I first met my younger sister, Yuzu, when I was five years old.
It was during a camping trip in the mountains with my parents, on the way back.
“Mom, someone’s crying.”
Guided by the sound of crying, we veered off the path and walked a little into the bushes.
There, wrapped in a cloth, was a newborn baby—a tiny, tiny girl.
My mother’s face turned pale as she made a phone call to someone on her cell phone.
While my mom was occupied, I glanced at the baby’s face and poked her soft cheek with my finger.
As I kept poking, the baby eventually stopped crying, grabbed my finger with her tiny hand, and smiled.
And in that moment, her adorable appearance completely captured my heart.
After that, my father picked us up in the car, and the baby didn’t let go of my finger until we arrived at the police station.
To my young self, that baby’s gesture made me feel like she was relying on me, and I was incredibly happy.
Having no siblings of my own, I had a strong desire for her to become my little sister.
However, when a foundling is discovered, the proper procedure is to report it to the police, a child consultation center, or a welfare office. My mother confirmed this over the phone and was preparing to hand the baby over to the police.
But I threw a tantrum. “She’s my little sister!” I screamed, crying outside the police station, causing quite a problem for the adults.
Of course, such a tantrum wouldn’t get me what I wanted. The baby’s hand was pried from my finger, and we said goodbye.
Even when my parents tried to take me home, I stubbornly refused to leave the front of the police station, saying, “I won’t go home without the baby.” In the end, my parents had to forcibly drag me back to the car.
I cried the whole way home, upset that I couldn’t take the baby with me. In their desperation, my parents said that we could take her in if certain conditions were met.
I still remember the words they said back then.
“To take her in means a certain level of responsibility.”
“...Responsibility?”
“Yes. If we adopt her, we’ll have to care for her until she becomes an adult. It’s not enough just to provide food and a place to live. We have to teach her, love her, and protect her so she doesn’t struggle in the future. That requires a lot of time and money. And if you’re the one who wants to adopt her, Yuu, you’ll have to provide all of that. Can you do that?”
“I can!!”
“Really? You’ll provide all the love and money to raise her?”
“Yes!!”
At five years old, I didn’t understand half of what my mother was saying, but I nodded eagerly because I was determined to adopt her.
From then on, it was a challenge.
Normally, children can’t earn money. However, there’s an exception: child actors.
My mom made me audition for lots of child acting roles, telling me that unless I earned money, the baby couldn’t become my sister.
I worked hard to memorize lines and tried my best to win child acting roles.
I didn’t have time to play. There were many hardships. But for my sister’s sake, I couldn’t allow myself to complain.
I failed many auditions, but without time to be discouraged, I quickly moved on to the next one, auditioning over a dozen times.
Finally, I won my first role in a movie. Though my screen time was short, it was the first job I had earned myself.
After that, I wasn’t exactly a popular child actor, but I managed to take on a fair amount of work.
Perhaps recognizing my efforts, about a year after we found her, my parents decided to take her in as foster parents.
The reason for the delay was that, normally, a found child is placed under the supervision of a child consultation center. The center head may leak information to the media or request cooperation from nearby maternity hospitals and civil servants to search for the child’s biological parents. In most cases, the biological parents are found. In the case of my little sister, her biological parents were identified, but because contact couldn’t be made with them for over a year, she became a candidate for adoption. After confirming my determination, my parents decided to adopt her.
I cherished my little sister, who had finally returned to me after all my hard work.
To put it bluntly, my sister was like a treasure that I had obtained through painful effort.
As her older brother, I sometimes treated her strictly, sometimes kindly, always with the responsibility that came with being the eldest. I loved her and spent time with her.
Even after starting elementary school, I would head straight home without stopping anywhere, devoting time to spending with Yuzu.
Though my parents were actually the ones covering all of Yuzu’s living expenses, I continued working as a child actor, unaware of that fact. I didn’t have many friends at school, but I didn’t mind.
When Yuzu started elementary school, I was so happy that I frequently visited her first-grade classroom.
In middle school, though we went to different schools and had less time to interact due to studying, we still enjoyed weekends together as a family, often going on trips.
By this time, my child acting career had dwindled, and though I struggled to find work as an actor, I kept trying.
By high school, my interactions with Yuzu had dwindled considerably.
After I worked as a voice actor for a film at the suggestion of my agency, the director praised my voice, and I started getting more work as a voice actor. Meanwhile, Yuzu became more absorbed in her friendships and club activities, reducing our time together even further. She also seemed to start avoiding me, perhaps due to a rebellious phase.
I felt a mix of pride, seeing how much she had grown, and sadness that she wouldn’t talk to me.
One day, Yuzu came home soaking wet.
