Soda-Flavored Ice Cream

It was an unusually hot day for May.

By the afternoon, the temperature had climbed above thirty degrees Celsius, and even the air from the electric fan felt lukewarm.

On a day like that, the messages from Yū suddenly stopped. That was when the thought occurred to me for the first time.

If she wasn’t going to school, then where was she spending her time? I had assumed she was probably at home, but that only worked if our parents allowed her to stay there.

What if they didn’t?

Why had I never considered the possibility that she might simply be wandering around outside without telling anyone anything?

Once the pieces connected in my head, I acted immediately. I cut my work short and rushed out of the house. I got on my bicycle and rode all over town.

It had been a long time since I had gone beyond my newspaper delivery area. Still, I had lived in this town for so long that I wasn’t going to get lost.

I checked all the nearby places where she seemed likely to be, and in the end, I found her in a park that felt painfully nostalgic.

It was located inside a residential neighborhood, fairly large, and surrounded by trees. It had clean public restrooms, and there weren’t many people around during the day. It was the perfect place for someone with nowhere to go to kill time.

It was also a place where we had often played as children.

Even after two years apart, I recognized Yūha immediately. She was sitting deep on a bench, her head lowered, completely motionless.

For a moment, I thought she had lost consciousness, so I ran over to her. When I realized she was only dozing, I finally stopped and noticed that I was drenched in sweat.

Maybe she heard my footsteps, because Yūha lifted her head. Surprise appeared on her face.

Feeling awkward, I looked away. Scratching the back of my head, I spoke as roughly as I could.

“What the hell? You look perfectly fine…”

This made it look like I had rushed over because I was worried about her.

Which was exactly what I had done, but I didn’t want Yūha to realize that.

I wanted her to interpret it as something like: I just happened to be passing by, thought someone was dead, and ran over to check.

For that to work, the best thing to do was leave as quickly as possible.

I made a point of projecting the attitude that I couldn’t care less about her and let out a sigh.

“Well, I’m going home, then.”

“W-Wai—”

Yūha said something.

But as far as I was concerned, meeting her at all had already been a mistake.

“Wait right there!”

“What?”

I turned around, but answered sharply. Yūha flinched. Good. If she gave up right there, I could go back to being “Sabu.”

And that would be fine. As long as “Yū” and “Sabu” never met in person, we could keep getting along without any problems.

No matter what she said, I had intended to leave.

And yet,

“Where have you been for the last two years, you idiot big brother?”

“I told you, don’t call me your big brother.”

Yūha understood me far too well.

I answered reflexively and immediately realized I had screwed up. By then, it was already too late.

The conversation had begun.

“I’ve always wondered. Why do you only let me call you Rokurō?”

“…Why does it matter?”

I dodged the question the same way I always had.

But Yūha had grown up too. She wasn’t going to back down the way she used to.

“Does it have something to do with how badly you got along with Dad?”

Instead, she changed the angle of attack. Now that she was in her third year of high school, she had probably started noticing things she hadn’t before.

The distortions our family had carried all along, too. She had probably realized them as she talked with friends and her world gradually grew wider.

“I just ran away from home. Guys get to an age where they want to rebel against their parents and society.”

“But really, wasn’t it because I fought with you—”

At some point, the subject had shifted.

Yūha herself didn’t seem to realize it. She was desperately trying to find out why I had started living on my own. Apparently, she thought our fight two years ago was the reason. Worse, she seemed to blame herself for it.

It was true that Yūha had said a lot of things to me after I broke up with Komaki. I had been mentally worn down at the time, so I had gotten angry with her, which was rare for me… but that had never been a big deal. At least, not to me.

“You had nothing to do with it. I’d decided to live on my own long before that.”

“Since when?”

“December of my third year of high school.”

I had been studying hard for my entrance exams, with less than a month left before the Common Test, right when I was putting the finishing touches on everything. That was when my life fell apart.

Maybe “fell apart” wasn’t the right way to put it. After all, it had been decided from the beginning that things would turn out that way.

My fight with Yūha had happened in March, so there was no way it could have been related.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Komaki dumped me out of nowhere, so of course you got angry.”

“But…”

“It’s hot.”

I cut off Yūha, who still looked dissatisfied, and flapped my shirt while complaining about the heat.

And it really was hot. My breathing had finally settled down, but sweat still kept forming under the sunlight. My throat was getting dry too.

I glanced sideways at Yūha. It didn’t look like she was going to let me go yet.

Giving up, I pulled my wallet out of my pocket.

“Let’s talk while we eat some ice cream. Soda flavor is fine for you, right?”

It wasn’t that she especially loved the taste. She always picked it because she liked the color. The same went for shaved ice—always Blue Hawaii. That was Yūha’s summer.

“You remembered.”

“It’s not like I’d forget something that easily. I’m not an old man.”

Her lips softened into a faint smile, and she looked just a little happy.

She looked away as if to deny it, but her voice had become noticeably quieter.

“Vanilla for you, Rokurō?”

“Yeah.”

“You haven’t changed.”

“…Guess not.”

Awkwardly, but still somehow managing it, Yūha put on a softer expression.

I wasn’t kind enough to treat her coldly after seeing that.