Love Comes After Simulation

In his sleep, Yuuki Minami found himself in the Dream Cinema.

First, he pushed open Nao Asano’s room, put on the VR headset, and relived a small fragment of his interactions with her. The VR couldn’t be controlled; it only allowed him to experience the emotions from his actions in previous free simulations. For Yuuki Minami, that was enough.

Leaving Nao’s room, he opened Yuko’s room.

Finally, he entered Reina’s—the dream that tied to reality.

—

In the morning, sunlight streamed through the curtains that hadn’t been fully drawn, gently waking him. He sat up and tapped the screen of his phone beside the pillow.

6:53.

It was still early. He rubbed his head, now clear from sleep, and slowly got out of bed to wash up.

The toothbrush swirled foam between his teeth, the minty toothpaste tingling his mouth. As he brushed, he recalled the events of the previous night and pondered his plans for the day.

Then he remembered something he’d forgotten to do last night—asking his sister Airi for the paper cranes to round out his remaining 1.5 simulation chances.

After washing his face, he dialed his sister’s number.

The ringtone buzzed for over ten seconds before the call finally connected.

“Hello?” Airi’s sleepy voice came through the speaker.

The girl had likely been woken by the sound of her phone ringing. From her groggy tone, Yuuki Minami could easily picture her lying in bed, eyes closed, taking the call under the covers.

“Still in bed? So lazy,” Yuuki Minami teased.

“What? How can you say that about me, Onii-chan? You’re the one who loves to sleep in the most!” Airi’s voice quickly grew lively, shifting from drowsy to indignant.

Now fully awake, she remembered the awkward situations she’d fallen into during their previous calls and warily asked, “What do you want this time, Onii-chan?”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Actually, I’ve been really into paper cranes lately,” Yuuki Minami hinted.

“I knew it! You only think of me when you need something! I’m not folding any!”

“I’ll bring you lots of gifts when I come home.”

“I don’t care about your gifts!”

“Did you know, paper cranes were originally folded by a little sister to show her love for her older brother, inspired by his favorite bird, the crane? It’s said that the more paper cranes the brother receives, the more upright and healthy he grows, free from the influence of bad women outside.”

“Free from bad women outside?”

“Exactly. Every thousand cranes has an effect, and the effects stack. If you reach multiples of five, the effects increase dramatically.”

Yuuki Minami sensed that Airi was tempted. His sister, influenced by something unknown, always wanted to keep him close and even meddled in his future marriage and lifestyle. Right now, her greatest fear was that one of the “bad women” at Misaki might seduce her brother and disrupt her plans. So, Yuuki Minami played to her concerns, assigning the paper cranes a magical power to protect him from such influence.

On the other end of the call, Airi didn’t respond immediately. She was likely weighing her options.

After half a minute of silence, her annoyed voice broke through. “You’re lying! I looked it up, and paper cranes don’t have that kind of power at all!”

Tch. She actually looked it up online? I underestimated her intelligence.

Yuuki Minami quickly abandoned his “paper crane marketing plan” and switched to Plan B.

He said, “Last night, I was organizing my things and found a photo of Airi in my suitcase.”

“Eh? Um… oh…”

The girl stammered for a long moment. Yuuki Minami’s sudden shift in topic had caught her off guard.

She had assumed he would bring this up right after arriving at Misaki. She had already prepared an excuse for that eventuality.

But now, a month had passed. Hearing nothing from him, she had let her guard down and almost forgotten about it. She hadn’t expected the topic to surface now, leaving her completely unprepared.

After about ten seconds, she finally steadied herself and began recalling the plan she had devised back then.

In a tone of mock blame, Airi said, “Is it the one in the pink photo frame? No wonder I couldn’t find it! I even asked Mom about it! So it was you who took it, Onii-chan!”

Yuuki Minami could easily discern that her exaggerated voice was an attempt to mask her guilt.

He was now certain: the photo had been deliberately placed in his suitcase by his sister.

As for her intentions… well, it wasn’t surprising for a teenage girl to do something like this. At least she hadn’t changed his phone wallpaper to her picture or set his ringtone to a recording of her voice.

Actually… wouldn’t that be kind of amusing? Perhaps he could ask her to send a photo and a recording so he could set them himself. But knowing her, she wouldn’t agree so easily—this girl had a bit of a tsundere streak. In fact, his daughter Mayuri, from his relationship with Yuko in the simulation, likely inherited her personality from Airi.

After a moment’s thought, he replied, “Should I send the photo back to you by mail?”

“No need. Just keep it with you. That’s one of my favorite photos, so take good care of it, okay?”

“Got it. I’ll lock it up in the safest cabinet.”

“…No need to lock it up. Just put it somewhere normal.”

“Then I’ll leave it on my nightstand,” Yuuki Minami said, glancing at the photo of Mako sitting there.

“Huh?”

“It’s really cute. This morning, the first thing I saw when I woke up was the photo.”

“Eh?”

“Just having it there makes my room feel so much nicer.”

“Wha—?”

Airi let out a series of short, surprised sounds, her embarrassment escalating with each one.

Having drunk the sweet wine of her brother’s compliments, her cheeks flushed bright red, and her mind became hazy.

“But…”

Yuuki Minami’s slightly regretful tone tugged at her heart, making her nervous.

“But what?” she asked.

“My nightstand is too plain. It doesn’t feel right to place such a cute photo there. If there were pink paper cranes to decorate it, that would be perfect. The ones you folded before didn’t have any pink ones.”

After that sentence, he added a long, sorrowful sigh. Both his words and the sigh carried an air of melancholy.

Airi immediately made a promise. “I’ll fold some right now!”

“Thanks a lot! About the same number as last time will do. Please make them quickly!”

With that, Yuuki Minami ended the call without delay.

If he didn’t hang up now, Airi’s wits would catch up.

He had underestimated her joy. Joy is an emotion, and emotion is the enemy of logic. By the time her feelings subsided and logic began analyzing the situation—concluding she might have been tricked—she would have already bought pink paper and folded a row of cranes.

Even if logic resurfaced briefly, her emotions would suppress it again. Maybe I wasn’t tricked after all! she’d think.

As she recalled the photo, her mind wandered back to the shy, sweet fantasies she had imagined a month ago when she secretly slipped it into her brother’s suitcase.

Would Onii-chan gaze at her photo in the quiet of the night, overwhelmed with homesickness?

Or worse… would he, in an effort to show off, casually let a friend see it? Would that friend ask, “Is this your girlfriend from back home?” and would Onii-chan respond with a playful, ambiguous smile?

If it were the latter, that might be a bit of a problem. She should’ve slipped a purer, more innocent photo into his suitcase as well.

Airi fretted over the scenarios playing out in her head. But this fretting, too, was her pleasure—her happiness.

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