Book 1: Prologue
I can confidently state the following because I have experienced this myself: A younger step-sister is nothing but a stranger.
For an adolescent boy in his second year in high school, this is undoubtedly the greatest misfortune, and for a single family, the greatest blessing. Look at the non-blood related siblings in manga, light novels, and games, for example. With that as an excuse, the sister becomes the target heroine of the protagonist, and they end up in a relationship. If you were to take this logic for gold, then you’ll definitely go through a lot of pain and suffering, and at the very end, you only get told to ‘Protect your little sister’, receiving a protagonist-like role.
Reality is always different. If you were to ask what exactly the difference from this imaginary step-sister to a real one is, then let me give you an example. Envision me coming home from my part-time job at a certain bookstore, running into my step-sister sitting on the living room sofa sipping on some hot chocolate. Our conversation would unfold as such…
“Welcome back, Asamura-kun.”
“I’m home, Ayase-san.”
That was it. Do you understand it now? There’s no sweet and adorable ‘Onii-chan~’ to hear, nor any cold and salty ‘Huh? Can you not talk to me, you shitty big bro?’. It’s an exchange as flat as this earth, absolutely barebones with a greeting and nothing more. Both of us just live in reality, not going too far in, not moving away too much.
There’s no heart-throbbing, flirting, excessive stimulus or respect, none of that sort between me and my step-sister. After living a solid 17 years apart, suddenly being told that you’ll be a family starting tomorrow, there’s really no special emotion or feelings to be held. If anything, the level of familiarity of two people having coincidentally been classmates for two years is probably higher than ours.
My name is Asamura Yuuta. I’m your average 17-year old, a second-year in high school. If one asked me why I would get a step-sister at such an age, then it’s simply because my old man is too ‘lively’ for his own good. I can only respect him from the bottom of my heart to get married again at his solid age.
The moment I gained consciousness and thinking as a child, I experienced my parents fighting practically all day, so when I heard my old man saying he wanted to get a divorce, I could only nod to that. That idiot even apologized to me, saying it was his inability, even though I very well knew that my mother was cheating on him. Ever since then, I lived my days harboring no great expectations from the girls I dealt with.