After finishing lunch,
Seika returns to her room and resumes the simulation.
[After your younger sister begins dating Toru, their relationship progresses quickly.]
[Before graduating university, the two of them become engaged.]
[The following year, after their engagement, your brother and sister hold a traditional shrine wedding.]
[At the ceremony, Nijika is dressed in a white bridal kimono, radiant and breathtaking. You sit with the rest of your family. Your mother covers her face, moved to tears.]
[You look at the newlyweds, your heart overwhelmed.]
[On one side is your ex-boyfriend, now forever out of reach, the one you once cherished.]
[On the other side is your sister, the person closest to you since childhood.]
[Their union should fill you with bliss, like a dream come true, yet bitterness wells up inside you. It feels like your mouth is blocked with bitter herbs, making even a swallow of saliva painful.]
[You begin to wonder.]
[If you hadn't broken up back then, would the ending have been different?]
[Maybe you would have been the one to build a family with him, have a beautiful future, give birth to a child…]
[You can't continue that thought.]
[Tears spill down your face. Everyone assumes you're touched by the ceremony, but only you know how much it hurts, how difficult it is to breathe.]
[After the wedding.]
[The newlyweds travel to a warm southern country for their honeymoon.]
[They spend their nights entwined, enjoying their married life.]
[You remain in cold Tokyo, alone.]
[Tokyo's winter winds cannot reach the southern lands, just as your feelings cannot reach his heart.]
[You and he are like two lines that once crossed, now running toward different destinations.]
[Time flows.]
[Your face shows its traces.]
[You've reached the age where you start worrying about wrinkles.]
[After graduation, your sister joins the government as a civil servant.]
[Toru becomes an office worker, clocking in from nine to five.]
[You continue running your live house, watching young people chase their dreams.]
[You often think back to your twenty-five-year-old self. Back then, you still had dreams, and you still had him.]
[One day.]
[After work.]
[You and Toru go out for a drink.]
[In the izakaya, you catch a faint nostalgic expression on his face when he looks at you.]
[Slightly tipsy.]
[Toru takes another sip and, emboldened by alcohol, speaks the words buried in his heart——]
["Nee-san, after all these years… do you still like me?"]
[You fall silent.]
[You want to say that you've long moved on, but your heartbeat betrays you.]
[Of course you still like him. You always have.]
[But the two of you are no longer possible.]
["I still like you," he says. His words make your heart race again.]
[…]
[In that moment.]
[Your body yearns for him, like a traveler who has walked hundreds of kilometers across a desert searching for an oasis.]
[And Toru is your oasis.]
["Look at you. You broke up with me back then, and now you're making that helpless face again." He drinks another sip. Through all these years, he has never let you go.]
[But he already has a wife.]
[Nijika loves him deeply. Toru could never betray her.]
["Toru…"]
[You call his name.]
[After gathering courage for several seconds, you finally say the words buried in your heart for nearly five years——]
["I still like you. I've always liked you."]
[Hearing that, Toru lets out a soft laugh, his expression filled with release——]
["Good. That's enough."]
[At the time of your breakup, he had guessed your thoughts. But because of certain accidents, he let you go and chose Nijika instead.]
[Toru does not regret it.]
[In life, you meet countless people. Those you miss… are simply missed.]
[That night.]
[Toru takes you home.]
[Before he leaves, you lean in, wanting to kiss him one last time, a final farewell.]
[Toru rejects you instantly——]
["Nee-san, I won't betray Nijika."]
[But to comfort you, he presses a soft kiss on your cheek——]
["This is a family kiss, Nee-san."]
[You watch his back as he walks away, and finally collapse to the ground, covering your face as you cry.]
[You don't want to be his family. You want to grow old with him.]
[But sadly, that is only a distant wish.]
[The two of you ultimately missed each other.]
[The following year.]
[You remain single, while your peers have long married, some with children already in primary school. You continue living alone.]
[Toru's career goes smoothly, and he enters company management.]
[That same year.]
[Nijika becomes pregnant.]
[The news spreads quickly within the Ijichi family. Your mother even moves into the young couple's new home to care for Nijika personally.]
[As the older sister, you are nearly forty and still without a boyfriend. Your mother has given up on you, intending to spend her remaining years enjoying her granddaughter.]
[The old accident didn't take her life, but time is merciless and never stops.]
[Your parents are entering their sixties.]
[You approach thirty, approach forty, but never meet a second man who makes your heart move…]
[Toru becomes the closest, yet most distant, familiar stranger.]
[In the fifth month of Nijika's pregnancy.]
[Toru takes you out drinking again. Seeing how troubled you still are, he tells you to move on. You're still young. You can find another love.]
[You answer with—]
[1. "I can be your lover. I don't need a wedding."]
[2. "Maybe I'll try blind dates and fall into another man's arms. Don't regret it."]
[3. "You've liked me for twenty years. Yet you don't dare to have two women at once and even push me away yourself. Are you really a man? If you can endure it, then tomorrow I'll go sleep with a homeless man and bear his child."]
[4. Stay silent.]
[5. Simulate personally.]
"These options are all so extreme."
Seika genuinely doesn't know which to choose.
Option 1— Too humble. And he'd definitely reject it.
Option 2— Reverse psychology, might work.
If Kitahara really still likes her, he wouldn't stay indifferent.
Option 3…
Very straightforward, even using that word.
But becoming the other woman isn't good.
Seika doesn't want to ruin her sister's family.
She picks 4.
[Toru sees you silent. He simply drinks with you quietly and drops the topic.]
[After the alcohol hits, you collapse into his arms.]
[After chatting,]
[Toru calls a taxi, brings you home, carries you to your bed.]
[Just before he leaves, you grab his hand.]
["Don't go…"]
[The man stops walking.]