The person who likes me is a yandere.

Thanks to this, I was spared the burden of living a life of integrity—perhaps the most despicable fate in the world—and grew up freely without carrying anything heavier than my elementary school backpack. I am truly grateful to my mother.

However, I couldn't let my mother see how carefree I was.

Three years ago, in the summer, my father, mother, sister and I stayed at a hot spring hotel during a family trip.

A fire broke out in the hotel kitchen in the middle of the night for unknown reasons.

The rustic old-style inn, featuring a hearth for added warmth, a cypress bathhouse, and massive pillars made of trees over 150 years old, with its traditional and old-fashioned architecture, was completely destroyed by fire.

I lost both my parents in the fire.

My sister and I strongly desired to live in the new house our parents had planned to start a new life with after their trip, a house they hadn't even lived in for a single day. This was something our parents left us. So, at the time, we were middle school students and refused to go to any shelter or be adopted by relatives. Apparently, someone close to our father was willing to act as guarantor for the documents we submitted to the school and the district office.

Qiong and I were filled with our parents' hopes, but we had no family memories. We depended on each other for survival in our beautiful new house.

The hotel's condolence payment, our parents' insurance money, and their savings meant that we were thankfully not lacking in money...

However, the loss of both parents caused me, who was then a second-year junior high school student, to lose my memory.

I remember everything clearly: the knowledge I acquired in school, the outlines of my favorite comics, how to ride a bicycle, how to hold chopsticks, the input method for super special moves in fighting games, my favorite Niconico anime, the secret recipe for raw egg rice, and so on...

What I've lost are memories of the people connected to my life.

The closer someone is to me, the more completely I forget them.

Even though I remember my homeroom teacher from the lower grades of elementary school, I don't know anything about my family members, not even their names or what they look like.

My memories from before the second year of junior high school haven't returned, so I have no memories of my parents. Those are all images I saw in photos afterward. My memories of my younger sister, Hinata, are only from the last three years.

Upon hearing that I had lost my memory, several friends from my former school called. But whether their voices were concerned or meant to comfort me, they all sounded incredibly painful. I was grateful to them for sharing so many memories that helped me regain my memory and learn about my past. However, my memory remained completely intact, and their words sounded like someone else's story to me, making me feel deeply apologetic towards my friends who had spoken to me.

I noticed a hint of disappointment in the voices of my friends who shared their memories with me, realizing that I still couldn't recover my memories after so long. So I started saying "I'm sorry" more often. After I apologized, my friends all looked somber.

As a result, I was unable to respond intimately to my friends who struck up conversations with me.

Talking to someone easily is like communicating with a foreigner in a foreign language on unfamiliar soil. Reconnecting with a friend lost to memory is harder than becoming familiar with a complete stranger. By the time I realized this, my friends had stopped calling me, and I wouldn't call them either.

Shortly after losing my memory, I moved to a new street—a brand new home—and no one at the junior high school I transferred to knew me before I lost my memory.

This is perfect for me.

I started a new chapter in my interpersonal relationships in my second year of junior high school. I don't think it's a sad or painful thing.

Losing one's memory is tantamount to falling into endless nothingness.

Even if I remember something from a dream the moment I wake up in the morning, I can't recall the content of the dream. I can't even remember whether it was a happy dream or a sad one. Normally, not remembering a dream isn't a sad or painful thing. For me, memory loss is similar to that feeling.

For most people, memory loss is a much more painful experience and should be taken seriously.

Even losing both parents at the same time is a painful, heavy, and sad thing for most people.

But for me, those feelings didn't follow.

Chapter Two: The Pervert Himself

The sadness didn't well up because of the loss of my forgotten parents. What's truly heartbreaking is the inability to grieve for their deaths. Although I'm a good-for-nothing son who remembers nothing, if I could see my mother one more time, I would want to tell her that I quite liked the name Qianyu.

However, I have some complaints about the name.

"Hey, Xiaoyu, good morning."

My classmate greeted me on my way to school.

That's right, my nickname is Xiaoyu.

"Oh, good morning."

When I said good morning to my classmates—

--Snapped.

Something fell onto my uniform pants, slightly above my knees.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed marks on my pants that appeared to be white and brown paint spilled on them.

