Volume One, Epilogue: Pudding, the Favorite Treat for Welcoming Her Home
“Wow… this feels like it’s been forever!”
My sister looked up at our house happily, slid open the front door with a clatter, and peeked gently inside.
Then she turned back to look at me. "It smells like home," she said, laughing.
Turning her gaze back again, she narrowed her eyes and gazed at the house.
Seeing how unable she was to hide her joy at having made it home safely, I couldn’t help smiling myself. I gave her head a light pat, pat.
“Well then, let’s go in. …Welcome home, Hiyori.”
When I greeted her the way I always did, my sister stared at me intently, blinking a few times.
Then, looking utterly, utterly delighted, her face melted into a soft, dissolving smile.
“—…I’m home!”
◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇
The moment we stepped into the living room, my sister flopped onto the sofa with a great thump! "Oohh, so soooft," she said, kicking her limbs around on the sofa.
“Whine.”
“Oh! Leon! I missed you so much!”
Leon, freshly woken from its nap, trotted over, and the two of them began happily roughhousing together. Meanwhile, her travel bag full of luggage sat abandoned in the corner of the room, tossed aside. Watching my sister lying around so sloppily without even unpacking, my mouth twitched.
“Come on, Hiyori. Unpack your things and go take a bath.”
“Mmmnn. Later.”
…Honestly, I didn’t want to nag someone who’d just come home exhausted…
Feeling a vein throb at my temple, I—
—Bonk!
“…Ow!”
—brought my knuckles down on her head, made her unpack, and tossed her into the bath.
A while later, my sister came out of the bath, peeked into the living room from the hallway, and grinned. She sat down beside me as I drank my tea and handed me the hair dryer with a smile.
“Big sister, if you please!”
With that, she promptly turned her back to me.
Glancing back at me every so often, she pestered me: “Hurry up, or I’ll catch a cold.”
“…Honestly. Such a spoiled brat.”
“Heheheh… come on, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
I sighed as I said it, and my sister laughed a little bashfully.
Left with no choice, I dried my sister’s hair with the dryer.
As I combed through her wet brown hair with my fingers while blowing it dry, my sister tilted her face up slightly and closed her eyes, seeming to enjoy it. Her hair, fine and soft like our father’s, began fluffing up the moment it dried. Seeing that same texture, unchanged since long ago, filled me with a strange sense of nostalgia, and I narrowed my eyes and smiled just a little.
For a while after that, until her hair had fully dried, only the sound of the dryer echoed through the living room.
…Time spent just the two of us together. Until only recently, that had been such an ordinary thing.
The silence I felt when alone in this house made my heart terribly uneasy. And yet, the silence I felt when together with my sister was, strangely, somehow calming.
Only now did it strike me just how precious this time with my sister truly was. The thought lifted my spirits, and I found myself humming as I finished drying her hair. My sister, eyes closed and looking blissful, kicked her outstretched legs back and forth in good spirits.
“…Fwohhhhh! Post-bath pudding…! The best, simply the best!”
“Seriously, where did you learn to talk like that?”
“That doesn’t matter right now! Big sister, fetch me a spoon!”
“What lord’s manor did you crawl out of?”
Once her hair had finished drying, I checked the clock—it was exactly snack time. When I told my sister there was pudding, her face lit up instantly, and she was so delighted she practically leapt off the ground. For my sister, this was the first pudding in two whole weeks. Getting to eat her favorite treat again after so long, she looked about ready to start drooling.
Having secured her own pudding, my sister’s eyes sparkled. She brought her nose close to the pudding and sniffed—"Ahh, the fragrant scent of vanilla…!"—reacting with exaggerated delight.
Beside her, Leon sat properly and gazed hopefully at my sister, clearly hoping for a bite of pudding.
Half-exasperated, I handed her a spoon.
“No seconds, okay?”
“Whaaat!? How can you treat your poor sister that way, after she’s been forced to go without pudding for so long!?”
“…We’re having a feast tonight, so I think it’s better to save a little room, don’t you?”
“Understood, my lady sister!”
My sister, who’d been sulking a moment ago, did an instant about-face at the word "feast" and snapped off a crisp salute.
Then, giggling, she gripped her spoon tightly and faced off against the pudding.
—The pudding, made with this morning’s fresh eggs, was a beautiful cream color.
When she picked up the cup in her hand, it trembled, sending ripples rolling across the surface. Tiny black specks visible throughout were the vanilla beans.
