Reincarnated as the Heroine’s Big Sister, but My Little Sister Fell for Me Instead - Chapter 2

My sister has changed.

I’ve been thinking about it for three days straight since I noticed.

I can’t quite put my finger on what’s different. Her face is the same. Her height and voice are the same. But something is off.

When I sat next to her at breakfast, she looked at me. That alone made me think, Ah, she’s different. The old sister never looked at me once during breakfast.

When I left some vegetables I dislike on my plate,

“Lian, eat your vegetables too.”

I was so startled, I dropped my fork.

She called me by name.

My sister rarely called me by my name. It was either “you” or nothing at all. And suddenly, she used my name. Not only that, she told me to eat my vegetables. She had never said anything like that to me before.

“…Yes.”

I ate the vegetables. My sister watched me do it, then turned her eyes back to her own plate.

That was all. Just that, and yet my heart was pounding all day.

The next day, when we passed each other in the hallway.

My sister stopped. I stopped too.

“Your hair is messy.”

Saying that, she reached out her hand. I instinctively took a step back.

My sister’s hand stopped.

There was a slightly awkward pause.

“…Did you not want me to?”

“N-no, that’s not it,” I said hurriedly. “I was just surprised.”

My sister was silent for another moment, then slowly reached out her hand again. This time, I didn’t pull away.

Her fingers touched my hair. It was gentle. It didn’t hurt.

“There, that’s better.”

“…Thank you.”

My sister nodded and walked away.

Left standing there, I touched the spot where she had touched.

This feels strange, I thought. My heart was pounding.

That night, I asked the maid, Marie.

“Don’t you think my sister is acting kind of strange?”

Marie made a troubled face. “Strange, how?”

“She’s being kind.”

“…Is that strange?”

I thought about it. “I don’t know. But she’s different from before.”

Marie started to say something, then stopped. “Isn’t that a good thing?” she said.

I didn’t know if it was a good thing or not.

If it was a good thing, why did it make me feel so restless?

When she touched my hair in the hallway, my sister’s face was very close. She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t cold. She was just looking at my hair. With a face that seemed like she wasn’t thinking about anything else.

That face stayed in my head.

On the morning of the third day.

I gathered my courage and knocked on my sister’s door.

“Come in,” a voice said from inside.

When I opened the door, my sister was reading a book by the window. She lifted her eyes and looked at me.

“…Did you need something?”

“Um…” I said, still standing in the doorway. “Why did you suddenly become kind?”

My sister’s eyes wavered slightly.

There was a pause. Morning light streamed in from the window.

“Because before, I wasn’t kind.”

“Huh?”

“That’s all.”

I couldn’t quite process it. She herself thought she hadn’t been kind before? Why suddenly? What did she mean?

“…I see.”

“You can come in, since you went to the trouble of coming.”

Hesitating a little, I entered the room.

My sister closed her book and pointed to a chair by the window. “Sit there.” When I sat down, she pulled a book from the shelf and handed it to me.

“I think you can read this one; it has lots of pictures.”

When I took it, it was a plant encyclopedia.

After that, the two of us read our respective books without talking much.

This feels strange, I thought.

It wasn’t uncomfortable. Rather, I somehow felt like it was okay for me to be here. Even though it was my sister’s room.

After about an hour, I closed the encyclopedia.

“Sister.”

“What.”

“Can I come again?”

My sister looked up from her book. Then she lowered her eyes back to it and said,

“Do as you like.”

It was the softest voice I had ever heard her use, I thought.