A Bad Person

Thinking like that about a kid makes me a bad person. Kids don't get to choose their lives, I should know that better than anyone else, and yet I've always blamed him. Logically speaking, I had everything I could've asked for, and he didn't have anything. And yet, I can never like him.

My Mom's younger sister, my Aunty, hadn't been married but she was Hikari's mother. I was very young, so no one told me the full story back then, but I have, to date, not heard about Hikari's father. I just remember the poor Aunty and her baby, who couldn't afford a good place to live in and couldn't afford good meals either. So Aunty used to eat dinner with us often, and I was asked to play with the baby.

"Yuki is so talented!" Aunty would praise me. "He can spell so many words!"

But Aunty was rough with her baby. She complained about the endless crying, she called her baby a 'little devil' and the baby would cry louder, as if he hated the nickname.

When she visited, she would drink beer with my dad. If she got too drunk, she'd start crying and complaining about her life. And all of her complaints revolved around the baby. They started with, "It's not like I wanted a kid." and went on till my Mom would hush her.
"Don't be so loud, Yuki will hear you."

And well, she was right. The baby wasn't too difficult to look after if I caged him in soft pillows and made a funny face every few minutes. The rest of the time, I'd lean my ear against the door and listen to the conversation the grown-ups were having.

Those were the only hazy memories I have left from when Hikari was an infant.

The last time I saw Aunty, she'd been jumping in excitement about something. Hikari was able to say small sentences by then and his hair was long like a girl's. She had started dressing him in pink and putting his hair in pigtails and ribbons. The toddler kept trying to take it off, irritated by how tight it must've felt on his scalp. But that one day, Aunty was happy and she left.

After that, if I asked my parents where Aunty had gone, they'd tell me she had found some job outside the city. It was very far away, so she couldn't visit anymore.

"I'm worried she will turn Hikari into a girl." My mom would scold me for saying such a thing.

And then she was dead. The room they were found in was hellish, or so I'd been told. It was full of garbage and take-out containers that she hadn't thrown away. It smelled of cigarettes too, as I'd heard told and Hikari was alive, alone in there.

His hair was long till his shoulders and he talked softly. Apparently, the school allowed it. But it was a horrible thing, to be orphaned. "Mama is dead." The child would say without any sadness on his face. He didn't smile or cry. He'd been sent to a counsellor, though Hikari didn't say anything. My parents didn't know what to do until someone suggested to him mingle with children his age and observe how that goes.

After that, he was easy to deal with. He was brought to live with us and started going to school pretty normally. He always listened to my parents. He got rid of the long hair and started talking more like a boy his age should. The more girly habits that he couldn't get rid of, he'd hide them in his room. Sometimes he read manga that was made for girls, or he asked Mom to buy him a doll. Upon being asked why, he'd say that he simply liked those things and he'd stop if my parents asked him to. But they didn't and he kept doing it.

In Elementary school, a group of boys started making his life difficult because they'd sneakily seen that he didn't have the same last name as my parents. And so, he quickly took our last name and became Hikari Shimizu.

Till now, I'd been ignoring him. It did feel unfair at times, how my parents tried so many different things to make him happy. He got away with getting average grades and he was never too good at anything. His weird hobbies got weirder. One day I walked into my parent's bedroom and saw him wearing one of my Mom's dresses. My parents weren't home and he was clearly embarrassed. Later, he stood next to my desk explaining himself.

"Do you want to be a girl?" I asked him.
"No." He said. "I just like pretty things."
"How about getting a girlfriend? You could stare at her all day."
"What kind of girl would even like me?"

I thought a little and then said. "I don't really know what you're trying, but I don't like it. Can't you try being more normal? Mom and Dad are worried about you all the time."

"I want to be normal too." He said. "I promise I won't take Aunty's things again. Can you please keep it between us? I don't want to worry them either. And... you should get a girlfriend instead. You're older than me, after all. When you have a girlfriend, I'll be friends with her."

"No way, why do you think you can talk to my girlfriend? Taking my parents isn't enough?" That shut him up every single time. "Just don't cause any more problems."

Then came Saeko, who bent our lives into a full hundred and eighty.

When I told my friends I had a thing for her, they all told me I could find a better girl. Once she came over to my house with two other people for a group study, and she immediately hit it with Hikari. She didn't look anything special, but she was kind. She noticed the little things and helped out everyone. With the excuse of meeting Hikari, she started coming over often.

It also helped that our Dads had known each other through work.

Sometimes she'd bring cakes that she made herself, and my Mom would be impressed. She talked about comedy shows with my Dad and won him over too. The one who enjoyed it the most though, was Hikari. He'd told her about his secret hobby and she'd indulge in them. She bought him phone charms and let him pick nail polish for her. She'd teach him how to text in a cute way and pout to get away with something. Hikari absolutely loved her.

"Why don't you ask her to be your girlfriend?" Hikari started pressuring me.
"She comes over so often, why don't you talk to her more?" Mom pushed every single time.
Dad wasn't any different. "She's a good girl. Try talking to her."

Any sort of attraction I'd felt for her, died slowly when rather than a choice, she started to become a burden. Her Mom would send her over to 'tutor' Hikari. "My little brother is the same age as him. I help him with his studies sometimes. I'll be glad to help."

I know I was making it awkward for her as well. Because, after I'd invited her so many times before, now I was mostly ignoring her.

Hikari was older now, so he didn't come to argue with me anymore. He'd never called me 'older brother' and I never asked him to, either. Saeko was gone, and with her, was gone any reason for us to ever talk again. Maybe he's disappointed in me, or maybe he hates me. I don't know what Hikari talked to Saeko about.

But I've become a bad person. And it's mostly Hikari's fault.