They are in the music show, but I am a stranger to them

"It's okay, Deng. Let's try harder. I believe you can sing out loud." Xiangzi did not blame Deng at all. Instead, he encouraged her again and again to overcome her psychological barriers. She has been working hard for this month.

Gao Songdeng himself is also very clear about this.

Deng looked at the person in front of him, Xiangzi, who had been helping him overcome difficulties in the past month and had been trying hard to understand himself. Perhaps out of guilt or reluctance, he did not want to drag everyone down because of himself.

Tormented by this mentality, Gao Songdeng said the words that she regretted most in her life.

"How about...let Qi join the band as well?"

Deng suppressed her uneasiness and told Xiangzi, who was surprised, the only way she thought could overcome her cowardice, an answer she had already known.

"Qi is my brother. If Qi is here, I should feel more at ease."

Xiangzi: "Really?! Deng! Are you really willing to invite your brother to join the band?"

"Then, I will go visit with Deng today! I will do my best to convince Deng's brother to join our band!"

When Xiangzi got the news, he was overjoyed and grabbed Gao Songdeng's hand. Although Deng resisted slightly, facing Xiangzi's sparkling eyes, he could not say a word of refusal.

So, Deng had to suppress his uneasiness, nodded silently, and agreed to take Xiangzi to see his brother.

But soon, Gao Songdeng regretted it.

When she brought Shoko back to her home and introduced Toyokawa Shoko to her brother in the room, who was trying his best to make up the gap with his classmates in the cram school, she regretted it the moment she introduced him to Shoko.

Because Gao Songdeng noticed that when his brother saw Toyokawa Shoko for the first time, his eyes, which were usually as deep as the sea, showed a different expression for the first time...

The look he gave Xiangzi was full of surprise at first, but after that, it suddenly became full of joy and hesitation, and finally returned to calm as if a stone had sunk into the sea.

To be honest, Chen Qi's complicated look towards Xiangzi made Gao Songdeng's heart suddenly become extremely nervous.

Because according to Deng's memory, the last time she witnessed her brother's complicated expression was when they first met, when her parents brought her brother home.

What made Gao Songdeng feel even more uneasy was that from the moment Xiangzi formally invited Chen Qi, his brother, who had been trying his best to go to college the second before, agreed to Xiangzi's request without hesitation when they met for the first time.

"Okay, I can help you, but I have only one condition."

"That is, if I want to join a band, then our band must not be a small one. Our goal is to bring this band onto the path of professionalism. Only by doing so can this band have a chance to last long."

"Of course, as long as you are willing to join, Chen Qi, I can agree to any request." Gao Songdeng remembered even more that at the moment when her brother confirmed that he would join, Toyokawa Shoko showed a smile that made her feel blinded.

So much so that, in the next hour, when Chen Qi and Xiangzi discussed in detail the future development of the band, their respective division of labor in the band, as well as the characteristics, personalities and relationships of everyone in the band, Gao Songdeng did not listen to a word.

It was not until Xiangzi realized that it was getting late that he said goodbye to Chen Qi reluctantly. Chen Qi noticed that Deng looked strange, so he came forward and rubbed her little head, asking with concern:

"What's wrong? The light? You look distracted."

"Brother..." Deng looked at Chen Qi, who had been chatting happily with Xiangzi before, and suppressed the strong trembling in his heart, and said carefully to the person he was most worried about losing:

"Brother, do you really want to join the band? But you're clearly preparing for college..."

"——For my dear sister's wish, my university is just a small matter." And facing the uneasy light, Chen Qi has been gently stroking her gray hair over and over again for more than ten years, patiently driving away the worries in his sister's heart.

"I really hope that one day, I can see you singing on the stage with your own voice, and now is the best opportunity in your life."

“If the lamp lacks a little courage, let me help you to fill that courage, until one day in the future, even if I am no longer by the lamp’s side, you can still sing bravely.”

“I really, really look forward to that day coming.”

...Obviously, this is how it should be.

My brother said that it was for my wish. He wanted to see me stand on the stage and sing my own song.

In order to let my brother witness this scene, I tried my best to sing out my own voice, a voice that would live up to the emotions contained in my brother's song. This is what I have always hoped for.

Why, why did everything turn out like this...

……

"Light? Light? Wake up."

"Woo..."

Gao Songdeng was gently awakened from her sleep by a dim call, and when she raised her head, she saw the face of Chen Qi, whom she had been thinking about day and night.

Gao Songdeng, who was half asleep and half awake, smiled subconsciously when he saw his brother, and asked softly:

"Brother...Have I slept for a long time?"

