#10: Thoroughbred — I Lie to My Stepsister ~I Decided to Take In My Non-Blood-Related Sister~

That idiot Yūha apparently learned that if she dragged out the time between replies, I would come looking for her.

Before May ended, she summoned me that way twice. There were quite a few days when the temperature climbed above thirty degrees, and even when I told myself she was probably fine, I still ended up worrying.

After all, even in the story of the boy who cried wolf, the wolf really did show up in the end.

As for the casual clothes issue, apparently she had settled on simply throwing a cardigan over her uniform for the time being. If she also swapped out her school bag, it was easier for her to go into the library.

…If you can go to the library, then don’t call me, I thought. But she was probably bored too. Apparently, she was still wandering around by herself as usual.

Whenever I tried to ask why she wasn’t going to school, she dodged the question before I could get anywhere.

Seriously. I wonder who she takes after.

It was sunny outside the window.

The rainy season had begun, and it had been raining constantly lately, so clear weather like this was unusual.

On a day like that, I received this message from “Yū.”

‘School’s only in the morning today.’

“You’re not even going to school.”

I couldn’t help retorting out loud. The fact that she had gotten a reaction out of me somehow made me feel like I had lost.

I resisted the urge to ignore her completely and looked at the message again. The only information it contained was that classes ended in the morning today.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

I scratched my head and thought.

Even after that day, “Sabu” and “Yū” had kept talking. Neither of us acknowledged that we had completely figured out each other’s identities, and we continued pretending things were the same as before.

Because of that, Yūha’s messages were absurdly indirect and took effort to decipher. Once, I spent an hour trying to figure one out, only to realize there had been no hidden meaning at all. I nearly snapped.

This time, though, I doubted it meant nothing…

Hmm. What was this? What in the world was she trying to tell me?

Morning classes. Four periods. Nothing in the afternoon. Home by one…

Which meant—

“I see. She doesn’t have lunch.”

She would normally eat after coming home, so Mom hadn’t made her a packed lunch. She could have openly gone home, but she didn’t have a house key and couldn’t get inside. She had no money either, so she wanted me to help.

That had to be it.

“…Guess I’ll bring her something.”

She wasn’t going to die from being hungry, but there was no benefit to it either.

Maybe I should take comfort in the fact that she apparently wasn’t doing some weird diet. No, that was probably stretching it.

Seriously, if Keiji saw me acting like this, he would laugh and call me overprotective.

And just as I thought that, an email arrived from Keiji himself.

Speak of the devil, I guess. I opened my inbox and checked it.

‘Keiji Nitta
Subject: This is bad
Message: I think Nako-chan might dump me. I need advice. Call me tonight.’

“YEEEEEES!”

The good news blew away the damp gloom of the rainy season, and I shouted without thinking.

My hands naturally clenched into victory fists and shot toward the ceiling. I looked upward with the biggest smile imaginable, like an athlete who had just set a new track-and-field record.

Once I calmed down, I checked the email again to make absolutely sure Keiji really was in danger of being dumped.

Yep.

He was definitely in trouble.

This was incredible. I was ridiculously happy. Maybe because of the humiliation I had suffered at the pub, it felt more than twice as satisfying as usual.

That guy had smugly lectured me like he understood romance, saying things like, “Sabu, you’ve gotta make the first move. Girls are creatures who want the guy to come after them, you know?” And now he was about to get dumped.

I couldn’t stop laughing.

“Fuhahahaha.”

I ended up sounding like some evil organization executive. Thank God I lived alone. Thank God my neighbor was away at work during the day.

It felt like I had received some outrageously expensive gift. This wasn’t some gloomy, resentful joy either. I felt genuinely refreshed and happy.

Friends really were precious.

I was in such a good mood that I decided to splurge on lunch today.

This was how balance was maintained in the world.

The place I occasionally used when treating myself was also somewhere I had worked a little over a year ago.

A small bakery in a residential neighborhood called Thoroughbred.

It was located somewhere that could hardly be called convenient, but customers never stopped coming thanks to the quality of its products. The prices were fairly high too, and apparently its main target customers were middle-aged and older women.

When I entered, the manager, Sara Hashimoto-san, noticed me from where she was ringing up a customer at the register.

At first glance, she looked like a kind older woman with braided hair and round black-rimmed glasses.

But her true nature was that of a hopeless horse-racing addict. The moment she left work, she buried herself in racing newspapers, and if the shop ever started struggling financially, she made up the shortfall through betting on races.

Apparently, even the shop name, Thoroughbred, had been inspired by horses rather than her own name, Sara. She was the real deal.

After telling the previous customer, “Thank you very much,” she stepped out from behind the counter and came over to talk to me. I was the only customer left in the shop.

“What’s up, Sabu-kun? Did something good happen?”

“Hehe. What do you think, Sara-san?”

“Let’s see. Something went well with work?”

“That wouldn’t put this big a smile on my face.”

“Oh? Then maybe you got a girlfriend?”

“Close.”

Very close.

Almost a bull’s-eye.

“Not me getting a girlfriend. My friend looks like he’s about to break up with his.”

“How is that close?”

Her voice instantly turned ice-cold.

But Sara-san quickly changed her expression and thought for a moment. Then she looked up.

“Wait. Is your friend’s girlfriend the girl you like?”

“No. She’s basically a stranger I’ve only met once.”

“What is wrong with you?”

Apparently, she now understood that I was just some dangerous weirdo genuinely delighted by my friend’s misfortune. Sara-san put one hand on her hip and pushed her glasses back up after they slid down.

“If you keep acting like that, your friend’s going to hate you too.”

“Oh, I’m fine. When I had a girlfriend, that guy whispered ‘break up, break up’ at me practically every day.”

“So birds of a feather really do flock together.”

I nodded magnanimously.

Exactly.

Keiji and I were bound by fate to drag each other down. The fundamental trashiness at the core of our personalities resonated, which was probably why our friendship had lasted so long.

“So anyway, today’s a good day.”

“Just so you know, I still don’t understand you in the slightest.”

“But Sara-san, whenever you bet on a horse, you want every horse except yours to lose, right?”

“Obviously.”

“Same thing.”

“That is not the same thing.”

She rebutted me with a completely straight face.

Well, whatever.

I hadn’t come here just to talk about that anyway. I did technically have someone waiting for me.

“I want four savory breads for lunch and two sweet ones. Could you pick whatever you recommend?”

“That’s strange. That’s too much for one person.”

“A junior asked me for advice. I figured feeding them some of your bread might cheer them up.”

“You really do lie so smoothly.”

Sara-san narrowed her eyes and stretched her lips into an amused grin. I hadn’t expected such a sloppy lie to fool her either, so I looked away with a half-smile.

She picked up a tray and tongs for me and started placing bread onto it without hesitation.

“There. I mostly picked things girls like. Go get her.”

“No… seriously, it’s not like that.”

“There you go lying again.”

“You know that part isn’t a lie.”

Seriously, this woman really seemed to enjoy teasing me.

I paid, and she packed everything into a bag. I couldn’t be the only person who liked walking around while carrying a bakery’s paper bag.

Sara-san smiled softly. Behind her glasses, her eyes curved gently.

“But she is important to you, isn’t she?”

“How did you get to that conclusion?”

“Because you never even gave me a budget. You don’t care what it costs as long as that person likes it, do you?”

“…Seriously, this is why old ladies are—”