The Deceiving

by Jin (Shizen no Teki-P)

They must have appreciated the chance to get rid of all three of us menaces at once, but the complete lack of compassion behind it honestly peeved me.

  But we couldn’t refuse them, of course. Seto and I had to jump on the opportunity before there was any chance we’d miss it.

  We sure didn’t have any lingering affection for the facility, anyway. It was nothing but grudges, from start to finish.

  For both of us, depressed over the fact that Kido was off someplace far away without so much as another word, this was an opportunity beyond our wildest dreams.

  “No, but, uh…Hey, this is great! Getting to join you as a family and all…We couldn’t be any happier!”

  Seto turned to the backseat.

  “R-right, guys?”

  Why’re you turning toward us, you dumbass, I thought to myself. Sadly, Seto’s eyes weren’t red, and “Please, just say yes” was written across his face. “Yeah, it’s really great,” I reluctantly agreed.

  “Yehh…” was the vague response from the peeved-looking Kido.

  Seto began to quiver a little, the awkward smile still on his face, which all but screamed to me, “If you could just act a little nicer…”

  It wasn’t that Seto had finally gained control over his ability. It was just that his facial expressions were too easy to read.

  But while Kido was still clearly peeved, she didn’t act particularly unhappy upon learning we were coming along for the ride.

  I was sweating it out for a while, wondering if she’d refuse to go once she found out we were joining her. I suppose we had nothing to worry about on that front, but judging by her demeanor, she sure hadn’t forgiven me yet. That unnerved me.

  Are we ever going to patch things up, where we’re going?

  “Okay, here we are! Hop on out, kids!”

  The car stopped inside the lot, and as we filed out, we were greeted by a small red brick house. Seto and I stood there for a bit, examining its unfamiliar contours. For a residential neighborhood, it stuck out. I bet Seto was wondering if this kind of thing was normal in this town.

  “…Cute.”

  Kido blurted out the appraisal.

  I turned around. Kido, noticing this, blushed and glared at me with her best “What are you looking at, you pile of garbage?” leer. I thought about saying something in self-defense, but “The next time you talk to me, I’ll hit you for real” ran across my mind just in the nick of time. I opted to stay mum.

  But…Ah. Right. Kido did like cute things. A house like this probably ranked as “cute” in the eyes of most young girls.

  And as I recalled this, an idea began to take shape.

  Maybe Kido would like it if I turned into a cat again.

  The last time I did, she was enthralled, completely forgetting that it was still “me” inside. I wonder why I never thought about that. Well, perfect, then. One more time around, and…

  “Okay, kids, c’mon in!”

  I walked in through the open door to find that, despite the unusual exterior, the inside was no different from the kind of typical family residence you’d see on TV all the time.

  All the smells, nothing like what I had back when living in my own room, made me realize all the more that I was starting a new life.

  “Hee-hee! What do you think of your new home? Feel free to use whatever you see lying around, okay? …Oh, but I guess I better formally introduce myself. My name is Ayaka Tateyama. You can think of me as your mother, or as whatever else—anything’s fine. But hopefully you’ll be seeing all of us as family soon!”

  Ayaka’s smile as she said this cleanly washed away any concerns that remained in my heart.

  “Th-thank you very much.”

  “Sure thing!” Ayaka replied, patting my head.

  I looked toward Seto and Kido, a little embarrassed. They looked back at me, a little jealous.

  “And you guys, too!” Ayaka said, quickly picking up on this and patting both of their heads. Her palms must have the power to calm people down or something. They both looked remarkably serene as they accepted the attention.

  “Okay, then. Do you kids mind playing in your room until your big sister comes home?”

  That made the two of them freeze in place. I followed their guide.

  “S-sister…?” Seto anxiously asked.

  “Hmm?” replied Ayaka. “Well, you’ll have a sister who’s a year older than you all, but…didn’t the superintendent mention that?” She stopped, a confused look on her face.

