Chapter 32

“Oh, good evening, Chisa-san.”
“Well, if it isn’t Makoto-kun.”

It was the night Ryuichi had spoken with Akira.
Chisa and Makoto happened to be at the very club that had served as the catalyst for Ryuichi and Satsuki’s encounter. The two of them hadn’t planned to meet up there; they had simply crossed paths by coincidence.

“Mind if I take the seat next to you?”
“Go right ahead.”

Makoto sat down beside Chisa, who was in the middle of drinking.
With both of them sporting the flashy appearances suited for the venue, the gorgeous woman and handsome young man made quite a striking picture together. Since the club was primarily packed with regulars, Chisa and Makoto shared plenty of mutual acquaintances. Naturally, there were just as many people looking to make a move on Chisa as there were looking to approach Makoto.

“You’ve been coming around here pretty often lately, Chisa-san.”
“Well, yeah. Partly because I just like the noise and the atmosphere.”

Pouring beer into her emptied glass, Chisa continued.

“Before I met Ryuichi, I used to fool around with all sorts of guys. But once you get a taste of someone like him, no other man can ever satisfy you. Seriously, that guy is an absolute wizard of seduction.”
“Ahaha, think even I wouldn’t cut it?”
“What’s that? Are you interested in me?”

Makoto shook his head.
He was just joking around, and he knew perfectly well that Chisa had no eyes for anyone other than Ryuichi. If she had actually nodded in agreement, it would have been shocking in its own right, but the image Makoto held of Chisa would have probably shattered into pieces on the spot.

“Well, the guy’s a menace. I used to wonder if it was right of him to treat women almost like disposable tools, but lately, starting with you, he actually treasures Rindo and the others. It’s like his entire core got completely rewritten or something.”
“So Makoto-kun thinks so too, huh.”

Their deductions were spot-on, though neither of them could have possibly guessed the truth that Ryuichi’s core had changed because he had regained memories of his past life. They were merely ordinary residents of this world, entirely unaware of dimensions beyond it.

“Bartender, get me some juice.”
“Oh, are you good with that?”
“I’m fine with it.”
“Thanks for the treat!”

While Makoto occasionally partook in alcohol despite being underage, Chisa naturally made sure to order him juice instead. Watching him sip the chilled drink with genuine satisfaction made him look endearingly his age; just like Ryuichi, men of his type naturally appealed to older women in a place filled exclusively with adults. Chisa didn’t feel any romantic inclination toward him, but he certainly possessed all the right elements to be popular.

“Phew, this juice is seriously good.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Got any snacks that’d go well with… wait, right, they only serve full meals here, don’t they?”
“We’ve got some.”
“You do?!”

The bartender was well-prepared.
With that, Makoto satisfied his appetite while chatting away with Chisa. Once he had eaten his fill, he tossed a casual question her way.

“Come to think of it, I don’t think I ever asked you this before.”
“What is it?”
“Like I said earlier, the old Ryuichi wasn’t anything like he is now. Sure, he was good at sweet-talking and pleasing women… but back then, he had a real vicious streak, didn’t he?”
“That’s true.”
“So why has Chisa-san kept a relationship going with him all this time? I mean, I guess you could chalk it up to his raw charm as a man, but still.”

At Makoto’s words, Chisa let out a soft chuckle.
Pouring more beer into her glass, she chugged it down before answering his question.

“When I first got involved with Ryuichi, I thought he was entirely out of the ordinary. He was great at handling women, and, as much as it irritates me to admit it, his choice of words was always a calculated mix of sincerity and strategy that kept you from ever feeling genuinely put off. Above all, the boy just knew how to make a woman feel good.”
“True that. Pretty sure he’s taught me how to pick up girls a few times, too.”
“Oh, really… Well, we can save that story for later, but while sleeping with him, I noticed something… how should I put it? It felt less like normal womanizing and more like he was harboring a deep-seated resentment toward women, or, to be precise, like he was looking right through the woman in front of him to see someone else entirely.”
“Huh.”

That was news to Makoto.
He had certainly known about Ryuichi’s ruthless side, but he had always chalked it up to him simply being an extreme womanizer.
Aside from that, Makoto roughly knew that Ryuichi loathed his own family from the bottom of his heart.

“Parents…? They’re nothing more than garbage. Not worth a damn.”
“You really gonna go that far?”
“Well, I’m only talking about my own scumbag parents. Makoto’s mom and dad are genuinely great people, aren’t they? They treat a guy like me normally, after all.”

He now realized that the casual conversation Makoto had shared with him back then carried a much heavier meaning than he had initially thought.

“Ryuichi went off the rails the moment I met him, and in a way, I wasn’t much better myself. So I figured, hey, sleeping with the guy feels great, and hanging around with him isn’t so bad. If he never ended up settling down with anyone special, I figured putting my hat in the ring as his girlfriend wouldn’t be a bad idea either.”

