---

No matter how I looked at it, the age gap between my older sister and me seemed almost like a generational divide, so it felt a bit silly for me to be having such thoughts about a kid.

But still, what could I do? Honestly, who wouldn’t feel good if their partner, younger and beautiful, showed them a lot of attention?

My older sister couldn’t be called my partner yet, and to be truthful, there were no laws regarding same-sex marriage in our country, but anyway.

Of course, whether I felt lonely or not, neither my sister nor Young Miss Ga-young knew about it. It was something they couldn’t possibly figure out if I didn’t say anything.

So, I was just trying my best to hide those negative feelings. If it got out, it wouldn’t look good for either Ga-young or my sister.

“Just… something good happened.”

“Something good?”

As my sister answered with a smile, Ga-young tilted her head, but my sister didn’t feel the need to explain any further.

“But how did you know? That something good happened?”

Though she didn’t explain, it seemed Ga-young was curious about how she knew that, and my sister brought it up.

“Oh, that’s…”

Ga-young looked at my sister, then briefly glanced at me. Then she turned her gaze back to my sister and said.

“Your expressions are brighter than usual. Both of you.”

Did it show that obviously?

As soon as Yu-ri saw us, it looked like she noticed something… but given how perceptive my sister was, it might have been a stretch to judge based only on their reactions. On the flip side, it meant that two perceptive people had caught on to our situation pretty clearly.

I wasn’t sure if I could hide it any longer.

“Is that so…?”

My sister responded somewhat blankly.

“Um…”

Ga-young watched the two of us fall silent and seemed to be contemplating whether to add something, but then she just shrugged her shoulders.

“Well then, I’ll help with the work. It’s my first time coming on the weekend. Were there many customers?”

“Not too many today.”

Fortunately, Ga-young didn’t dig any deeper, nor did she speculate about our relationship.

It wasn’t that she was particularly considerate; it was just that generally speaking, people don’t think about those kinds of things when seeing two people of the same gender.

Of course, some actions could easily lead to misunderstandings. Holding hands, hugging, or kissing. And among men, even less overt actions could be misinterpreted more easily.

Thanks to that, I could hide our relationship as much as I wanted.

…And simultaneously, I could think about how our relationship was hard for others to understand and acknowledge.

The reactions from my peers must have been quite exotic. Even there, it wasn’t exactly a world that recognized homosexuality. The church in Irrelaysia subtly expressed that it would be nice if men and women paired up, even if they didn’t openly condemn homosexuality like some denominations on Earth.

Perhaps it was also because I had been “originally a man” and had seen that side of me for five whole years.

…Thinking back, my sister liked me when I was a man.

Now, my sister’s feelings for me were not at least based on me being a “woman.”

Thinking like that, I didn’t have to worry about her eyes wandering toward Ga-young.

Just like that, I felt a bit more at ease.

*

Still, by the time evening on the weekend rolled around, quite a few customers had come in. It seemed like they were too lazy to cook or were just stopping by to buy bread on their way back. Not as many as during the weekday mornings, but still enough to sell almost everything we had prepared.

It wasn’t a particularly big bakery, nor was it famous enough to be a local landmark. The cream bread made with whipped cream was quite famous, but that was about it. My sister didn’t seem to want the bakery to become too famous either, and I thought there was no need for it to become more well-known.

As such, we usually didn’t bake too much bread. Just enough for the day. We prepared only as much as wouldn’t leave us with too many unsold items.

“Do you want to take the leftover bread?”

My sister asked Ga-young and me.

“Wow, really?”

She usually gave away leftover bread like this, but Ga-young’s reaction was consistently lively, as if she were experiencing it for the first time.

I had taken some a few times, but these days, I just handed it all over to Ga-young.

I still had many habits of eating a lot, but even without taking the bread home, there was plenty to eat at home.

Even if I came home late, my colleagues prepared food. It wasn’t a big problem since I could always eat it for breakfast the next morning.

So, I figured I might as well just give everything to Ga-young, who was still at an age where she would be eating up a storm.

Ga-young joyfully shoved the bread into a bag, and we started preparing to close up the shop. There was still some time left to catch a movie. There was no need to rush.

After quickly finishing the cleaning, I changed my clothes and came out.

I placed the bag I usually carried on the counter for a moment. While checking around the shop slowly to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, the last person to change clothes, Ga-young, came out from behind the counter.

“Oh, I’ll help too!”

As she said this, Ga-young put her bag on the counter—

But she must have miscalculated the distance due to the bag filled with bread she was holding, and she knocked my bag, which was already sitting on the counter.

Naturally, I had set my bag on the counter. It was a flat-bottomed bag, so if I just left it standing, it was surprisingly stable. In fact, there was no particular reason for this; it just happened to be upright because that’s how I naturally placed it.

And of course— I hadn’t tightly closed my small bag either. It had a snap button that would easily click shut, but on the flip side, it meant it would take a bit of time to open with one hand.

If it took time, I could lose that ‘urgent moment’ just trying to open the bag.

…Though in this place, ‘urgent moments’ didn’t really entail having to pull out a ‘pocket knife.’

The bag was too far away for me to run and catch it, and my sister was checking the shop on the opposite side from me. Ga-young was on the other side of the counter, so she couldn’t grab my bag when it fell.

As a result,

Thud, clatter.

With the sound of the bag hitting the ground, there was a scattering sound as items rolled away in all directions.

For a brief moment, the shop fell silent.

“Ah, I-I’m so sorry!”

Ga-young cried out as she rushed outside the counter, but I was quicker to move.

Regardless, my physical abilities hadn’t changed much since Irrelaysia, so I was able to reach the bag before Ga-young; however,

That didn’t mean I could gather everything back into my bag.

There wasn’t much in my bag to begin with.

Just a few survival tools I kept for when that ‘truly necessary and urgent moment’ arrived.

For instance, a 500ml bottle of water to drink in case of emergencies.

Calorie bars that could be eaten bit by bit until help arrived.

…A lighter for when I needed fire.

…Something to cut, or slice—

—Or maybe a folding knife to protect myself.

The water bottle didn’t roll far because it was heavy, and the calorie bar didn’t fly far either because of its flat shape. Because it was in energy bar form rather than a biscuit, I didn’t have to worry so much about it crumbling.

Fortunately, my smartphone wasn’t in the bag but was set aside on the counter, so it didn’t fall.

But the knife… The folded folding knife slammed down hard against the floor, bounced once, and then slid smoothly across the marble floor.

And by chance, it slid right to my sister’s feet, who was rushing to help after watching my bag drop.

“……”

My sister’s gaze fell downward.

Fortunately, it seemed Ga-young, who had hurried to the back of the counter upon seeing the bag drop, hadn’t seen it, but my sister had perfectly spotted that knife.

Even someone who usually had no interest in such things would know what that was.

At least it was fortunate that it wasn’t a switchblade that had popped open as it fell.

“I’m so sorry!”

Ga-young, having arrived a moment later at the front of the bag, quickly squatted down and began gathering the items back.

At the sound, my sister looked up, and for a brief moment, our eyes met.

And she quickly bent down, picked up the knife, and stuffed it into her pocket.

I still didn’t fully understand what that action meant.

Had she helped me so it wouldn’t get noticed by Ga-young? It was too pressing to think beyond that at the moment.

“Ah, no, it’s fine. There’s nothing that can break, so don’t worry.”

I quickly squatted down alongside Ga-young to gather the items back into the bag.

Of course, my mind was endlessly complicated during all of this.