  I almost blurted out, “I’m sorry, that superintendent guy pretty much told me nothing,” but Seto spoke up first.

  “…Ohhh! Oh! Maybe so, yeah!”

  I nodded silently. We’d been greeted with nothing but warmth and kindness so far. There was no point throwing stones at it or asking too many needless questions. If this sister person was Ayaka’s daughter, I was sure she’d be just as kind and gentle to us.

  Seto and I nodded our agreement to each other, confirming that we both shared the same opinion. It reminded me all over again how much of a bond we’d built over the past two months, on a constant vigil to keep Kido on our good side. I didn’t exactly look back on it with fondness, but…

  Kido, unaware of our thoughts, turned pale and began to shake a little.

  “Hmm? Is something wrong? You all right?”

  “N-no, I’m fine,” Kido weakly replied. Clearly, she wasn’t, something Ayaka spotted. “Are you worried about your sister, maybe?” she said, patting her head.

  Surprisingly, this was enough to immediately soften Kido’s expression as she let out a soft “no” in response. There must really be some kind of magic force hidden in her palm.

  We were all still huddled just beyond the front door. It was time to explore the house a little more.

  Going down the hall, we found a door just before the stairs with a sign reading KIDS’ ROOM printed on it.

  “This is just for the time being, but I was thinking we’d use this for your room, starting today.”

  Ayaka opened the door, revealing a room far larger, and far more well lit by the sun, than the oppressive Room 107 we used to call home.

  “Wow…”

  Seto couldn’t hide his amazement. His eyes began to sparkle as he imagined the future childhood he’d spend here.

  We all swarmed into the room, each of us examining whatever took our interest. There was a closet packed with toys, a shelf lined with an oddly extensive line of superhero comics…Everything we discovered made us more and more excited.

  “Well! Glad you guys seem to like it, I guess! Now play nice until your sister comes home, all right?”

  With a final smile, Ayaka closed the door. The three of us were left alone in the children’s room.

  That, of course, left us to ponder over what this “sister” was really like.

  The thought never occurred to us while Ayaka was around, but now that our first encounter was looming at any moment, it made us anxious.

  I turned toward my two companions. They must’ve had the same concern. Each of them was seated, looking at the floor and fidgeting. Our tacit agreement meant that they couldn’t just say “What next?” or whatever to each other. Not with Kido around, who publicly promised to hit the next person who spoke to her. Neither of us was willing to take that risk.

  An awkward silence unfolded. Do we really have what it takes to survive in this family?

  Seto began to steal glances at me. Probably counting on me to do something. Damn it. The silence and anxiety was making me restless.

  “…I’m gonna go to the bathroom.”

  So I decided to leave the room. Seto flashed me a seething “Don’t leave me alone with her!” glare as I shut the door. It broke my heart to, but I closed it anyway. “Hang in there, Seto!” I shouted in my mind. I didn’t want to wait around for a reply, so I headed off in search of the john.

  Heading down the hall a little ways, I spotted a door with W/C written on it in English letters. I didn’t know any of the language back
then, but even I knew what that sign meant.

  I headed inside and heaved a sigh. I don’t know why, but being in a bathroom alone always had a calming effect on me. Maybe, since I didn’t have my own room, it was because bathrooms were the only place I could really be by myself.

  The thought depressed me a little, but I decided not to dwell on it.

  But what am I going to do now?

  I wasn’t about to stroll on back to the house of horrors I just left. But barricading myself in the bathroom for too long could make my new family worry about me.

  What should I do?

  “Hey, I’m home!”

  Suddenly, a loud voice made itself easily heard through the bathroom door.

  My heart thudded loudly in my ears.

  Right after that, there was a clattering of footsteps and the unlatching of a door before things fell silent again.

  It was easy to picture our “sister” at the front door from where I was standing.

  Whoever it was sounded like a bright, energetic woman. Not the type to wheedle or backstab people.

  Although—Oh man, what if she is…?

