♥Futarigurashi♥Kotarou lives Alone♥

Chapter 22 - Why can't we be the same?

"Good morning." Rio greeted Kotarou but she was ignored.

Kotarou went ahead of Rio and Ruri. This forced Karino to chase after him and unable to walk to and from school with Rio.

"Nee-chan, Kotarou is being rude!" Ruri angrily pointed out! "You should use your pipe wrench." 

"I can tell you many reasons why I can't do that, Ruri. Never mind. Let's slowly walk to school."

"I'm angry now! I will go to school with this angry face!" Ruri thought she looked vicious but she looked rather adorable when angered.

"Will you make a happier face if we stop at a convenience store and get you a snack?" 

"...I will be angry in my heart." 

Kotarou was still angry with Rio. It wasn't just going to and from kindergarten. Even going to the bath house and seeing one another by chance, Kotarou remained angry. Rio wasn't bothered about it one bit but Ruri was very bothered and she continued to ignore Kotarou and refuse to play with him. How long will days like this continue?

Kotarou was helping Karino to rub out the lines of his manga. Karino caught Kotarou constantly glancing at him him hopefully as if waiting for something. Usually Koarino will ask Kotarou if he wanted to drink fruit milk but Karino knew Kotarou wasn't asking about that. 

"Rio is busy. She's not coming upstairs to see me because she's got a lot of customers to deal with." 

"...I don't know why you're telling me about your woes of lack of a woman's touch, but okay."

'What a stubborn kid.' Karino thought to himself. "What about you and Ruri? Are you both playing?" 

"Lady Ruri said she doesn't know me anymore." 

'Uwah. This is bad.' Karino thought to himself.

"Sir Karino, why does Lady Rio think the way she does?" Kotarou asked Karino in hope to have some light shedding into the confusion he was facing. Kotarou couldn't understand how could something like promises be broken so easily when it's something important enough to protect. "It's wrong to break promises. If someone made a promise for you to keep, you should keep it." 

"You're right in a sense. But like Rio said, is it right to protect a promise if it's killing you slowly?"

"Then you should make sure you're not killed!" 

"You're also right in a sense but it's not that easy." 

"...Lady Rio's mother should have made a promise to Lady Rio. If so, Lady Rio will see it my way." 

Karino couldn't help but imagine Rio going 'Why don't you shove that promise up your ass where the sun don't shine?' Karino had to turn his face away and stifle a laughter; why was it when the other person wasn't here but you end up thinking about them anyway and thinking about how they would react to something? 

"What is so funny, Sir Karino?" 

"Rio is not the type to be bound by such things." 

"It is not good, Sir Karino! If you start to break promises then you will never be a good adult-" 

"Kid, do you think Rio is a bad person?" Karino asked as he looked out of his balcony door. For some reason he imagined Rio was standing out there and having a cigarette; she only smokes when she's upset but he liked the image of her smoking from behind because there's something cool about her doing that. "The Rio who raised Ruri into a bubbly and happy girl is a bad person? The Rio who treat us to snacks is a bad person? The Rio who will come and deal with things we don't want to deal with is a bad person?"