I really don't want to be reborn.

Kasumigaoka fiddled with the bonito flakes on the okra tofu, then suddenly seemed to remember something and turned to look at the microwave: "Kirino is amazing... I didn't expect you to be able to bake that so well. I don't even know how to bake it well myself."

Hearing her say that, Kirino felt a surge of joy amidst her confusion. Yes, Kasumigaoka admitted that she was inferior to her in a certain matter—even if she didn't actually bake it herself, she still felt proud.

"Actually, it's not that impressive."

Kasumigaoka's smile remained unchanged: "I just went to check, and those cookies were really well baked, they smelled really good. I didn't know Kirino could make cookies. Do you often make them for your brother?"

Kyosuke wanted to praise his sister with satisfaction, but then he suddenly noticed the malice in the eyes of the literature club president, and hesitated to speak...

Kirino glanced at her brother subconsciously and found him looking at her hesitantly, scratching her head and smiling shyly: "I don't do it often."

She didn't see that the expressions on her two friends' faces had completely changed.

"is it?"

Kasumigaoka Utaha suppressed all her smiles.

Ayase Aragaki poked Kirino with her finger, her face flushed, and whispered, "It's not a cookie..."

"Ok?"

"...There's a cake in the microwave."

Kirino suddenly turned around!

The knuckles are turning white.

"Ahaha... Is it a cake? I was mistaken. Kirino's cake is also very well baked."

Kasumigaoka Utaha smiled nonchalantly, a smile as thin as a blade, as she flicked her wrist and stabbed a piece of bonito flakes into a green pepper.

Kousaka Kyosuke seemed completely oblivious to what they were saying. He got up, took the cake out of the microwave, and exclaimed, "This cake is indeed very well baked."

…………

"good evening."

Good evening, Kasumigaoka. You sound to be in a very good mood tonight.

"I'm in a good mood, so I hope you're in a good mood too, Eriri."

The image of Kirino Kousaka looking dejected at noon, like a classic scene from a movie, kept replaying in my mind, along with her cheerful voice: "Have you eaten?"

Eriri was puzzled, but instinctively sensed something was wrong and became somewhat wary: "You actually called me on your own initiative?"

Then she heard Kasumigaoka Utaha's eerie, gentle voice.

"Can't I call you for no reason? Eriri, what do you think of me?"

Eriri gave a dry laugh: "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, I just thrashed one... no, three potential competitors, and I'm in a good mood to share with you."

"I'm in a bad mood and can't share your joy."

"I know."

Shiyu turned her head and mischievously stuck out her tongue at Kousaka Kyosuke, who was standing by the window getting some fresh air: "It's because of your unhappiness that I feel even happier."

"..."

Eriri hesitated between tearing up the character design she had prepared for this bastard woman, then her eyes lit up and she started to hurt each other. She changed the subject: "By the way, I read your man's short story today."

"Oh……"

"I found his writing very interesting, but his descriptions of romance were a bit too simplistic..."

"Yes, yes, after all, he's never been in a relationship before."

"You talk like you've been in a relationship before. But Kasumigaoka Utaha, haven't you noticed that your man seems a little too familiar with certain things?"

"……what?"

Shi Yu's heart skipped a beat: "In what way?"

"Sex! I said, are you sure he's really a virgin?"

"That can't be..."

She glanced at the boy standing by the window from afar, then quietly returned to her bedroom, nervously scratching her hair, looking somewhat agitated.

"It can't be—"

"Hey, don't make wild guesses..."

……

After she entered the bedroom, Kyosuke Kousaka, who was standing by the window, took out his phone and called his sister, Kirino.

"Um……"

My sister's voice was weak and feeble; it sounded terribly pitiful.

She herself felt that she was too stupid!

Of course, the main reason is that the woman was too despicable!

Kyosuke offered no words of comfort, nor did he explain why his attitude towards Ayase Aragaki had changed so drastically.

He said with some distress, "If the royalties come through, I might be able to buy a house. Do you want me to save you a room? You can come and stay whenever you want."

"really?"

"It's really...it's really true."

Kirino rolled over on the bed and immediately became happy.

She wanted to say: I like you so much, but we've always kept our distance. That distance cuts me to pieces, but if you're even a little bit nice to me, I'll be happy for a long time.

A sweet joy suddenly welled up within her, as if her heart had been instantly filled with cherry blossoms, though her tone was still reluctant: "That's fine too..."

After talking with Kirino for a while, when she asked him about Ayase Aragaki, he smiled but didn't say anything, just sighed softly and then hung up.