  …Wait. What am I thinking? Haven’t I just spent my entire life being judged and hated as a bad influence without any chance to defend myself? And here I was, trying to guess someone’s personality from their voice alone. I’m awful.

  There’s no telling until I meet her myself. That’s how relationships work.

  “Right,” I said to myself, and then I left the bathroom.

  Judging by the noise I heard, our “sister” went right into the children’s room after arriving home. That meant Kido and Seto already knew who their sister was going to be. I felt a bit nervous about that, but I knew them well enough—they might be too scared to say anything, but they weren’t going to spout off nonsense or immediately shun her or anything.

  In fact, maybe they were hitting it off great right now. You never know, I thought, as I approached the door.

  With a deep breath, I brought a hand to the doorknob.

  But just as I was about to push it open, I heard a mumbled “Gehh!” from the other side.

  …Wait a second.

  I’ve heard that before.

  A pretty long time ago…at the park…

  Once my mind reached that point, I finally realized the devastating truth and threw the door open.

  Just as I thought, I was greeted by a girl curled into a ball on the floor, moaning to herself painfully.

  “Ooooh…”

  Kido, standing next to her, shifted her eyes from the fallen girl to me, muttering to herself. “H-how come you didn’t turn back after I punched you…? How come there’re two of you, Kano…?”

  I immediately stampeded my way back to the bathroom, locked the door, and knelt on the floor.

  “C’mon, God, that’s not even fair…”

  In fact, it was awful.

  I knew there wasn’t much point bitching at a God who I didn’t know was around to listen or not, but I felt like I had a decent claim here.

  Who could have predicted anything like this?

  My “sister” was that girl I ran into at the park.

  It was a preposterous coincidence. I was astonished things like this happened in the world. I wish I could meet whoever arranged this new torment for me. I’d definitely have a word or two for him.

  If that was all there was to it, then all right. Hey, it’s a small world, yeah?

  But it wasn’t. That girl definitely looked like she took one of Kido’s full-strength body blows. Voice of experience talking here.

  I imagined the girl practically flying into the room, beaming, going on like, “Here I am, guys! Your new sister!” That would be wholly expected behavior toward your new siblings, I supposed. In fact, it probably would’ve made me happy to see.

  But, from Kido’s perspective, that heartfelt welcome probably looked like a cruel joke on my part.

  She was already waiting for her “sister” with bated breath, only to find the guy she was actively quarreling with busting open the door, transformed into that girl I always liked turning into, and spouting nonsense about how I was her sister.

  Yeahhh…

  “…I’d probably punch her, too.”

  My muttering to myself was drowned out by loud knocking on the door, followed by someone roughly jiggling the doorknob.

  “Agghhh!”

  I instinctively screamed.

  “I know you’re in there. Get out. Now.”

  The emotionless Kido’s words sounded like “I’ll kill you” repeated several times to me.

  The first time she speaks to me in a week, and this is what I get. This world is so cruel.

  “W-wait a sec! I got a stomachache…”

  “Yeah, sure. Get out here and I’ll make it all better, okay?”

  “Ahhh…! P-please! Cut me some slack! How was I supposed to know this was gonna happen…?!”

  I was pleading for my life. I couldn’t have sounded any more pathetic.

  Wham! The door shuddered, almost breaking at the impact of Kido’s force.

  Well, I thought, no escaping from this. One punch like that, and I’m a goner. Time to pay the piper. I gave up all hope and opened the door.

  It went without saying that Kido was now the living personification of unharnessed, uncontrollable rage.

  “Any last words?”

  “…Okay, just let me say one mor—ooof!!”

  Before she even gave me a chance to finish, she jackhammered her fist into my stomach. I instantly crumpled down to the bathroom floor.

  …Why’d she even ask, then?

  Ahh, my consciousness is fading away from me.

  Once I’m gone, Seto, you’ll need to stay strong. You can’t let her get the best of you. Please!

