The End

I leaned in, our lips almost touching when she suddenly pushed me away. "No, no, no... not yet. Not like I want a smooch from you... idiot..." She flailed her arms wildly in the air, the rest dissolving into noise I chose not to interpret.

When she calmed down, we walked down the pavement in silence, a full uninterrupted silence, which was somehow more unsettling than her usual barrage of love-threats and love-denials.

I noticed her muttering under her breath, making a small pointing gesture to the left, then one to the right, and finally, to my utter disappointment, one straight at her own head. She bit her lip and looked at me. Her expression said everything. She had no idea where we were.

"Sorry," she whispered, lowering her head.

I sighed. Part of me wanted to unload on her, to tell her my sister's entire social life was about to be ruined because of this detour, but how could I, when I, the only older brother, had somehow forgotten the address of my own sister's school?

"Do you have a phone? I left mine at home."

"W-w-why my phone..."

I bent down to her eye level and poked her forehead. "GPS?"

She pulled out her phone and took a step back, holding it so close to her face that surely even she couldn't read the screen. She tried to enter her password. It buzzed. Wrong.

"Is that even yours?" I snatched it from her hands and held it up out of reach. She jumped for it. I lowered it just enough for her fingers to brush the screen before I yanked it back up. Cute. My thumb caught the screen by accident, and the lock screen lit up in my face.

It was a photo of me.

My hands started shaking. I looked at her, then at the phone, then back at her, and finally at the screen. I typed my own name, and the phone unlocked. The wallpaper was me. The icons of the apps were also me. A tremor ran down my spine. I looked up at her. She was staring back, fully flushed but not the tsundere blush this time, something colder and closer to a yearning glare of a wild animal waiting in anticipation for its prey to drop its guard. She stepped towards me. I held the phone out to hand it back, but she tapped an icon that had my picture photoshopped onto a scenary. The icon read gallery.

When the gallery opened, more of my pictures flashed at me.

A stalker. I dropped the phone and ran.

I'd had enough of this girl. Footsteps pounded behind me; I glanced over my shoulder and saw her closing the distance at a genuinely absurd speed for someone her height. I decided then and there to test the limits of my own body; if I died today, at least I'd die a wise man who chose to run rather than fight a girl shorter than himself.

We tore down the street at a full sprint. The handful of pedestrians who saw us probably would've sworn we'd outrun Flash himself on his best day.

Then my toe hit a rock. Pain shot up my leg, and I pitched forward, arms windmilling as I tried to stay upright. I spun on one foot, turning back around just as she slammed into my chest, and we both went down.

My ears were ringing, and then I realized the ringing wasn't in my head. It was the school bell. I looked up and saw the banner for Himari's school hanging right above us. I had made it.

Tears of joy welled in my eyes. I tried to get up, but she was still sprawled on top of me, staring at the banner with quiet satisfaction. Then she looked down at me and leaned in, her face closing the gap to mine.

I turned my face away.

Suddenly I felt the cold edge of a blade against my throat. So I did the only reasonable thing a man in my position could do, I turned back to face her. "Um. Okay."

I leaned in, mentally filing the whole thing under unwanted contractual obligations. This was not romance. This was a treasure tax, the toll every treasure hunter pays sooner or later.

I closed my eyes, and we kissed.

Yeah. That happened. My actual first kiss, with a girl who was cute in the same way a loaded gun is cute - not in the slightest - right outside the gates of my sister's all-girls' school. But it had to be done, for the treasure, for my sister's honor.

"B-brother?!"

My eyes snapped open. Himari was standing right there.

"Is that your sister?" The tsundere yandere got up from me; she sounded almost delighted. She wriggled her fingers and moved towards Himari. "She looks exactly like you."

Himari took a few tiny steps back.

"Himari, Run!"

I heard small footsteps trotting toward us, then Dodo appeared out of nowhere and landed on the tsundere yandere.

"Dodo?" I watched my heroic dog trying to fight off the crazy.

"Woof!"

Ahh, he was successful in running away from Toshi.

"Woof!"

So Toshi went to drink water, and he escaped.

"Woof woof!"

Oh, so that crazy girl has a knife, and Dodo has given up. Of course he did. He was a coward after all.

Dodo jumped off her and ran behind Himari. The tsundere yandere chased after him with a dagger in hand. I tried getting up, but my foot slipped, and I was back on the ground. 

