Himegi-san a Bride from the Future Begs Me to Confess My Love to Her Again - Volume 2 Chapter 1.6

Me, Princess’s Sister, and a Bunny Suit 6

“I have something I want to show you.”

“To me?”

“Yes, if you are Touka-chan’s boyfriend, I want you to see this.”

“…Wha—!”

Onē-san pulls out something astonishing from under the quilt and shows it to me.

Good grief, this Onē-san is… quite an extraordinary person…

What Onē-san pulled out was a body pillow.

But it wasn’t just any body pillow.

The pillow cover was… Touka Himegi.

Moreover, Himegi-san on the cover was not dressed in a school uniform or casual clothes; she was in a revealing female knight’s attire…

By the way, upon seeing the body pillow cover, Himegi-san was holding her head in her hands.

“How about that! Aren’t you jealous?! It’s a one-of-a-kind body pillow that I had the maids make! “

With a proud expression, Onē-san boasts about the body pillow.

“The quality is amazing too! The breasts are inflated to the same size as the real thing, and on that shelf over there, I have Maid Touka, Gym Shorts Touka, Nurse Touka, Nude Touka, et cetera, et cetera… There are pillow covers featuring Touka-chan and Harune-tan in a multitude of outfits, all sealed away!”

“…Wow, that’s amazing. By the way, what’s on the back of the body pillow?”

“It’s Harune-tan dressed as a wizard!”

Onē-san flipped the pillow to reveal Harune-chan dressed as a wizard.

“O-ohh…”

“No matter how much you act like Touka-chan’s boyfriend, the one who understands and loves my sisters the most is me, Natsumi Himegi! Mwah, mwah, mwah!”

Onē-san declared me a rival while repeatedly kissing the face of the female knight on the body pillow and fondling the chest.

What a sight to behold…

If it was her brother, they’d probably have a family meeting about it.

No, even if it was a sister, it was still out of bounds…

Anyway, I’m just glad Onē-san’s complaint wasn’t about that magic trick.

But that’s a really high-quality body pillow… It would probably sell like hotcakes if it were on the market.

“What? You want to touch this female knight Touka-chan’s chest too?”

Onē-san said as she skillfully fondled the pillow’s chest.

Of course, I nodded my head repeatedly.

“No! This Touka-chan is only for Onē-san! Mwah, mwah!”

“H-hey! Nē-san, stop it! Also, Ouji-kun, don’t get carried away!”

“I don’t care! I want Touka-chan to always be Natsumi’s Touka-chan—cough, cough, cough…”

Onē-san coughed painfully.

Himegi-san, with a worried expression, rushed over to her and gently patted her back.

“Ah, you got too excited…”

“Cough, cough… haa, haaah… I overdid it.”

“A-Are you okay?”

“It’s fine. It happens all the time… and I’m used to it.”

All the time?

…There were many picture books and novels on a bookshelf deep inside the room.

On the wall was a painting, possibly done in acrylic, depicting a scene.

A little black-haired girl, next to her a girl with long black hair in a dress, a man who looked like their father, a woman who seemed like their mother, and a bespectacled woman wearing a medical hat, all holding hands in a sunflower field.

Everyone in the painting had bright, smiling faces.

There was a date on the painting: May 7th of the previous year.

Perhaps the little girl in the picture painted it.

Judging from the art style, it was probably done by someone in the early grades of elementary school.

And based on the date, it’s possible that Himegi-san’s Onē-san had been hospitalized since well before last summer.

A long-term hospital stay… That means…

“The artist’s name is Harune Himegi.”

“Huh?”

“I noticed you staring intently at the painting, so I thought I’d tell you.”

Feeling like Onē-san had seen right through me, I felt a little embarrassed.

I see, so Harune-chan drew this picture…

I shouldn’t judge, but Harune-chan doesn’t seem to be particularly talented at drawing.

“It’s pretty bad, right? But it’s one of my most treasured possessions.”

“I guess it brings back memories.”