"It's been a while." Chen Qi also smiled and slowly put down the backpack on his shoulders. While taking off his coat, he turned his head and explained softly to his sister who was sitting at the desk:

"I'm sorry, Deng, I couldn't accompany you to the aquarium today. After all, your first public live is about to begin, and Xiangzi and I have too many things to discuss."

Xiangzi. For some reason, whenever Gao Songdeng heard her brother calling her by this name so intimately, she would always feel a sense of distress in her chest. Her eyes, which were originally quite happy to see her brother, suddenly dimmed a lot, and she asked in a low voice pretending to be casual:

"Brother...did you go to Xiangzi's house again today?"

"Well, we borrowed the piano from Xiangzi's house. After all, our live performance this time is only fifteen minutes. We have to arrange the performance time and songs reasonably and try to arrange every song in place."

Chen Qi did not hide it either. He was hanging clothes and did not notice the dim look of the lamp or the slight pursed lips. He admitted openly:

"There are also things about our Crychic professionalization. After I finished talking to Xiangzi about these, I found that it was almost dark outside. I'm sorry for making you wait at home alone for so long."

"……It doesn't matter."

Xiangzi, Xiangzi, Xiangzi.

Why does every word my brother says now involve Xiangzi?

In Gao Songdeng's gloomy eyes, a hint of unwillingness became more and more obvious. He used more and more strength in his palm that was caressing his chest, which had been aching all the time, but it could not alleviate the uneasiness in Deng's heart.

When did all this begin? When did the name "Xiangzi" appear more often in the brother's mouth than in his sister's?

Perhaps, ever since I brought my brother into Crychic, Xiangzi, who had been dreaming of meeting Chen Qi before the band was formed, had been wrong the moment he actually met Chen Qi...

She knew very well that Xiangzi admired her brother very much. She also knew that her brother had paid special attention to Xiangzi since the first time he and Xiangzi met.

I also clearly know that once my brother and Xiangzi are really in the same band, their personalities are very compatible, and they have almost the same talent and topics in music, so they will definitely be able to chat very well...

However, Deng naively thought that he didn't need to worry about all this.

She is Qi's sister and has lived with Qi for more than ten years. The brother-sister relationship and the distance between their souls are so close that no one can surpass them - this is something Deng is extremely confident about.

However, when everything was just as Deng had expected and Xiangzi and his brother really began to become close, Deng found it difficult to accept this fact.

At the beginning, Xiangzi simply communicated more with his brother. They were both in charge of arranging music for the band, so they talked a little more often.

Faced with such a reasonable reason, Deng was somewhat dissatisfied at the time, but he did not speak to stop it.

Because Deng felt that her brother was still her brother, and since he joined the band, the time she spent with him became almost as long as when they were children. So Deng didn't say much.

After that, not only did Xiangzi start to spend more and more time with his brother, but Deng also discovered that when the two of them were together, they were often very close to each other.

Sometimes, it was even closer than the distance between her and her brother. She had never stood at the same keyboard with her brother and played a song together.

But Deng at that time still endured it, because she thought that even if Xiangzi's relationship with his brother improved and his brother spent less time with her, at least his brother could still accompany her to various places she wanted to go.

Planetarium, aquarium...my brother will only accompany me to these places when he is with me.

My brother and I still have our own little secrets, and we still have a world that we share that no one else knows about.

But until now... As the band's training becomes more and more intense and the time for the public live performance is getting closer, Xiangzi has been spending more and more time with his brother.

Now, her brother doesn’t even have time to accompany her to the aquarium... The time she and her brother can spend communicating is even less than when her brother was preparing to go to college.

Anxiety, panic, fear... occupied Gao Songdeng's heart little by little. She found that her brother was getting farther and farther away from her.

It was as if an invisible hand had reached into her spiritual world and taken away the brother who had first entered her world and given her color, little by little...

no, do not want.

She didn't want to go back to the world without her brother. She didn't want to see that dark and bleak world again.

"puff."

"Hmm?" Chen Qi's body, which was suddenly hugged, stiffened slightly unconsciously. He placed his hands on Gao Songdeng's arms around his waist with a little surprise. Although he didn't understand, he still asked in a gentle tone:

"What's wrong? The light?"

"...Brother." Gao Songdeng, who hugged Chen Qi from behind, was also feeling the warmth of her brother's body and the sun-like breath for the first time in a long time. She gently leaned her cheek against Chen Qi's back, using the warmth from her brother's body to drive away the coldness brought by fear.

"Brother, I'm so scared..."

"My brother obviously joined the band, and he obviously gave up college for me...but...I feel like the time I spend with him is getting less and less."

"I'm so scared that my brother will leave me one day. I'm so worried that my brother will be snatched away one day..."