  “Hmm? Are you…?”

  From far away, I could hear someone talking. I wondered who it was.

  “Oh, it is! The kid I ran into at the park! Wow, small world, huh?!”

  My near-extinguished consciousness was quickly whisked back to reality.

  Fighting off the pain as I zoomed to my feet, I saw the girl on the ground earlier, looking down at me with a smile.

  Her hair, medium in length, was as deeply black as her eyes. She was completely unchanged from when I last saw her.

  “Good to see you again. Do you remember me at all?”

  That form, that voice, that scent…Not a day passed by when I didn’t recall it.

  I promised we’d talk again tomorrow, and then I walked away, figuring that was the last of it. Now we were together again, in the last place I ever expected.

  …And in the bathroom, no less. Insult to injury.

  Kido brought a tentative hand to the girl’s stomach, likely concerned about any permanent damage she did.

  “Hmm? Oh, I’m fine! A-OK here! I got some muscle down there, so…”

  She cleared her throat and jutted her chest forward for effect.

  “It’s gonna take a lot more than that to kill me, lemme tell ya! …But, boy, what a surprise! Punching me at first sight like that! That’s a pretty killer secret move you got!”

  She smiled and patted Kido’s head.

  “I’m sorry…It’s all Kano’s fault.”

  Kido looked a little ashamed as she stepped up and assigned me all the blame. The girl raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, yeah, you said that before. What’s up with that?”

  Squirming under the guilt, I felt obliged to state my case.

  “N-no! No, she’s lying to you! We can explain all of this…”

  “You can? Ooh, I’d be interested to hear it!”

  Uh-oh. Maybe I piqued her interest a little too much for my own good.

  The girl peered into my eyes, a curious smile on her face.

  Greeting her form, her voice, her scent with my five senses once again reminded me that this was the same girl who had lived in my mind all these years.

  Come to think of it, why did this girl stay so v
ividly alive in my head after just a single encounter? It took me days before I finally got the hang of the whole cat thing.

  I melted on the spot, machine-gunning out “uhs” and “ums” around the room.

  But the girl didn’t wait. “…But, uh, maybe later, then!” she said and gave me a gregarious smile.

  “We should get to know each other’s names first, anyway! How’s that sound?”

  The girl turned around and jogged back to our room.

  Kido gave me a glance. “I haven’t forgiven you, by the way,” she spat at me as she followed the girl out. “You better explain this to me later.”

  So much for hoping these events softened her up a bit.

  I waited for them to fully enter the room before I took a long, deep breath and followed them.

  Once inside, I did what I could to assuage Seto.

  “I thought she was going to kill me,” he said through teary eyes. Luck was probably the only thing that saved him.

  If anything had turned out differently, he might’ve been a dead man.

  Following the girl’s instructions, the three of us lined up in a row, facing her directly as she knelt on the ground.

  “Okay, you ready?”

  The girl was excited, as if waiting her whole life for this moment.

  “My name’s Ayano. Ayano Tateyama! But you can call me ‘Big Sis,’ all right?”

  Ayaka made it clear earlier that we were free to call her whatever we wanted. By comparison, this girl, Ayano, wasn’t taking no for an answer.

  Kido followed.

  “Um, my name’s Tsubomi Kido. Good to meet you.”

  Next to her, Seto gave a look that resembled a pigeon shot with a BB gun. Not only was Kido being politely friendly in a way she had never been with us—she freely gave out her first name, something we practically had to extract from her like it was her appendix. I couldn’t blame him for being surprised.

  I looked on, a bit miffed, trying my best to keep from commenting on this newfound tractability.

  Seto continued on.

  “Um, Kousuke Seto…”

  He kept it short. I liked that.

  At least he managed to get his entire name out in one go. From him, that’s a stellar effort. The first time I met him, it took Seto a few hours to venture out from under his bedsheets, much less tell me his name. Compared to that, he was honestly making impressive progress.