NOVEL NEXT Chapter 2 - I Must Stop My Sister's Compensated Dating
Time goes back a little.
In this small ten-mat room, I accidentally saw it.
A message that came on my sister’s abandoned smartphone screen.
“About the compensated dating you mentioned before, are you sure? You’re still a vir–”
When I saw that message, my heart started racing, thinking it couldn’t be true.
But I couldn’t read more without unlocking the password.
Why? My sister, who’s never even had a boyfriend, talking about compensated dating?
Why would my beautiful sister, who’s never even dyed her hair, be talking about such things?
At night, Kenya, though knowing it’s wrong, presses his sleeping sister’s finger against her smartphone.
He sits next to his sister, trying to calm his heart, worried she might hear it beating.
His sister’s eyes, as she sleeps breathing softly, are red as if she’d been crying, with tears still pooled in them.
Then I saw the full text.
“I knew it…”
My suspicion turns to certainty. I had vaguely realized.
The reason why my high school sister needs money.
One year ago.
“Nana! Mom collapsed!”
Breathless, I reported this to my sister and we rushed to the hospital together.
Our mother, who lost our father early in an accident, raised my sister and me alone.
She never showed any fatigue, always working multiple part-time jobs with an energetic smile.
And now she had collapsed.
Mother had cancer.
To pay for mother’s treatment and hospital fees, we sold our house, furniture, and used up our father’s savings.
The drug treatment continues, but money is disappearing like water every day.
With no relatives to rely on, before we knew it, we ended up living in this run-down apartment – just one ten-mat room for 40,000 yen a month.
A single room with no privacy for a brother and sister.
But that’s why we help and support each other, just the two of us siblings.
And now.
Before we knew it, a year had passed in this life, and my sister was about to enter high school.
I worked part-time jobs from morning to night, neglecting my studies.
That’s because I was planning to quit high school and get a job.
My grades used to be good, but now they’re at the bottom.
Being a college prep school, the level was too high to keep up with just classes.
I often fall asleep during those classes anyway…
So I gave up on studying.
I work and work, supporting our household, somehow managing to save.
I want at least my sister to go to university…
I don’t want her to live a life of endurance.
I told her about this yesterday.
I announced I would drop out of high school.
But my sister strongly objected, and the discussion was put on hold for now.
“I’ll figure out the money too! You don’t need to sacrifice your life for me, big brother! I’ll manage somehow so we can both go to university!”
This is the result of that.
My sister is so beautiful she received many confessions in middle school.
She’s so beautiful I wonder if we really share the same blood.
Long black hair, white skin, and large eyes.
She’s about 160 cm tall.
Nana, whose chest has recently developed, is a sister called beautiful wherever she goes.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
In this small room, I looked at my sister sleeping next to me.
I saw her smartphone screen and her tear-stained sleeping face.
I cry tears of apology, tears of shame.
I cry at the fact that my sister is trying to earn money by putting her body on the line.
Then I wiped away my tears and made a decision.
I won’t quit high school, won’t stop my mother’s treatment, and won’t let my sister do compensated dating.
I decided on the only path that could fulfill this arrogant, greedy, yet supposedly normal happiness.
The only path left.
“It’s a path I once gave up on, but I’ll try hard again, big brother… I’ll do my best, putting my body on the line.”
I gently stroked my sister’s hair and voiced my determination.
The dream I once gave up on, thinking I had no talent.
The dream of a profession that has the highest earning potential for a high school student now.
The dream of being a dungeon explorer.
“Skill level up♪ You’ve reached Lv10. Your alchemy rank has risen to Rank D.”
And so awakened the alchemist.
It’s not quite a fortune yet, but earning ten times as much is now within reach.