Friday night.

After taking a bath, I was reading an information magazine in my workroom.

Pirorin♪ Pirorin♪

I picked up the phone to find it was my sister, Aina, a first-year middle school student.

“Hey, Bro, are you alive?”

“I just came back from the dead.”

“Really!? You were dead just now!?”

“I’m sorry. I haven’t prepared anything beyond this.”

“I like that. That’s a good way to drop it.”

You haven’t changed at all in the way you hit me with all your energy from the very first moment.

Even though we were not related by blood, she was the complete opposite of me.

“So what are your requirements?”

“The day after tomorrow, Sunday, is your day off, right?”

“Yeah, I plan to stay home and relax.”

“Then let’s go on a date with Yuika-san to the ‘Yuru-chara Exhibition’!”

(T/N: Yuru-chara- Yuru-chara (Japanese: ゆるキャラ, Hepburn: yuru kyara) is a Japanese term for a category of mascot characters; usually created to promote a place or region, event, organisation or business.)

It was an event that gathered mascots from all over Japan, and popular characters from picture books, anime, and other popular local mascots appeared.

Apparently, a major advertising agency was involved.

But that was not the problem with Aina’s story.

“…Why are we talking about me and Yuika going on a date?”

“Now, now The meeting is at the station building where there is a café we went in together before. The time is 10:30 a.m. See you there!”

“Hey! Hey!”

She decided to go on a one-sided date with me and hung up on me unilaterally.

Yuika and Aina were otaku friends and got along very well.

The problem was that for some reason, Aina was always plotting to make me and Yuika a couple.

She had always been a bit pushy, but lately she’s been particularly aggressive, which was troublesome.

Pirorin♪ Pirorin♪

The phone rang again.

This time it was Yuika.

Perhaps she heard Aina’s story and contacted me to confirm it.　

“Good evening, Onii-san”

“Yo, Yuika”

“I just got a call from Aina-chan, and I heard that she was going with you on Sunday, so I called you…”

I knew it.

Man, I don’t mind if it’s just me, but it would be a nuisance if Yuika got involved as well.

“I’m sorry. My sister said selfish things.”

“No, it’s okay. I was going to go to the Yuru-chara exhibition anyway.”

“Man, she’s been acting like this lately.”

“I think it’s Aina-chan’s way of expressing her love for her brother.”

“Who knows…”

Then, Yuika started thinking “Hmm~”

“Hey. Since Aina-chan told us this, let’s do something like a date.”

As one would expect, I was surprised by this statement.

I quickly responded.

“No-no… Won’t it be bad if you and I were to go on a date?”

“No way we’re doing it for real. We’re just gonna stroll on a date course, in that case, it’s not a date.”

“How’s that different from a date?”

“When we both believe that it’s not a date, it won’t be a date, right? I guess so.”

Does it really work that way?

In my opinion, that was already considered as a date, but now I couldn’t really negate that it was only a stroll and not a date when the people involved didn’t have that intention.

Hmm. Well, okay

I got caught up in what my sister said.

It may sound like a grand way to atone, but I will do something to make her happy as a token of my gratitude for her daily support.　

“But I don’t really know what you’re talking about when you say ‘date course.’ “

“That’s okay. I didn’t expect it from the beginning.”

“Isn’t that too harsh?”

Suddenly Yuika’s voice became distant, and I could hear that she was operating something while on call.

Perhaps she was on call while checking information on her phone.

“For now, let’s go to the observation deck and have some sweets. I don’t think we can miss them.”

“Hmm? Wait a minute.”

“Sit down.”

“Kuhn… that’s not it.”

“Just go along with it”

She said it with vigor.

“I don’t mean that. I can understand an observation deck as a date course, but why sweets?”

“Isn’t that normal?”

“Really?”

Am I sensing something strange?

The observation deck was probably the most popular spot when it came to date courses.

But sweets were not a spot, just something to stop by and eat.

I think it was strange to make it the goal of a date.

Is this what you call a gap in values between generations? ……

Then Yuika asked curiously.

“I mean, if we’re going out, why aren’t we eating sweets?”

“You can get them at any convenience store.”

“Not that kind. …. Haa~ …, I forgot. It’s Onii-san we are talking about. …”

You make it sound like I am some kind of special creature.

“I can’t help it. I’ll teach you the secrets of sweets on Sunday.”

“I … don’t have that much of a sweet tooth…”

“Just go with it”

Saying this, Yuika hung up the phone.

By chance, we ended up deciding on doing something date-like, but I still didn’t know where high school girls stand on the idea of sweets.

Well, what should I do? …