In the first twenty-odd years of his transmigration, which is known as his first life, Kousaka Kyosuke wanted to confess his feelings to someone as he was about to graduate from university.

At that time, his college friends unanimously believed that he was either with Kasumigaoka Utaha, with whom he had been close since high school, or with Ogiso Setsuna, a fan who liked him a lot—of course, whether a third option of a threesome would appear depended on his teacher Gao's methods.

However, he knew in his heart that none of these were true.

Who could it be...?

So many years have passed that Kyosuke Kosaka almost forgot the beginning of his love, and almost forgot that in the first twenty years of his life, he had secretly liked a girl he should never have liked. Those feelings had been buried in his heart for too long, until today when the black cat reopened them, stirring up his emotions.

"Have you finished talking to your sister?"

"Hmm... Now that I've said everything, do you think I'm being a little despicable?"

Kasumigaoka stood behind him, pondered for a moment, and then nodded: "That's true. You want to use Kirino's brother complex to make her distance herself from that girl, right? The more you praise her, the more dissatisfied Kirino will be with her."

"It's not necessarily like that. Ultimately, it depends on Kirino herself. If she really likes that girl and she really wants to be a yuri, then no matter how much I try to influence her, it won't make a difference."

The girl thought to herself, "I wish your perverted brother-obsessed sister actually liked girls."

Kyosuke turned to look at her and found that the girl was looking down.

Her eyes were lowered, and she looked like a star-studded sky.

"Don't talk about me, it's you, Kasumigaoka."

"Hmm, what's wrong with me?"

The girl looked up and smiled sweetly, tilting her head slightly and gently opening her mouth.

Kyosuke's breath hitched slightly as he stared intently into those red eyes, as if searching for a mischievous little fish in the Red Sea.

"You... never mind, there's nothing there."

Every time I see her, I feel as if I can hear the sound of the waves crashing and rolling, see seagulls flying across the sky, and smell the damp, slightly salty air.

Kyosuke Kosaka thought to himself that he would probably fall in love with this person soon—no, not probably, he was bound to fall in love with this person!

Immediately, instantly, it became part of her sea.

Only in this way can something remain forever submerged in the sea, and never be rekindled.

------

The younger sister route?

I've written about pushing a younger sister before, and I'm not afraid of it, but times have changed. Now the policy stipulates that that kind of plot is not allowed in novels, so no matter who the female protagonist is, she can't be the younger sister.

Well, I think you should give me more trust. It's not like I don't have an outline; I have tens of thousands of words saved up! How could I just write something random on a whim?

If the protagonist were truly confessing to his senior in the synopsis, I would have simply written her name in the synopsis; there's no need to hide it. At that time, the protagonist wanted to make things clear to his younger sister.

Many people say they dropped the book because of the bus ride in Chapter 3 of Volume 1, and some say I deliberately cut off the chapter in the last chapter of Volume 1, preventing them from seeing the much-anticipated love triangle and thus diminishing their interest. To the former, I can say that I really like the character Kasumigaoka Utaha, and I am like the bus driver. As for the latter, I can't be bothered with it. There's a damn love triangle in the last chapter of Volume 1, and God knows what that person was thinking.

These people are indeed very unfriendly.

So if you can, please be kind to poor me, thank you.

Chapter Twenty-One: We Want to Be Together Every Day

May 8th.

May 8th, 2005, is both the internationally recognized Mother's Day and Japan's traditional "Boys' Day".

(One account says it was May 5th)

Mother's Day goes without saying, but the so-called Boys' Day should be the counterpart to Girls' Day, and families with boys should hang carp streamers.

And since it was the Dragon Boat Festival just three days ago, every household still has calamus leaves on their doors, hangs pictures of Zhong Kui (a mythical figure) to ward off evil spirits inside, and eats cypress cakes or zongzi (sticky rice dumplings) to dispel evil.

The word "calamus" is a homophone for "martial spirit," while "carp streamer" represents the carp leaping over the dragon gate.

The Japanese consider carp to be a symbol of strength and courage, expressing parents' wish that their children and grandchildren be brave and strong.

Of course, school is definitely closed on this day.

"Should I hang a carp streamer for you?"

That's what his mother said to him. She said it to her son with a smile at breakfast, and it felt like his mother was going to treat him much better since he moved out.

Is this what they call... "familiarity breeds contempt"?

"Kyosuke, how about we have pork ribs for lunch? Didn't you say that Shiho's pork ribs are really delicious, even better than Mom's?"