The Judge's Date with Death

(1) A Queen's Advice

To Makoto Niijima, seeing her sister around her living space had been a rough journey. They'd had their ups and downs, especially after her father passed away and she began acting with the Phantom Thieves, but she liked to think that her and her sister were on better terms now. With all the things both Niijima sisters had gone through both together and apart, their relationship had thankfully begun to heal quite a bit.

Which is what made Sae's current pacing seem off.

Makoto didn't see her as often since she'd moved to college to follow her dream of becoming police commissioner, but the sisters still tried to meet every so often for some family bonding time. Honestly, Makoto was very thankful for it. With most of her friends still at her old school for their final year or at another university and her boyfriend back in his hometown until he started college, she didn't have as many people to interact with in person as she'd like. The clicking of her sister's heels brought Makoto out of her thinking trance and looked back at the worried defense attorney.

"Sis, what's wrong? You've been pacing back and forth for 5 minutes now. Is it something at work?" Makoto asked. Sae never seemed this emotionally distressed unless it either related to Makoto herself or her newfound career change to being a public defense attorney.

"Wha-oh! Makoto! I...uh," Sae managed to squeak out. Makoto gawked at her sister. She'd never seen her sister seem so out of it before.

"Come on sis. You can talk to me," Makoto reassured her. Sae, seemingly hanging her head in defeat, slumped over the desk nestled in the corner of Makoto's dorm room. Makoto looked at her sister as she stood up and took a deep breath.

"Makoto...I...I need dating advice."

Makoto blinked. Then again. Only after the third blink did her sister's words sink in. Sae Niijima-former feared prosecutor Sae Niijima-was asking her little sister for advice.

Romantic advice.

"What!? D-dating advice!? What brought this on!?"

"Makoto, please, I-I-I need your help. You're the only one I know in a relationship that I can talk to." Sae looked to her sister with seemingly pleading eyes, waiting for a response from the younger Niijima. Makoto looked at her sister again.

"O-okay. Alright sis. What brought this on anyway?" Makoto questioned. She couldn't remember the last time her sister had been interested in any sort of romantic outing. The passing of their father meant Sae's goals needed to be focused into her career, which eventually became so bad to the point of distortion.

"Well-I-um-you see- um," Sae stumbled. Her thumbs were twiddling at a million miles a minute out of sheer nervousness if front of her, staring down at the floor to avoid more nervous eye contact with her younger sister. So you know how I went to the doctors the other day?"

"Yes, you needed to do an examination for work. What does this have to do with it?" Makoto thought back to the previous week. Sae had texted her about seeing the doctor regarding a yearly health exam.

"Well, I decided to go by that clinic near Yongen this time and, well..." Sae began trailing off. Makoto thought about it. Her sister had been looking for a new doctor for a few weeks, and she'd been around Yongen to know about Dr Takemi'c clinic. Wait a minute...

"Oh...OH!" Makoto exclaimed as it all clicked in her head. Granted she'd only been to Yongen's clinic a few times when Ren would get medicine for their missions as the phantom thieves, but even then she remembered the punk-looking doctor who knew of their secret lives. Ren had told the team and, though there were reservations, it was still clear Takemi was a trusted ally. She also remembered how her sister had come out to her about who she preferred to date a few weeks after they took Rem home. It all began coming together in the younger Niijima's head. "So it's..."

"Y-yeah. I feel so silly Makoto. Here I am, a grown adult, getting overly anxious and nervous like a schoolgirl over her! What do I do?!" Sae sounded desperate. She hadn't seen her sister this annoyed in a few weeks. However, Makoto couldn't help but smile and giggle to herself. Her big sister had a crush, and she was crushing hard. "What's with that look?"

Sae's eyes narrowed as she looked at her smiling sister, eyes beaming down at her as her smile only seemed to grow wider. Sae couldn't help herself from showing her own small smile. "Okay Makoto, what is it? Spit it out."

"Oh it's nothing sis. Just that you've got a big fat crush on Takemi-san, that's all," Makoto admitted, a devious glint in her eyes Sae could guarantee was due to her boyfriend's influence. Damn you Amamiya.

"M-Makoto! That isn't...well...ugh!" Sae let her head fall onto the table once more with a thump, her sister still smirking at her. "Just please help me."

"Ok ok sis, I'll help. Don't know how much I can though."

"What do you mean? You're dating Amamiya-kun still, aren't you?"

"Well, yes, but...didn't I tell you how I got together?" Makoto asked the elder Niijima. Sae thought to herself before her eyes widened slightly.

"No, I don't suppose you did. How did it?"

Makoto blinked at her sister before sighing. This was going to take a while.

——->

"So let me get this straight," Sae exclaimed. She'd been listening to Makoto explain how she had started dating Amamiya-kun for the past 10 minutes or so. "You asked him to be your pretend boyfriend so you could help your friend out of a bad situation, only for the two of you to get into a fight before Amamiya-kun said he wanted to be your..."

"M-my study partner. In love. Yes." Makoto admitted, looking away from her sister's interrogating eye as she smiled, looking back to that moment when Ren had confessed to her.

'What should I do? I can't learn love by myself.'

'I'll be your study partner.'

Makoto was brought out of her trance by a sudden noise. She looked over to her sister and she was...laughing. Sae chuckled to herself before breaking out into a fuller laugh. Makoto was shocked. She'd seen more emotional turns in Sae today than she'd seen the past four months.

"S-sis! It's not that funny!" Makoto's face had turned beet red as her sister's laughter began to talk itself. She stood up and looked back at Makoto.

"Oh-oh it is. Thank you Makoto, I needed that." Sae smiled as she looked at her sister. "However I suppose that puts us back where we started then."

"Not exactly. I do have someone you could ask."

"And who would that...no..."