Following my sister’s lead, I gave my own pudding a sniff too—a gentle, sweet aroma tickled my nose.
Glancing up, I saw my sister gently dip her spoon into the pudding, lift it up in front of her face, and gaze at it with a giddy grin. Her mouth twitched with anticipation, and then—chomp!—she popped the spoon into her mouth.
Instantly, my sister’s face lit up brilliantly. Trembling with delight, she squeezed her eyes shut happily and swallowed with a gulp.
She stayed quiet for a moment, savoring the aftertaste, before her eyes flew open and she shouted, "So gooood!" Then she began eating with vigorous enthusiasm, bite after bite.
—I’m glad. Glad she is so happy.
It had been worth making pudding every single day, just so it would be ready whenever my sister came home.
Feeling my chest warm with a cozy glow, I quietly took a bite of my own pudding too.
The moment it touched my mouth, it melted smoothly, spreading across my tongue.
Fresh-laid eggs had such a rich flavor. The deep taste of the yolk paired perfectly with just the right amount of sugar’s sweetness. It also contained plenty of vanilla beans, so an irresistible vanilla fragrance wafted through my nose with every bite.
When I dug my spoon deep into the pudding, amber caramel came oozing thickly up from the bottom.
I coated the creamy, jiggling pudding generously with caramel.
Bringing it to my mouth, I tasted the faintly bitter caramel. The sweetness of the pudding paired with the caramel’s gentle bitterness, the sweet and bitter blending together into something irresistibly delicious.
“B-Big sister. …One isn’t enough…”
Before I knew it, my sister had collapsed face-down onto the low table, limp. In her hand she still clutched an empty pudding cup.
“Whiiine .”
“See… even Leon says it wants some too. I think I might die if I don’t have one more…”
“Leon isn’t getting any pudding…”
Seeing my sister looking so pitifully faint, I gave in and prepared another pudding. She began devouring her second one with tremendous delight.
…Hmm. I feel like I’m getting a little too soft on my sister lately…
While I was mulling that over, she finished her second pudding and slumped back down onto the table again.
I braced myself, expecting her to ask for yet another pudding, but instead she murmured quietly:
“…Somehow, I think I just really felt like I was actually home.”
“…”
“It’s not like this was the first time I’d been away from you for a while, big sister. There were school trips and things like that, after all.”
She said that, then lifted her face to look at me.
“But somehow, this time… this trip felt different. Heavier, you know?”
At that moment, my sister’s expression was something between laughing and crying—a strange mixture of all kinds of emotions tangled together.
But it was clearly an expression of deep, heartfelt relief, and I found myself holding my breath as I stared at her.
“…I’m home.”
“…You already said that.”
“Yeah. But—I’m home. …Big sister.”
After saying that, my sister lowered her head. She stayed quiet for a moment, then suddenly stood up and moved behind me.
She leaned against my back and settled down with a soft plop.
While I sat there startled by my sister’s odd behavior, she began speaking in a small voice:
“You must have been anxious, waiting all this time, right?”
“…!”
The instant I heard her words, all the anxiety I’d been carrying inside welled back up, and I found myself gasping for breath.
—Calm down. She’s right here behind you.
I told myself that, trying to soothe the part of me on the verge of tears.
Biting down hard on my lower lip, I focused on the warmth of my sister’s body against my back.
“Sorry for making you wait.”
“…Hiyori.”
“You know, I kept wondering what you might be doing back home while I was traveling. Worrying you might be drowning your worries in drink…”
“…”
“Wondering if you were crying…”
“…Hiyoriii!”
I cut her off.
“Don’t say it… if you say any more than that—”
My throat tightened. I fought with everything I had to hold back the tears welling up as I tilted my face upward, but in the end I couldn’t hold them back, and thick, heavy tears spilled from my eyes.
“I—I’m gonna cry, so…!”
“…Pfft, ahahaha!”
“…! Don’t laugh!”
My sister, apparently exasperated by my pathetic state, burst out laughing.
“Big sister, you’re such a crybaby after all.”
“Shut up…! Whose fault is that?”
Unable to bear her carefree laughter, I couldn’t help but turn around and look back at her.
“…!”
And what leapt into view at that moment was…
“My crybaby big sister. …Thank you so much for worrying about me.”
My sister, laughing even as tears streamed down her cheeks.
The moment I saw that, my own tear ducts finally gave out completely. My chest tightened, and the tears just kept coming, no matter how hard I tried to stop them.
I threw my arms around my sister, buried my face in the crook of her neck, and apologized over and over: “…I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…!”