Chisa had harbored her own steady calculations all along.
Her encounter with Ryuichi had been completely abrupt, but stumbling upon the darkness he carried inside had been a pure stroke of coincidence. Drawn in by the complicated past and deep shadows of a younger boy, especially given Chisa’s usual fiercely independent lifestyle, she had found herself captivated on multiple levels and genuinely wanted to watch over him.

“And now Shizuna-chan is in the picture, right? That girl is something else. She managed to break past Ryuichi’s inner walls way faster than I ever did. In a way, is she just naturally good at handling men?”
“Nah, I doubt it. That’s purely because she genuinely loves Ryuichi to death. Though, as much as I’m phrasing it like this, Chisa-san figured it out too, didn’t you?”
“Well, obviously. She looks straight out of a romance novel heroine.”
“A heroine, huh… Yeah, I can see that.”

No, she’s literally a 100-percent legitimate heroine, a voice seemed to echo from somewhere.

“Looks like Ryuichi’s working hard for a girl again today, too.”
“Ah, he mentioned something about heading over to Shirasaki’s place… Must be dealing with that woman from before.”
“Yep, yep. Apparently she’s got a younger brother.”
“Ah~, so that’s how it connects. Well, knowing Ryuichi, he’ll handle it.”
“Naturally. Though honestly, even if Ryuichi hadn’t stuck his nose into it, Shirasaki-chan probably would’ve been fine on her own.”

From there, the two of them continued chatting away happily.
The conversation naturally revolved mostly around Ryuichi; the exact kind of dialogue that would make him storm over and yell at them to shut up if he were anywhere nearby.

For Satsuki, Akira was and always would be nothing more than a younger brother.
She felt that reality weighing down on her heavily even now, as he pinned her down against the floor.

“Akira, let go of me.”
“Sis… I love you!”
“I said, let go.”

After receiving a message from Ryuichi telling her to stay put while he monitored the situation, Satsuki had returned home with a sense of security and waited in her room. She hadn’t been entirely sure whether Akira would actually try anything, but when he barged into her room without knocking or saying a word, he had immediately shoved her down.

To be completely honest, being looked at with sexual desire by her own flesh-and-blood younger brother made her skin crawl. The affection she had once felt for him as a sibling had instantly evaporated into nothingness.

“I love you, Sis… What the hell did you do with Shishido?! What did you do to him, Sis?! I’m right here, aren’t I?! I’ve always been right by your side!!”
“Right. But you’re just my younger brother, aren’t you?”

No matter how many times she repeated it, to Satsuki, he was just her brother.
No matter what he did or how he acted, she could never see him as a man, and she could easily imagine that she never would, not even a million years into the future. An older sister falling in love with her biological brother… well, perhaps somewhere out in the wide world such things existed, but Satsuki couldn’t fathom it for even a second.

(If this had been the old me, I probably would’ve just stayed silent. No matter what he did to me, I might have just forced myself to accept it just to protect his feelings.)

The thought was utterly terrifying.
No matter how much she cared about her brother, the fact that her past self would have tolerated something irreversible just to keep the peace made her shudder.

“…I’m… I’m!”
“Step back, Akira. Stop this.”

As if all the fight had suddenly drained from his body, Akira backed away.
He slumped down onto the floor right where he was and stopped moving altogether, leaving Satsuki with nothing left to say to him. Straightening out her ruffled clothes and letting her parents know she was stepping out for a bit, Satsuki left the house.

“…Ah.”

Waiting right outside, leaning casually against a nearby utility pole close to the house, was Ryuichi.
Standing around like that in the middle of the street was the sort of thing that would usually prompt someone to call the police, but he had stayed right there the entire time, keeping watch just in case something happened to Satsuki.

“Judging by that look on your face… doesn’t look like nothing happened.”
“Yeah. He told me he loved me… but I told him to stop. Akira is my precious younger brother… How did things end up like this, I wonder?”

Human emotions couldn’t be strictly controlled; one person falling for another wasn’t something outsiders could easily intervene in or dictate. Even if someone developed feelings for a blood relative, pointing out that they shouldn’t feel that way was easy, but erasing those feelings was impossible.

“…In a way, part of the blame falls on a guy like me, though.”
“That’s not true at all. There’s no need to worry about that, so please don’t let it bother you. No, wait– that’s wrong.”
“What do you mean?”

As Ryuichi tilted his head in confusion, Satsuki continued with a gentle smile.

“I met Ryuichi-kun, and I fell in love with you. Please don’t ever call those pure feelings a mistake.”
“…Right… I suppose so.”
“Yes.”

Illuminated by the pale streetlamp, Satsuki’s smile looked breathtakingly clear.
Comparing her memories of the past with her current self, Ryuichi realized he had truly sparked a massive transformation in her life. Because of one single, misplaced button, Ryuichi had ended up drawing numerous people into his orbit. He would soon learn that every single one of those bonds was a path forged by his own hands.

“Sis! Sis!”
“……………“
(Why is my own brother doing this to me…? Ah, whatever. The moment my body was forced to yield that day, something inside me broke. I’m already tainted anyway… At this point, it doesn’t matter what anyone does to me.)

Yes, a single misplaced button truly was all it took to alter the entire world.