Satoshi and I were near the bank, so we quickly climbed out. But Sayuri had been swept further into the water by the force of her fall.
Without hesitation, Satoshi told me to fetch help and dived into the pond to save her.
When I returned with adults, I saw Satoshi pulling Sayuri back to the shore. Just as he succeeded, he collapsed and began sinking into the water himself, exhausted.
The sight of Satoshi smiling, satisfied after saving my sister, even as he sank into the pond, left a deep impression on me. That must have been when I fell in love with him.
Satoshi injured his leg on a piece of metal at the bottom of the pond. He spent half a month in the hospital, and despite treatment, he was left with a limp.
Meanwhile, my sister was in shock from her fall and partial drowning. She had fragmented memories of being rescued but couldn’t recall who was with her or why they’d gone to the pond in the first place.
Cheerfully, she declared:
“I’m going to marry the hero who saved me!”
And then there’s my awful parents.
They told young Satoshi to keep quiet.
“If Sayuri finds out she’s the reason for your injury, she’ll carry an unnecessary burden. Don’t tell her.”
Obedient as always, Satoshi kept his promise. Even when Sayuri rejected his confessions, saying:
“I’m waiting for my hero who saved me—I’m not interested in childhood friends,”
he never revealed that he was, in fact, her hero.
He’s such an idiot.
In the end, someone else took the place of “the hero who saved my sister.”
When Sayuri was in her second year of high school, a transfer student named Kazuki Yoshimura arrived. He had been an elementary school classmate and knew about the drowning incident.
Kazuki must have pieced everything together and pretended to be the hero. My sister, naive as she was, fell for his act completely.
The real reason Kazuki transferred? He’d gotten a girl pregnant at his previous school.
With his experience with women, it wasn’t hard for him to seduce my sister.
She’s so stupid for trusting him so easily.
“I don’t remember ever treating Satoshi poorly,” Sayuri protested, looking offended.
The shamelessness of her denial was almost laughable.
Good. Now I can crush her without holding back.
“I’m truly grateful. A scumbag and an idiot make a perfect pair. Make sure you raise your child well so they don’t turn out like their parents.”
“You should know better than to say such things, even to your sister!”
“You’re right. The child isn’t to blame for being born to a scumbag and an idiot. I apologize for that.”
“You’re still spewing insults! Take that back!”
Her face flushed crimson, seething with rage. Her absurdity made me feel eerily calm in contrast.
“First of all, Kazuki Yoshimura is not the hero who saved you from drowning. He’s nothing but a fraud and a con artist.”
“Don’t call my husband a con artist without any proof!”
“Proof? Our parents silenced him, but I was there at the scene.”
I had witnessed Satoshi rescuing my sister when she was drowning.
I knew it would be hard for her to accept such a late revelation.
“Memories from when we were that young can’t be trusted.”
That’s true—memories can’t always be trusted.
But she failed to see the contradiction in her own words. This is why I call her stupid.
It was a serious incident that could have easily turned fatal. It was such a big deal that it was reported in the local newspaper. Even if we were too young at the time to know about newspapers, it’s not hard to verify now.
But she never bothered to investigate. Instead, she blindly believed the claims of a self-proclaimed hero. Her head must be filled with nothing but flowers—certainly not brains.
“It was even in the newspapers. If you had just looked into it, you’d have easily found out.”
“I can’t believe that.”
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