Episode 13 – It was a natural move, that’s all

1 hour later.
I visit my older sister’s room and place an earthenware pot filled with porridge on the table.

I put my palm on my sleeping sister’s forehead to measure her fever. It was hot to the touch. Her pulse and breathing are more stable than before. This must be the effect of taking the medicine.

After lightly wiping the sweat from her forehead, I take a fever sheet from my medicine chest, which I use infrequently, and apply it to my sister’s forehead.

It was cold, or perhaps my sister’s eyelids were woozy.

“Ah…..Towa….”
“You don’t have to get up. Go back to sleep now. How are you feeling ……?”
“I feel a little better now that I’ve taken my meds.”
“I see. I recommend that you go to bed today. I made you some porridge, but you don’t have to force yourself to eat it.”

That was all I said, and was about to leave the room when my sister grabbed me by the hem of my clothes with a jerk.

“Well….”
“…..?”
“…..Thank you”

My sister said as she turned her moist eyes on me.
I nodded and left the room.

I finished eating fried rice in my room, so I went to the kitchen in the living room to wash up.　Then my younger sister came in, carrying an earthenware pot.

“I fed porridge to one chan”
“….I see”

Silently reach over and I tell her that I will wash that too.

Tick Tock Tick Tock

The sound of the needle going forward fills the silence.
I have nothing to say to my little sister during this time.

I had finished washing up and was about to go back to my room when my little sister called out to me.

“Why were you nice to me and one chan……?”

I was being nice ……? I didn’t mean that at all.

I put Sumika under the umbrella because I thought the rain was not going to stop for a while. If she stayed outside like that, she would catch a cold.

And Arika, you know, …… if a normal human being falls down in front of you, you take care of him or her.

“I don’t know …….My body moved naturally. That’s it.”
“…I see”

That’s all the conversation.
When she did not pursue anything further, I went back to my room and lay down on my bed.

If Both the person who was taking shelter from the rain and the person who suddenly collapsed were complete strangers to me. …… I guess I overlooked them, thinking someone else would do it for me.