“Why are you apologizing, big sister?”
“Because, I’m sorry… Hiyori, I—”
“Hey now, big sister.”
“I put so much of the burden on you, all this time…”
“That’s only because of my own selfishness in the first place, remember?”
“But that’s not it… Hiyori, you see, I—”
“Big sister.”
Just as I was about to spill out all the murky sediment built up in the depths of my heart, my sister’s serious voice cut me off.
I lifted my tear-streaked, ruined face and looked at hers.
By then my sister’s own tears had already stopped, and she was gazing at me steadily with eyes full of strong resolve.
I found myself caught off guard by that gaze.
“Big sister, it’s fine now. …It’s really fine. Listen, big sister. I’m going to keep working hard from now on, too. …I’m going to purify all the miasma in this world—and accomplish something amazing! So I’ll probably keep causing you trouble from now on too… but I’m counting on you!”
My sister’s face as she said that was so dazzling.
—That Hiyori. The Hiyori who used to just be spoiled by me, and nothing more…
In that moment, I could feel it with certainty: that this had all been for the best, that supporting my sister, now and always, was without a doubt exactly what I was meant to do.
So I rubbed my own face roughly with my sleeve—my expression must have been dreadfully unflattering—and, putting all my feeling into it, smiled at my sister.
“…Do your best. Your big sister will always be rooting for you…!”
After that, the two of us washed our puffy, red-swollen eyelids over and over at the sink, and even pressed cold, water-soaked towels against them to bring the swelling down. In the middle of all that, as I stood there dazed, clutching my towel, I happened to catch my sister making the exact same face, and we both burst out laughing at each other’s awful expressions.
While I relaxed and listened to my sister’s travel stories, Jade appeared, arms loaded down with bags.
“I’ve got everything!”
“Mr. Jade! Thank you so much!”
“Hm? What did you buy? That’s a lot of stuff.”
My sister blinked in disbelief at the sheer volume of bags Jade was carrying.
Jade and I exchanged a glance and smiled at each other.
“Ingredients for all of your favorite dishes, of course!”
“That’s right, Lady Saint. Tonight it’s omurice, fried chicken, Napolitan spaghetti, and potato salad.”
“…Really!?”
My sister’s face lit up instantly.
Her eyes sparkling, she looked at me, silently asking whether I was telling the truth.
“I told you, didn’t I? Tonight’s a feast.”
“Yeah. I know, but… I know, but! Wahh, I’m so happy…!”
Overcome with joy, my sister covered her face with her hands and swayed side to side. But the next moment, she suddenly went still, as if she’d realized something, and turned to face me with a furrowed brow and a deadly serious expression.
“Big sister, this is bad! You forgot my absolute favorite thing!”
“Huh!?”
…Tonight’s menu should have covered every single one of her favorites.
“…Big sister, honestly. Forgetting the single most important thing, at a time like this.”
With that, my sister gave a smug little "hmph" and pointed straight at me, looking terribly pleased with herself.
I racked my brain as hard as I could, but no matter what, I couldn’t figure out what "her absolute favorite thing" could possibly be.
“What? Curry? Gyoza? Those’ll take too much time, so…”
“Nope, though curry and gyoza are both hard to give up.”
…Then what could it be?
My sister looked at me with exasperated eyes as I kept groaning in thought, then planted her hands on her hips and, looking thoroughly pleased with herself, declared:
“Ohh, honestly. Big sister… you forgot pudding, didn’t you!? That’s my favorite thing, isn’t it obvious? I demand pudding for dinner too!”
“…Ohh, pudding… wait, didn’t you just eat two of them!? You’ll get fat!”
“Oh, come on! Big sister, you cheapskate!”
“A cheapskate!?”
“Is it too much to ask for one, two, maybe three puddings for your poor sister who worked so hard to come home!?”
“Just how many are you planning to eat, exactly!?”
—And so it went, my sister as unchanging as ever.
—And me, nagging at her the same way I always did.
—Leon, running in excited circles around our feet, not understanding a thing but having a grand time regardless.
—And Jade, watching the two of us with a helplessly fond, troubled expression.
That ordinary scene had returned to our home, just as it always was—and the happiness it brought me was almost too much to bear.
Bickering back and forth with my sister, I found myself, before I even realized it, laughing from sheer joy.
And my sister, caught up in my laughter, began laughing too.
Beneath the early summer sky of this other world, our laughter rang out—and then melted away, and vanished.
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