“Yes. I was allowed a day out from the hospital, and on my insistence, we went to a sunflower field that wasn’t even in bloom…”

From the story, it seemed that last year during Golden Week, the family of five went to play in the sunflower field.

Indeed, sunflowers wouldn’t be blooming in May.

“But the sunflower field in the painting is in full bloom.”

“That’s the charm of it. It was Harune’s thoughtful touch.”

“I see.”

She must have painted it thinking of her sister, putting her heart into a skill she wasn’t particularly good at.

If hypothetically, I were to receive such a painting as a gift, I would probably also frame it and put it on display.

“Do you like sunflowers?”

“They’re my favorite flower…”

“I see…”

“More importantly, how long have you two been dating?”

“He confessed to me right after we moved up a grade.”

If my memory serves me right, I was the one who was being confessed to last week.

Moreover, my first confession was rejected by Himegi-san…

“Heheheh I see. So you’re a brand-new couple.”

For some reason, Natsumi-san grinned and smiled.

“That’s right.”

“Hmm, what does Touka-chan like about Hakuba-kun?”

“I like that he’s good at magic tricks and that he’s surprisingly dependable.”

“Hehehe! So, what are you two planning to do for Golden Week?”

“Yes?”

Himegi-san was surprised by the unexpected question.

“You’re a couple, so you’ll go on a date or something, right?”

Certainly, if we’re a couple, we’d probably go on a date during Golden Week.

But coming to this hospital room—and seeing Natsumi-san’s condition—something I had been wondering about seems to make a bit more sense.

Perhaps Himegi-san’s proposal to date me has something to do with her Onē-san.

“Of course we will go on a date. Right, Ouji-kun?”

“…Yes, we’ll go on a date during Golden Week.”

I haven’t made any plans, but I went along with Himegi-san’s story.

“Where are you going?”

Himegi-san falls silent at Onē-san’s question.

It seems that Himegi-san is not the type of person who can think on the spur of the moment.

“We’re planning to go to Crown World.”

I decided to throw her a lifeline.

Crown World is an entertainment facility with hot springs and heated pools.

Incidentally, its catchphrase is “24 hours of feeling like a king.”

“We got some discount coupons from my dad, so we were discussing going there.”

I lied. Each time I lie, I see fleeting images of my parents’ faces, but helping the frozen girl beside me is my current priority.

So I lied.

While it’s true that I received discount coupons from my dad, Himegi-san and I have never discussed going on a date.

I made up a spur-of-the-moment lie because I thought Natsumi-san would get suspicious if we didn’t give her some explanation about going out somewhere.

I take a quick glance at Himegi-san. She looks apologetic.

“I remember going there once with the Harukawa family when it first opened.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it’s true. I wanted to go again, but with my condition, there’s not much I can do.”

” ….. “

“You both have fun, okay?”

“…Yes, we will.”

“Mm-hm. With this, I have one less regret. Ah, joy, joy.”

I had no words to respond to that.

Even without any medical expertise, I could tell that the woman in front of me was not doing well.

Looking at her, who has lost a lot of weight, I’m reminded of my grandfather who passed away from cancer when I was in elementary school.

While I’m lost in thought, the door to the hospital room opens, and a little girl around the age of five enters.

She’s wearing pink pajamas and hugging a picture book to her chest.

It seems she came to this room wanting Onē-san to read to her. The girl in pajamas eyes me with evident caution.

“Natsumi Onē-chan, read the picture book…”

“Right, I promised to read it to you, didn’t I?”

At those words, the girl’s face lights up with a smile, and she scampers over to the bed, occupying the space next to Onē-san.

“But you know, today, there’s something even more fun than reading a picture book, okay?”

“Something more fun than reading a picture book?”

“Yes, that cute onī-chan over there will show you some magic tricks, Anna-chan.”

I can’t believe she just put me on the spot like that.

Nevertheless, my pride won’t allow me to say that I can’t do it.

So, I performed some magic tricks for the little girl using a coin and a deck of cards——