I remembered Miss Amane's pretty boys manga's latest volume, a cursed item I acquired through the quest; it wasn't a weapon, but here we were. I took it out and slid it across the ground toward the final trial — the yandere tsundere. It caught beneath her foot, making her slip and fall backward over me. 

"Arghh." I was squished under her weight. Self-note, I need a medical checkup after this.

Himari walked toward me and kicked her off. The final boss rolled away, landing next to Dodo.

"Brother. What the hell?" Himari sat down on the pavement.

I scrambled up, already trying to figure out how to explain any of this, the manga, the reason for all of it, that it was all for her sake.

A tear slid down Himari's cheek.

I grabbed Himari by the shoulders. "H-Himari, what's wrong? Why are you out here already..."

"School ended." She stood and started walking off.

I chased after her. What did she mean, ended? I looked around and saw girls streaming out of the gates in clusters. It really was over.

I glanced at Himari, then at a group of girls a little ways off, pointing at us and whispering. Don't tell me I was too late. Don't tell me she'd already shown my manga around and everyone hated her now.

"I'm sorry."

"You'd better be." She wiped tears off her face. "You were kissing a girl."

The yandere tsundere slipped in next to me and murmured, "She better not have a crush on her own brother."

"H-Himari..." 

"There goes my dream of having a brother-in-law." She shouted and spun back around just long enough to shoot me a glare.

What?

What the!?

What the hell?

She walked away from me. How did she think like this? My eye twitched. Brother-in-law. This girl thought I was gay, even though my entire manga collection was evidence to the contrary.

"Never come into my room again," I shouted. Then I remembered why I was even standing out here in the first place. "Wait, my manga! Himari, give it back!"

She stopped walking. Didn't turn around. "What manga?"

"Don't play dumb. You were in my room. You took two of my books before school." My voice cracked on the word books, because we both knew I didn't mean books.

She turned around slowly, arms crossed, face unreadable. Then she reached into her school bag and pulled out volume 15 of The Perfect Bang, holding it out at arm's length like it was something faintly radioactive.

I grabbed it so fast I nearly dropped it, my legendary artifact, finally back in its rightful hands. My hands were shaking too hard to be careful. I flipped it open, and there it was. Page 67. A crooked corner, folded down at an angle no self-respecting collector would ever allow.

Someone had read this.

The horror hit me all at once. My little sister. My innocent, sweet, still-technically-a-child little sister, exposed to this because of me.

"I ruined you," I whispered, sinking to my knees right there on the sidewalk. "I ruined your entire life. I'm the worst brother in the history of brothers. You are going to therapy, and I'm becoming a monk. I'm..."

"Oh my god, calm down." Himari rolled her eyes so hard I worried they'd get stuck that way. "I'm a second-year high schooler. I've read actual smut fanfiction longer than your arm. I run a fan account. I am, categorically, already beyond innocent. And I am keeping the other manga."

I opened my mouth. Closed it again.

"Then why did you even take it?"

"I wanted to see your collection." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "All of it. Not just these."

"Why?"

She looked away, cheeks going faintly pink. "I wanted to know if my brother was gay. You had a Pretty Boys manga collection. So I wanted to check what else you were hoarding."

"That's just there for... for... Toshi...."

The world went silent. Somewhere in the distance, a bird chose that exact moment to chirp, which felt personally insulting.

"I believe you," she mumbled.

"...And?" I managed.

She sighed. "And... maybe you aren't..." She stopped mid-sentence and bent down. She held up the Pretty Boys manga volume Miss Amane had lent me, the cursed item I had just used as a slipper.

She looked at me, then at the book, then back at me. A smug smile spread across her face.

"I'm going home." I turned around while Dodo ran next to me.

"Woof."

"Shut up, Dodo!"

"Dodo's right... Onii-chan, there is nothing to be ashamed of..." Himari slipped her arm around mine and joined me.

"I still love you even if you are gay..." The yandere tsundere slipped her arm around my other arm and continued walking with me.

I glanced at her. Damn, I can't believe I kissed this girl of all the women in the world.

The four of us walked back home. The day had been exhausting, all for the sake of retrieving my precious legendary artifact and that stupid cursed BL manga, to protect my not-so-innocent, not-an-elementary-schooler younger sister. Some treasure hunters chase gold. I'd apparently settled for a manga volume, a knife-wielding self-proclaimed girlfriend who I never asked for, a permanent dent in my dignity and urgent medical care.

I sighed. "I need to memorize your real age by now."