I asked her what had happened, but she didn’t answer and locked herself in her room. Concerned, I used my contacts to look into her situation.
That’s when I found out that Yuzu was being bullied.”
“Yuzu had grown into a beautiful woman, without any bias from me as her relative. It seems it all started with an upperclassman in her club, jealous of her beauty. From there, it spread, and Yuzu became more and more isolated,” her friend, who I called in for a talk, said apologetically.
I was furious. Not at those who bullied Yuzu, but at myself for neglecting her just because she was going through a rebellious phase, and for letting her suffer alone.
The day after I heard the story, I stormed into Yuzu’s middle school and shouted at both the teachers and the students who had bullied her, causing a huge commotion.
That spectacle escalated to the point where the police got involved. The agency and my parents were furious with me, but I don’t regret a thing.
After that incident, Yuzu wouldn’t speak to me for a while, whether out of anger or embarrassment, but after I continued to sincerely apologize, our interactions increased even more than before.
After graduating high school, I decided not to attend university and instead focused on my voice acting career while starting to live on my own.
Yuzu, too, caught the attention of scouts for her refined beauty after that bullying incident. She became a model, and by her third year of middle school, she was cast as the lead in a movie, quickly rising in popularity.
By the time she was in high school, for some reason, she had moved into my place and focused on her acting career. Now, she’s a rising star, in high demand for both movies and dramas… but still—
“…Hey.”
“What is it, big brother?”
“It’s too hot.”
“Isn’t it mean to call your cute little sister’s affection ‘too hot’?”
Though it was nearly summer, Yuzu was sitting on my lap, using my body as a backrest while reading through her script, and I complained.
Ever since she started living with me, she clung to me whenever she got the chance. The distance between us, which had grown in the two years since I started living alone and before Yuzu moved in, had drastically shortened.
While I was happy about our closeness, it was a bit too close. Her stunning beauty, which was on the verge of making her Japan’s most popular actress, her occasional sensual gestures, and the scent of her shampoo were all a bit too much for my heart.
I wasn’t excited by her because she was my sister, but it did make it hard to focus on my script.
“If you keep talking like that, I’ll make nothing but eggplant dishes tomorrow—your least favorite.”
“No, please, anything but that.”
That being said, I couldn’t exactly push her off. Yuzu had taken complete control of the kitchen, and she had the final say in all meal decisions. If I defied her, I’d be subjected to an entire day of dishes I couldn’t stand.
Although Yuzu was now busier than me, earning more and with more work, she never gave up control of the kitchen, and it put me in a difficult position.
Resigned, I gave up on getting her to move and resumed my practice.
Right now, I was working on dubbing a foreign film. Matching my lines to the mouth movements of the American actor was difficult, and I’d already been practicing for over three hours.
“Big brother, I want to watch TV.”
“Sorry, but I’ve got the real performance tomorrow, so I need to get this down perfectly by then. If there’s something you want to watch, could you record it?”
Since I needed to watch the footage to practice, I inevitably had to take over the TV.
I felt bad for Yuzu, but with the performance tomorrow, I couldn’t let her have the TV.
“Hm, okay.”
At times like this, Yuzu was very understanding. She really was my pride and joy.
She gave up on watching TV and resumed reading her script.
Actors, unlike voice actors, have to memorize all their lines, so it’s a lot of work. Yuzu has always had a great memory, so I’ve rarely seen her struggle with memorizing lines, but I, on the other hand, always had a hard time with it. Maybe that’s part of the reason my acting work had dried up.
“Is that a new script? It looks different from the ones you’ve had before.”
“Yeah, this is for a new drama. The movie we filmed before has its preview screening tomorrow.”
“You really are a popular actress. Already got another job lined up, huh?”
“Yep.”
She really was a huge star. As her older brother, it was a bit embarrassing to be outdone by her in both work and earnings, but at the same time, I was proud.
“By the way, when I tried to call you on my way home today, I couldn’t reach you… Did you turn your phone off?”
“Oh, no. I accidentally dropped it and it got waterlogged on my way back. Did you need to ask me something?”
“No, it wasn’t anything important, so don’t worry about it.”
“Got it. Anyway, it’s inconvenient without a phone, so I’ll buy a new one tomorrow.”
I didn’t expect any urgent calls, but being unable to contact Yuzu was a real problem.
I wanted to be able to rush to her side if something happened. I doubted she would be bullied again, like in middle school, but accidents or kidnappings aren’t entirely out of the question.
Yeah, the more I thought about it, the more anxious I felt. I’ll buy her a phone as soon as I finish work tomorrow.
Unaware that I wouldn’t have the luxury to do that, I made a big note in my mental checklist: “Buy a phone immediately.”
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