you hit your head as a child or something?" before shaking her head with a sigh.
"I don't know where you got that idea…because there's nothing like that going on here. We're just…"
Alisa suddenly remembered the confused look on Masachika's face the previous day at lunch when he said they were friends.
"Yeah… We're friends." The memory made her smile with smug satisfaction. That made Maria's smirk grow even further.
"Oh, you are, huh? But why? I thought you hated laid-back slackers like him?"
"Because, uh…"
Maria's assumption was correct. Masachika was not very motivated and didn't take things seriously. He was just like the kind of people Alisa usually disliked. So why did she consider him to be a friend?
Alisa began searching her memories for the answer.
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