"Kidnapped?" After hearing Deng's monologue, Chen Qi's voice paused slightly. After a moment, he finally understood what Deng meant. While stroking Deng's palm, he asked tentatively with a smile:

"The person that Deng mentioned who will snatch me away, is he talking about Xiangzi?"

"……Um."

Gao Songdeng himself did not expect that he would admit this so openly, but after speaking his inner words, Gao Songdeng felt a sense of release from the inside out.

These words, which can only be said to her brother, are the best way for Takamatsu Deng to vent her long-accumulated emotions.

When Deng finished speaking, she also felt that Chen Qi, whom she was hugging, turned slightly. Soon, facing Chen Qi who half-squatted again, Gao Songdeng soon felt her cheeks being gently rubbed by a pair of warm hands.

"Brother, brother..."

"Little idiot, didn't I tell you? I will never leave until the lamp becomes independent."

Chen Qi also kept kneading Deng's soft face with a bit of baby fat, and looked at his sister who was becoming more and more like an "ordinary person" with satisfaction. Listening to Deng's jealous complaints, he felt more and more that his sister's heart was really changing little by little under his influence.

For Chen Qi, nothing makes him feel more accomplished than all this.

"Deng, I dare not say that I will never love anyone in this life, nor will I fall in love with other girls. I will always be by your side. Such a promise is too difficult for me to fulfill."

"But, I can promise you that until the day comes when Deng no longer needs me, I will always be Deng's brother. I will not leave Deng, and I will not be taken away by anyone."

"...Really?" Facing Chen Qi's "confession", after his face was rubbed, his cheeks turned a little red, but he felt the pain coming from his heart, and asked cautiously.

"Of course it's true. Has your brother ever lied to you?" Chen Qi asked Deng in amusement.

Facing Chen Qi who was smiling at him, for some reason, Gao Songdeng thought of his brother and Xiangzi's intimate behavior again. He unexpectedly glanced away abnormally, and his tone even had a bit of subtle emotion. He said word by word:

"……I have no idea."

"Unless, brother can make me believe it and prove it to me with actions."

"Uh……"

However, Chen Qi never expected that Gao Songdeng, who had always been a good girl in front of him, would actually get upset with him this time.

If uncles and aunts saw this, they would probably be so surprised and happy that they would cry... To be honest, when Chen Qi realized that Deng was having a quarrel with him, he almost cried with emotion.

It seems that the companionship between Deng and himself for more than ten years has not been in vain... At least, Deng has become more and more like a normal girl in front of him.

But in this situation, the person that Deng was upset with was himself... Chen Qi also understood that if he didn't do something to convince Deng, Deng would probably remain uneasy.

"So, what does Deng want me to do?" Chen Qi tentatively asked Deng for his opinion.

However, what Chen Qi did not expect was that Gao Songdeng had already prepared his conditions. A faint smile appeared on Deng's face, and even his voice had a hint of expectation. He responded softly:

"Use... something my brother would never do to anyone else except me."

"……OK then."

Chen Qi was also slightly stunned by Gao Songdeng's answer, but soon, Chen Qi thought of a way to deal with Gao Songdeng, and he agreed with a smile.

The next second, before Gao Songdeng could react, she only felt Chen Qi's figure quietly getting closer and closer to her...

Soon, Gao Songdeng felt that he was embraced by his brother. After a moment of stunnedness, Deng did not resist and gently responded to his brother.

A hug?... Indeed, my brother and I haven't hugged each other for a long time.

That is to say, my brother will not hug a second person besides me?

If that's the case, maybe I can accept it...

However, at the moment when Gao Songdeng was enjoying the warmth given by Chen Qi, suddenly, a slightly moist touch from her neck made her body stiffen involuntarily——

"Chirp."

Accompanied by a sound that was extremely clear in the quiet room and the lingering warm touch on his neck, Gao Songdeng's brain completely shut down in an instant, and he was unable to come back to his senses until Chen Qi let him go.

"This is something that can only be done with lights. Is it still qualified?"

"Besides my dear sister, I will never do this to anyone else, and there is no other person who would allow me to do this. This is the treatment that only Deng can receive."

"Well, don't think too much from now on, just have a good night's sleep, Deng."

After leaving a light kiss on Deng's neck without a trace of distracting thoughts, Chen Qi looked at the slightly dazed Deng and rubbed Deng's hair again without any psychological burden. Then he finally got up and walked towards the bathroom.

It was not until the sound of running water came from the bathroom that Gao Songdeng came to his senses and put his hand on the neck that had been kissed by Chen Qi.

My heart suddenly started beating really fast - there were waves of stabbing pains, but it wasn't painful at all.