Because She’s Not Weak Enough for Me to Worry About in the First Place

"I'll think about Mary a lot more later... Well, I'm sorry for calling you out of the blue. I understand that after everything that has happened, you don't want me to act like a friend now like we used to be. But I really wanted to talk to you now."

Hearing my former friend's voice over the phone gave me a strange feeling.

We used to talk every day when we were in middle school, but recently we haven't talked much at all.

However, even though it had been a long time, ... I still enjoyed talking with Kirari as much as I had in the past.

Come to think of it, I used to enjoy conversing with her.

I suddenly remembered that I was always impressed by the stories told from a perspectivist point of view.

"I was surprised when Azusa asked me, 'Can I give Kirari Onee-chan your contact information?'"

"... Hey, Azu-chan calls me 'Onee-chan,' but gets mad when I act like an older sister, do you know why?"

"Ah ..."

It's definitely Shiho's fault.

Whenever that girl comes to our house, she always talks to Azusa insistently. No matter how much Azusa hates it, Shiho always says, "Leave everything to your Onee-chan!" and she is probably fed up because she is being forced to be good. And in the end, because of Shiho's clumsiness, Azusa is always being inconvenienced.

However, it would take a long time to explain everything regarding Shiho, so I'll discuss this topic later, when I have more time.

“Azusa is also in her rebellious phase."

As I mentioned the suitable reason, "Bang!", I suddenly heard a sound like a punch on the wall from the next room... If you're going to eavesdrop, I hope you'll do it in a way that's a little less obvious.

"Yes, that's right,...... finally, the rebellious phase has come. Kirari Onee-chan is a little sad, but we should be happy for her growth."

"Tell her later."

"Nyahaha, I will."

The topic unintentionally turned to Azusa, but that seems to be the end of it.

Thanks to my stepsister, the awkwardness between me and Kirari seemed to have eased a bit.

Kirari also seemed to have regained a more natural tone of voice than before.

“Ko-kun… Is it time for me to formally apologize?”

Perhaps she decided it was time.

As soon as the conversation was interrupted, Kirari quickly got down to business before there was a pause of silence.

“I apologized in writing earlier..., but I realized that I should properly apologize in words for this kind of thing, so I called you. I'm sorry for talking so ... bad to you, even though I hurt you so much."

--I knew you were going to talk about it.

I couldn't reply earlier because it came out of nowhere.

I didn't know what to say, so I thought about it and before I could say ... anything, she called me and here we were.

Of course, there's no way she wouldn't have 'apologized' to me.

"It's not that I want you to forgive me. It's not that I want to go back to my old friendship with Ko-kun now, and it's not that I want you to pretend that I didn't slap you or say something terrible to you at that time because I apologized ... I just want closure."

In contrast to my confusion, Kirari seemed to have already made up her mind.

There was no hesitation on her part.

“No matter what the reason, there is no way that I can be forgiven for laying my hands on you. No, no, it's not that. ...I finally realized recently that I had hurt Ko-kun a lot, in addition to the fact that I had layed my hands on you. In middle school, we were such good friends,... but when we became high school students, I was cold to Ko-kun."

Kirari's voice trembled slightly as she told him this.

But her pride probably wouldn't allow her to cry here.

"I'm ashamed now of the painful attitude I had when I fell in love with Ryu-kun ... and pretended to be a heroine blindly in love. To cut off a friend for the sake of love... that cannot be allowed to happen."

And finally, she said clearly,

"So, I am sorry."

Hearing those words, I somehow felt that 'everything was going to be all right'.

Until now, I had been worried about her.

I was worried that Kirari, Azusa, and Yuzuki might be unhappy because they fell in love with Ryuzaki.

But there's no way she's weak enough for someone like me to worry about.

That's right,... it's impossible for that Kirari not to try to grasp happiness with her own hands.

... Finally, I was able to think that way about Kirari.

I was really happy that Kirari was back to being 'Kirari'...

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