A crow was circling overhead.

Ugh--

Sadly, I get bird pooped on almost every month. This month, at least it didn't hit me directly on the head like last month.

Her nickname is Xiaoyu, and her fortune remains the same as always, which is actually quite unlucky.

Of course, I couldn't let the crow's droppings stay on my pants, so I ran into the children's park on the way to school. If I bumped into a classmate on the way to the park, they would, as usual, say to me:

"Just consider it a stroke of luck, right?" and things like that... But I don't like hearing that almost every month. What I got wasn't good luck, just plain shit.

I took off my trousers in the park restroom, being careful not to get them wet, and scrubbed the parts that had been stained with feces on the sink.

The park restrooms are naturally divided into men's and women's restrooms, but there are no doors at the entrances on either side. Although a wall acts like a screen to block the view from the outside, given the layout, if a woman goes to the restroom and passes by the entrance to the men's restroom, she can see the sinks and urinals in the men's restroom at a glance.

To wash my trousers, I had no choice but to expose my entire underwear. Although it was quite indecent to be seen like this, I optimistically thought that no one would run into the park toilet so early in the morning...

The sound of flowing water came from the women's restroom next door.

I was stuck, clutching my half-washed trousers, when someone approached from the women's restroom next door. As they passed in front of the men's restroom, they noticed my presence.

"Huh... Brother?"

Hinata appeared, having left home before me.

We attend the same high school—Qiong is a freshman and I am a sophomore—but the two siblings never get along well going to school together.

How should I put it? It was quite embarrassing, after all.

So we all went to school separately in the morning... Oh dear, I never expected to run into you in a place like this.

"Qiong, what are you doing here?"

"Dust got into my contact lenses. Ugh, my luck has been terrible since the beginning of the morning."

Don't worry about it, sis. Your brother is even more unlucky.

"...Speaking of which, brother."

"how."

"Why...show your underwear?"

My brother exposed his underwear in a public restroom. It's understandable that people would be bothered by it.

"After you hear what I'm about to say, please absolutely do not say anything like, 'Just consider it a stroke of luck,'. This whole thing is full of shit, it's not a lucky thing at all. To be honest, I was... Qiong?" As I was rambling on, I realized that Qiong was completely ignoring what I was saying.

Qiong stared intently at a point on the wall.

There was a piece of paper on the wall with the words "Beware of perverts" written in large letters.

Qiong shifted her gaze from the paper to my underwear.

"...Brother, you like...girls...right?"

What prompted her to ask me this question?

Since I didn't want her to mistake me for a lesbian, I had no choice but to nod honestly.

That's right.

"...Do boys in puberty sometimes... struggle to survive between reality and their ideals and fantasies?"

Where did she cultivate this kind of value system towards adolescent boys?

"In a sense, that's true."

After I finished speaking, she replied:

"...I see, I understand."

Qiong nodded, her eyes filled with a tender and loving light.

"What do you know?"

"...Brother...when...did it start?"

"When... do you mean?"

When did this perverted behavior begin?

"A pervert? And he suspects I'm a repeat offender?"

"...First offense?"

"No, no, no, this isn't my first offense!"

"...Does it mean 'attempted'?"

This guy is a heartbreaker.

"Little sister, in your eyes, is your brother a despicable person who would do such a thing?"

“...Because every morning...brother hugs Qiong.”

Because there are things I can't back down from, this hug is essential... but I can't explain it to my sister.

"Let's put the hugging issue aside for now."

I opened my half-washed trousers in front of Qiong.

"First of all, a pervert wouldn't wash his pants in a public restroom, would he? These really are wet clothes (author's note: Japanese clothes have the connotation of being wrongly accused). Just kidding."

"........."

"If you find it funny, feel free to laugh."

"……Oh."

"...A low, bitter laugh is more painful than silence."

"Of course I wanted to give a bitter smile. Because... there's a freak in my family."

I never expected my sister to call me a pervert twice since early this morning...

"Wait a minute. Let me explain what happened to me. It was poop, poop and pee falling from the sky..."

"Stop talking! Stripping down to your underwear in a public restroom... and spewing vulgarities, you're absolutely disgusting!"

"No, to explain the current situation, I really can't avoid the topic of excrement and urine..."